Partner Spotlight: How Common Power Uses Education to Activate New Voters

As we gear up for an incredibly important presidential election in November, it’s important to remember that our ballots will present us with multiple important decisions to make. From federal, state, and local levels, to candidates, representatives, judges, measures, and propositions. (In case you aren’t sure if you’re registered to vote or need to brush up on your voting location or dates, head here.) 

Before we know it, election day will be here. As voters get educated about the candidates and what they support (or oppose), it’s important to remember the blood, sweat, and tears activists have contributed over the last three centuries to secure voting rights and access for all.

We sat down recently with one of our amazing partners: Dr. Terry Anne Scott, director of The Institute for Common Power, which is the educational 501(c) branch of Common Power. We discussed the history of voter oppression, how history shapes the fight for voting rights today, and why she’s hopeful for America in 2024 and beyond. 

(This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.)

Can you tell us about yourself, how you got into this field, and why you're passionate about the work that you do? 

My name is Dr. Terry Anne Scott, I am the director of The Institute for Common Power, which is an educational 501(c) branch of Common Power. Common Power is a voting justice and mobilization organization. And the Institute is the portion of it that we launched to help people understand the impact and the gravity of voting historically.  We seek to pull back the curtain so people can see why what we're doing today matters and how we have arrived where we are today. I am also a former professor of African American history. I left a tenured position to do this work.

When conducting workshops on the history of voting rights and the racist practices Black Americans faced and are currently still facing, what are participants most surprised by? 

Many people are surprised by the literacy test. That was a test that was required for people to take when they were going to register to vote, until 1965 when it was finally outlawed by the Voting Rights Act. It’s part of what we call ‘facially neutral laws.’ 

Facially neutral laws are the laws that, in the language of the law, are non-discriminatory. But in the application and the outcome of the law, they are discriminatory. The registar determined how it was administered.  And so, while everybody had to take the literacy test, it was administered to white people differently from Black people. Black people were asked harder questions, had a lower margin of error to be able to pass the exam, and were given longer constitutional portions than white people to interpret for the exam. 

Additionally, what becomes surprising is the type of racialized social violence that was used to stop Black people from voting. Not only lynching and beatings and intimidation but the fact that the police in the South were often the arbiters of that violence. They were the ones who were maintaining a Jim Crow system and preventing people from registering to vote, in addition to registrars and everyday citizens. 

I also find it shocking how little you learn in school about the Civil Rights Movement and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And that's why I think Common Power is so impactful and why the teachings you do are incredibly important in today's day and age. 

One of the things I love about Common Power  is that we are kind of multiple branches under one umbrella. We all work in concert to achieve that inclusive democracy, to educate people about these kinds of disparities in society. Action Academy, under CP Future, really courts college-age students to teach them about civic engagement. They discuss the 1965 Voting Rights Act and how it is currently under attack. They talk about the things that students likely are not learning in school. The program empowers them to be citizens who advocate for particular laws and social justice. 

In the Institute for Common Power, we have programs that are geared toward educators. We will be bringing together about 50 of them to have a symposium in our building in July in Selma, Alabama, at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge because of all of the power and symbolism inherent in that space. And they will be learning both history and pedagogy from active voting rights activists and renown scholars from all over the country. 

Everybody should have access to the ballot because the ballot is tied to everything. It's something people don't think about. Fresh water. Education. Healthcare. Everything is tied to the vote. 

Considering your expertise in the history of voting rights, how would you assess the current state of voting rights in America? 

In some states, people get a mail-in ballot and they mail it back and the vote is very inclusive and it's easy to access. In others, such as Alabama, there is no mail-in ballot, no early voting. There is one day that you can vote during particular times. They gerrymandered particular spaces to dilute Black political power. Upwards of 30 states within the last five years have passed voter restriction laws–facially neutral laws that, in practice, target underrepresented groups. 

Under the rules of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, it dictated that if you had a history of voter discrimination in your municipality, in your state, then you had to appeal to the Department of Justice to make any changes to voting, early voting, ballots, whatever. The 2013 Supreme Court ruling on Shelby v. Alabama, a five-to-four decision, essentially said, ‘You don't have to anymore.’ And that has opened the floodgates for certain groups to be able to stop certain people from voting. 

How has history led up to this presidential election, especially as it relates to voting rights, and what do you tell people who seem disengaged or who want to disengage from politics?

We often will have people who say, ‘My vote doesn't matter, ‘why should I vote?’ It's when you talk to them about local elections that people then begin to understand how important it is. When you say to somebody, ‘Do you have children or nieces and nephews who go to school? Do you want them to learn African-American history? Do you want them to learn the history of marginalized people?’ ‘Yes.’ Well, it's the school board that has the power to determine whether or not they can learn that. And there are school board elections that are won and lost, not by thousands of votes, but by a handful of votes, by one vote, by five votes, by ten votes. And I remember one of my colleagues, the executive director of Common Power, Charles Douglas, said this to a young man in Texas, and he said, ‘I never thought of it like that.’ And he registered to vote. 

