Akron’s Black leaders, organizers emphasize voter registration on and off the streets
Published in the Akron Beacon Journal, April 6, 2021 (Click here to view on news site).
On Saturday afternoon, as cars whirred past a busy strip of Black-owned businesses on Copley Road, local organizers distributed voter registration and census forms to passersby from under the shade of a white tent.
About a mile away, Ward 4 Councilman Russel C. Neal Jr. guided vehicles toward the parking lot of the House of the Lord in West Akron, where volunteers answered questions and reviewed forms.
“I’ll fill in Summit County if that’s okay with you; you left that off,” Towanda Mullins said to Derrick Sims, who had filled out a voter registration form in his car.
“Sure,” Sims said, his wife, Eva, seated next to him.
The Simses, whose children attended school nearby, were driving past the church when they noticed activity in the parking lot.
“We would not have been registering to vote today had we not seen this. We would have probably done it at the last minute, sometime in November,” Sims said, laughing.
Similar scenes have unfolded throughout Akron and other parts of the country as activists are using the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement to emphasize the importance of voting in the quest for a more equitable society.
Akron Votes, a still-growing coalition of 24 regional advocacy organizations — including the Akron NAACP, Planned Parenthood, the League of Women Voters, and the Freedom Bloc — has been leading this charge in Summit County.
During its Juneteenth virtual kickoff event, organizers and local politicians emphasized not just voter registration and education, but also voter engagement and reengagement following election cycles, particularly for the city’s Black and minority communities, who make up a significant voting bloc.
Summit County District 5 Councilwoman Veronica Sims grounded her remarks within the socioeconomic realities facing Summit County’s Black residents. She noted that about three-quarters of the county’s Black electorate, or approximately 70,000 people, reside in Akron.
Veronica Sims and others pointed to the barriers to engaging this demographic of voters — not least during a public health crisis — but they also emphasized the possibilities contained within meaningful voter engagement.
“Part of the disengagement could, and I would submit does, lie in the fact that they can’t figure out what’s in it for them and their families. Because for decades it seems they’ve remained the same. … How does voting change their circumstances in a real way?” she asked.
In 2018, an Elevate Akron report concluded that Black Akronites, who represent 31% of the city’s population, have been systematically excluded from economic growth opportunities. Researchers found that Akron was among the five worst cities for Black earnings and had one of the highest Black unemployment rates in the country, which are presumably higher than the 23.3% overall unemployment rate in the city.
Last fall, the U.S. Census Bureau released data showing that Black households in Akron earned 59 cents for every dollar that white households made.
“The sense I get from talking to folks … is that they feel that they’ve been used and abused for political posturing and left high and dry after each election,” Sims said.
Keeping voters active and connected is crucial, Sims said, to recruiting new voters.
“People want to feel that their participation mattered and that their needs are manifested through some tangible change, like systemic or structural changes, or changes in their economic conditions, their health, their housing, especially in Black and brown communities,” she said.
Who can vote?
Since holding its first voter registration drive Aug. 1 on Arlington Road, Akron Votes has held Saturday afternoon registration drives at the Maple Valley Merchants Business Association and the House of the Lord. The coalition hosts phone banks several times a week and monthly virtual meetings. It is also accepting new partner organizations.
Meanwhile, the Freedom Bloc has been registering voters during its Saturday flea markets in the parking lot of The WOMB (Way Of Mind and Body) in Akron. Marches throughout the area also have incorporated voter registration into their strategies.
To participate in the 2020 election, Ohio residents must register to vote no later than 9 p.m. Oct. 5. Once registered, voters can access an absentee ballot application from the Summit County Board of Elections website, which they must fill out and return by hand or mail to the board. Voters may check their registration status on the Summit County Board of Elections website.
Eligible voters must be at least 18 years old at the time of voting, U.S. citizens and residents of Ohio for at least 30 days prior to an election. Disqualifying factors include being incarcerated with a felony conviction on Election Day; having been declared incompetent to vote by a probate court; having been permanently barred from voting as a result of violating election laws.
Part of the effort is making sure people understand who can vote. Ohioans with felony convictions who are not incarcerated on Nov. 3 can vote, but they must re-register to do so. People who are incarcerated and awaiting trial in jails are also eligible to vote. A major obstacle facing those who reenter society after incarceration is difficulties obtaining an ID, which can impact employment, housing opportunities and voting prospects.
