Democracy Wire

As we honor and work to advance the legacies of Black change-makers this Black History Month, we here at Common Cause want to take a special moment to highlight some of our Democracy Fellows – as well as the transformative work they have spearheaded at their Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

👀 You're going to want this update on where the youth voting rights movement currently stands.

"To ensure access to clean water, we need to invest in infrastructure maintenance and repairs."

Check out this month's newsletter to learn more about the ACP, Common Cause's 53rd Anniversary, and the great things we're doing across the country!

Welfare was created to help people, and it should continue for the same reason: because it helps people.

An honest dialogue about CRT can help to eliminate contention.

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"If the health of an education system is assessed through achievement and attainment, it is critical that Maryland legislators follow the Baltimore example in removing barriers to success. Specifically, it is time that the Maryland General Assembly make community college available — free of tuition and fees — for all county residents."

"These conversations resulted in meaningful dialogue, sparked interest in the upcoming competitive congressional race, and created a lot of newly registered voters."

"In the youth climate movement, hope and hopelessness exist simultaneously. Despite an overwhelming sense of hopelessness, I still get up every day and continue to fight for our future."

"For the longest time, I felt super alone for being so political, aware, and angry all the time. When I started climate activism, I felt like a boy crying wolf who was never lying about the wolf in the first place. Little did I know I was part of a growing youth movement that would become mainstream in no time."

"Politics is a source of division in the world; as a teen, I thought there was no way to get along with someone who thought differently than I did. After hearing stories and seeing people behind policies, I realized that we may be opposed to policies, but almost all of us in the world are trying to make it better."

"Whether it was me in Rocky Mount, NC, Eleanor Bumpurs in the Bronx, LaTanya Haggerty in Chicago, or Rosann Miller in Brooklyn, it is evident that Black women have been racially and sexually profiled at rates that surpass that of our white counterparts, and yet we hear very little of this in the media."

"Congress was designed to be a direct channel for people to speak to power, and when we only allow these spaces of power to be occupied by a specific demographic, we do a disservice to the promise of democracy."

USA Today: HBCU bomb threats are a painful reminder of past anti-Black violence, students say Sophia Parker, who is a Spelman fellow for Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that defends voting rights, said she thinks there's been "a lack of action taken on behalf of Black Americans" when threats are made against them. ... Parker and her fellow Spelman students plan to reach out to elected officials this month. The threats Spelman and other HBCUs faced were, in part, caused by pushes to ban discussions about racism from classrooms , she said. “A lot of my peers who aren’t even that politically involved, at least not as much as I am, are talking about wanting to get involved, just like writing letters to our senators, our representatives, people who are pushing these bills," said Parker.