In terms of what this presidential election looks like in the history of race and racism, there is no question that cards are being played from the history of what some southern governors and politicians have done since Reconstruction. They fearmonger, they play on latent racism, they bring it to the surface.  They make people feel that it's not only their vote that's in peril, it is whiteness itself. It is the idea of whiteness being privileged and being on the top rungs of society that is being challenged. ‘This is your country. Take it back.’  That is what these politicians, all from a single political party–Republicans–say to there constituents.   What does that mean? Those are plays on racism. It's no surprise that on January 6th, the rioters were calling Black police officers the N-word. Many of those who were involved were coming from neo-Nazi organizations, or were followers of Republicans who fearmongered.

After Obama's election, you see an increased push to try to disenfranchise Black people. We saw the same thing in the Reconstruction era. So if you want to talk about a historical parallel, during Reconstruction, with the passage of the 1867 Reconstruction Act, that gave the right to vote to Black men. Then, contrary to popular belief, Black men were not given the 15th Amendment: they were the deciding votes that pushed the 15th Amendment into existence. And so then Black politicians and Black constituents were able to secure that.. You had 2,000 Black elected officials between 1865 and 1877. And the only reason those literacy tests and other disenfranchising measures emerged during Reconstruction was to end that kind of Black political power, it was a backlash to that kind of power. 

We see those kinds of backlashes today. The law that I referred to in Georgia about not being allowed to pass out water and food to people waiting in line to vote was a backlash to Black political power. It was Black people who were waiting the longest in line in 2020 to vote.  A law in Florida that cut early voting was a backlash to Black political power.  Black people were those who disproportionately engaged in early voting. In places like Texas, you can use a gun ID to register to vote, but not a student ID. And politicians in some places are trying to remove ballot boxes from college campuses. So these are those kinds of backlashes and historical continuums. 

What do you tell young people? Are you inspired by young voters? And what do you tell the young potential voters who do stay away from the ballot box? What's the most motivating factor that you've heard of? 

One of them is the connection to the local elections. Young people, it really resonates with them when you talk about sheriffs and judges being elected by a handful of votes, as well as those school board elections. Another one would be the deciding vote on women's reproductive rights. I also tell young people, ‘Without question, people have died for you to be able to vote.’ And I show them the faces of those people. And we talk about what that looked like. I write about lynching. I talk about how lynching has not gone away. It still exists. But whether it's from lynching or from the modern Civil Rights era, these are the faces of the people who died, who were beaten, who were kicked off of their land, who were fired from their jobs simply for registering to vote. That resonates with young people. 

That brings me to your book, ‘Lynching and Leisure: Race and Transformation of Mob Violence in Texas.’ 

I spent 20 years researching and writing that book, because it was that important to me to make sure that that was right. The research had to be impervious. So one of the things that's included is an appendix of 740 lynchings that happened in the state of Texas that includes where they were lynched, who the person was, the race, the size of the mob, the thing that they were accused of. 

My last chapter, my epilogue, is about lynching today. I talk about how when we think about the definition of lynching, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Elijah McClain, they were lynched. Lynching didn't end. It exists today. And so we have to understand that history of social violence so that we can begin to end it. But the lynchers of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd are in jail. That's something that didn't used to happen. However, seemingly small, we have to acknowledge progress as it comes because we have to take the wins and celebrate the wins.

What is your hope for voting in America, looking towards the future? 

A new Voting Rights Act that makes sure that everybody has access to the ballot. That doesn't mean our work will be done, because we still teach people about the past and why they should vote, and how things in their local environment are tied to the vote. But that renders it as such that everyone has access to the ballot, and they don't have to jump through hoops, and they don't have to try to vote in fear. You have felon disenfranchisement laws across the country. Those kinds of things have to end. Everyone should have access to the ballot. That is, without a doubt, one of the things that should be a marker of a true American democracy that we talk about. 

We are a nation that's under construction. We did achieve rights. And if the people then could do what they did and achieve something like a Voting Rights Act, then we can do anything today. They have laid a foundation for us. They have taught us what to do. We can build on those strategies and adjust those strategies to today and make sure that everybody has those rights. 

What keeps you going when times get hard? 

Thinking about history. History is a self-help book for me. I always look back and think about and look at people who have conquered seemingly insurmountable challenges. And I literally think, ‘If they could do that, I can keep going. I'm okay.’ 

You can follow Dr. Scott @TerryAnneScott on X and The Institute for Common Power @TheInstituteCP on X, TikTok, and Instagram.