Akron NAACP President Judi Hill said elected officials and grassroots organizations are making efforts to educate formerly incarcerated people on their voting rights.
“I will tell you that I met with [Ohio Secretary of State Frank] LaRose the other day, and he recognizes the misinformation that was given out. He shared with us some pamphlets that he has that we are also distributing to people to help them understand,” she said.
Akron Votes’ website includes additional resources, including webinars on how to register to vote if you are homeless, among other information.
The coalition is also disseminating information through the Outvote phone app as a way to strengthen collective coordination during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has made it difficult to conduct in-person outreach. On its website, Outvote says people who receive a message from a friend through the app are 10% more likely to vote. Akron Votes’ campaign code on the app is 627756.
Lance E. Reed, director of the Summit County Board of Elections, said the board has received roughly 9,000 mail-in absentee ballot requests so far for the general election.
“There’s certainly a lot of unknowns with the November election. We fully expect there to be in-person voting, but certainly the number of people I think that will vote absentee is going to have a tremendous impact on our operations here,” he said.
Reed urged voters to register and fill out absentee ballots as soon as possible, given the likelihood of an “onslaught” of absentee ballots during the pandemic and possible U.S. Postal Service delays.
The Summit County Board of Elections is also seeking paid poll workers during the pandemic, he said.
Hill said one of the NAACP’s priorities is to amp up voter education, particularly around the key issues in local and national elections.
“People last year gave us some feedback and said, ‘Hey, you got us registered to vote … we knew about some of the candidates.’ … However, they said, ‘We didn’t know much about the issues.’ I felt bad about that,” Hill said.
“We want to do a better job making sure that they have better information on the issues. So many of them are local, but Copley is different from Barberton, is different from Akron,” Hill said.
“I don’t know a better way to do it than work more closely with some of the … neighborhood groups to share information about what’s going on in their specific area,” she said.
Issues and policy work
Several policy proposals have come from both established and emerging Black-led activist groups in the last few months.
The Akron Minority Council, founded by Firestone High School graduates Bree Chambers, Kody Cross, and Ryanne Helms in May, created a survey and gathered responses from more than 200 Akron residents, the results of which they translated into a 37-page police reform proposal.
The group is also pushing to change policies in Akron Public Schools, particularly around hiring more Black teachers, reforming school discipline policies that disproportionately impact Black students, and implementing curricular modifications to include culturally responsive coursework that reflects the diversity of APS’ student body.
“We would love to see some sort of a cultural pluralism or diversity-centered requirement at all levels of the education system,” Chambers said. “We were at first in talks about, ‘well, what if we make this a graduation requirement?’ But at that point … you’re too late, frankly, because ... there’s a lot of work that would have to be undone,” she said.
On Aug. 15, Akron Minority Council will distribute bags filled with school supplies for K-12 students from 1 to 3 p.m. at Chestnut Ridge Park in the city’s Kenmore neighborhood.
The Freedom Bloc is focused on additional policies “to reverse the wrongs” that have been inflicted on Akron’s Black communities, Executive Director the Rev. Ray Greene Jr. said.
“What are we truly, truly doing to provide a level playing field for the Black community in a county, in a city where black people have been intentionally left out of economic opportunities for the last 50 years?” Greene asked.
Budget justice is a core component of the Freedom Block’s policy work, beginning with reprioritizing police resources — a concept often referred to as “defunding the police.” The lack of robust mental health services leaves people with mental illness in frequent contact with police, Greene said. At the same time, law enforcement are not always equipped to deal with mental health issues.
He said that the city’s asset forfeiture program provides another opportunity to reinvest money back into communities.
Greene is pressuring the city of Akron to address widespread housing insecurity faced by Black and poor residents. He pointed out that landlords pay approximately $15 to register each property.
“I think that comes up to about $1.3 million dollars. Where is that money going? … If we are collecting that money, why do we have the highest eviction rates and the most slumlords in the state?” Greene asked.
Back at the House of the Lord, Lillie Jackson, the criminal justice chair of the Akron NAACP and co-founder of the Akron Canton Association of Black Social Workers, expressed optimism about the coalition’s efforts.
She encouraged residents to take advantage of state’s early voting option. “Early voting is the key,” she said.
“We’re going to vote by any means necessary,” she said.