Dozens of Indiana University students gathered for a “Power of the Black Vote” event at the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center on Wednesday night. The event had a discussion panel and onsite voter registration ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm election.
The panel featured Monroe County Community School Corporation school board member Aja Jester, Black Student Union Political Action Chair Mikey Rasaki and NMBCC student staff member Siddhu McLeod. The panel was moderated by NMBCC Director Gloria Howell.
Howell said the event was intended to ensure students are equipped with the information they need to be informed voters, and to encourage students to civically engage and participate in elections.
“I also hope they leave feeling informed, empowered and also inspired,” Howell said.
Prior to the panel, Howell played civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer’s testimony from the 1964 Democratic National Convention, in which Hamer describes her experience being arrested and beaten after trying to register to vote.
From the audience, IU School of Education professor emeritus Charlie Nelms took a microphone and spoke about the video.
“At 80, I still feel the pain of those licks being administered to Fannie Lou Hamer and those people trying to do something as basic as exercising their right to vote,” Nelms said. “They weren’t even trying to vote — they were trying to register.”
After the video, Howell introduced the panelists and asked McLeod what he believes is a pressing issue for the generation of current students. McLeod said while there are many, the largest issue he sees is the sentiment that voting does not matter. He said this narrative is not only dangerous but completely false.
“Every time you see a social movement throughout our country’s history, it’s been shaped by the youth,” McLeod said, referencing anti-apartheid and Vietnam war protests as examples. “Everything that’s been so large in our country’s history has been shaped by us and starts with us, and then it goes up.”
Howell also addressed the sense of apathy surrounding voting and asked the audience and panelists if they remembered the first time they ever voted. Jester said she voted for the first time in the 1998 presidential election and said it was an exciting thing for her.
Jester said she viewed her first time voting completely different from the apathy McLeod and Howell described; for her it was just as important as turning 16 and getting her driver's license.
The panel concluded by opening questions up to the audience, which included questions regarding polling locations, how to be informed voters and why the attitude around voting has shifted in the youth.
Nelms said that there are several factors that have caused voters to be more apathetic, including a movement away from engagement in the Black community. Despite this, Nelms said he remains hopeful.
“Hope is what drives winter from the soul,” Nelms said. “Don’t let anyone steal your hope. Once you become hopeless, you become helpless, and once you become helpless, you’re finished.”
In the back of the room, several booths were set up with information. Chrissie Geels, chair of the Monroe County Democratic Party, shared voter information handouts and encouraged students to check their voter registration status. You See Me and Black Men Evolve also tabled at the event, both of which are student organizations that help raise awareness of mental health issues among minority students.
Nelms and retired United Methodist Pastor Philip Amerson delivered the event’s closing remarks.
Amerson and Nelms shared a letter they wrote reflecting on their shared 80 years of experience. Amerson said that at 80 years old, they might be tempted to leave the country’s struggles to future generations. He said they chose instead to speak out because “democracy is not a spectator sport” and “citizenship has no retirement plan.”
“We must speak, and we must vote. We must let freedom ring,” Ames and Nelms said in unison to conclude the speech. “We owe this to those who have paved the way, some at the cost of their lives, and for those who will come after us. Silence is not an option."
