Georgia on my Mind

September 9, 2008

I must confess that when I initially applied to volunteer with the Obama campaign here in Georgia, I could not have anticipated that it would lead me down the road which I am now traveling. Originally, I came to Georgia because I saw the enormity of the need here: there are close to one million unregistered voters in this state alone, over six hundred thousand of whom are black. Since working here in Macon, I've come to learn how the voter registration laws here have been crafted in a manner that deliberately makes it difficult for working people and for poor folks to vote. The Bibb County Board of Elections is the only place in Bibb County where people here can procure a free voter I.D. It's tucked away off of a remote road twenty minutes north of downtown, just out of the jurisdiction of the local bus routes, and is only open from 8:30am to 5:30pm Monday through Friday. No nights. No weekends. As you can probably imagine, people who work from 9am to 5pm, are in some cases taking public transportation, have children and so many other obligations have a difficult time making it there within operating hours to register. As such, many of them don't. For those that are lucky enough to reach the Board of Elections, the law requires them to show proof of birth, residence, utility bills, and a number of other documents that have successfully discouraged many people from going through the trouble. And yet, when one registers for either hunting or fishing licenses in the state of Georgia they are automatically registered to vote. You can see, probably all-too clearly, what we're up against.

But Senator Obama is right when he says that what is happening right now across America is not about him; every day I begin to realize this more and more. It isn't about Senator Obama, rather it's about Rosa Watkins, a woman who has raised a daughter and who is now raising a granddaughter, yet who comes to the office every day at 8:30pm, after having helped her grandbaby with her homework, to make phone calls; it's about Ms. Juanita, who ruins her freshly manicured, lime-green fingernails by spending four hours ripping off labels on old manila folders so that we can make up voter registration walk packets; it's about Mr. Ford who, when I come home from the office at 1am, I see sitting on the edge of his bed in his boxers and a t-shirt, writing the return addresses on voter registration forms from the day before so that we can mail them out the next morning; it's about Drew Benbow, Ashley Diaz, and Brooke Obie, Mercer University Law Students who, after exams and hours of studying, still find time to come out to the clubs with me until 2am or later to register voters as they wait in line; it's about Mrs. Arthena Caston, a working mom who, after working a ten hour shift at Geico, comes by the office to help us enter data; it's about Mrs. Beverly Ford who stays up until 2am printing off lists of housing projects that we still need to canvass; it's about Gwen Lipford who, though working a long day at Forsyth Prison, still comes to an organizational meeting in the basement of a church to turn in eleven voter registration forms that she was able to get filled out over the past week; it's about Ms. Montgomery, an elderly woman who walks a mile and a half from the bus depot to the campaign headquarters downtown twice a week in the sweltering heat to make I.D. calls; and it's about Tedra and Brett Hobson, two amazing individuals who saved up money so that they could work for the campaign for free. These are the unsung heroes who are the feet of this movement; these are the individuals who are the heart and soul of what has become much more than simply a campaign. It's a revolution. So many of us are tires of the same kind of politics; I'm tired of watching the same individuals overlooked, marginalized, underrepresented, and left without a voice.

I find that many people look back upon the Civil Rights era with nostalgia. They talk about what an awesome time it was to be alive, for black people had a cause that was worth living and dying for. And yet, it is easy to forget that not everyone was marching with Medgar Evars, who for a time was the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi; not everyone participated in the Montgomery Bus Boycotts or in the Freedom Rides or in the Greensboro sit-ins. There are people who tell me every day that what we are trying to do here is impossible. And yet, I've seen people inspired and lives transformed before my eyes, including my own.

Even as I type these words I'm sitting in my car, with my computer on my lap, in the parking lot of a church where in minutes, I will be talking to congregation about the importance of working towards the change that this state, that this country, and that we all so desperately need. This movement has taught many of us to hope as we have never dared to hope before, that America, and that each of us, can be better. This is the change that we are all working for; this is the change that I feel so blessed to be a part of.

I'll write more when I can.

Amanda