Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Civil Law Feature

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00:00Hi, I'm Damon Hewitt, President and Executive Director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

00:04I'm Kamiya Factory, Senior National Coordinator of Election Protection with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

00:10My name is Marcia Johnson, and I co-direct the Voting Rights Project of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

00:17And we're here at Ebony.

00:19The Lawyers' Committee was born in the fires of the Civil Rights Movement.

00:23It was 1963. There were massive emerging protests all around the country fighting for our rights, for voting rights,

00:31for educational opportunity, for economic opportunity, just to make all the promises that we have on paper for democracy real.

00:38And it was that summer, that pivotal summer of 63, when George Wallace,

00:43governor of Alabama, stood in the schoolhouse door to block integration.

00:46President Kennedy called for civil rights legislation that would become the Civil Rights Act of 64.

00:51And Medgar Evers was assassinated in the driveway of his own home.

00:54All of those things happened within about a two-day span.

00:58And then President Kennedy convened a meeting.

01:00He asked, where are the lawyers?

01:02And 250, nearly 250 lawyers came and answered the call.

01:06That became the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

01:09We became the strategic home base for racial justice and civil rights pro bono work,

01:14and we continue to do that work today.

01:16The Lawyers' Committee has been working on voting rights since our inception.

01:19But it's important to remember, as long as there have been elections in this country,

01:23there's been racial discrimination in voting.

01:25There's two choices. You make it easier for people to vote or harder.

01:28And so many states are making it harder for people to vote.

01:31When you talk about voting rights and fighting for voting rights across the country,

01:35I can't help but think of my home state, Texas, a majority-minority state,

01:41and the direct implications of sweeping legislation like Senate Bill 1,

01:45which entails a wide range of restrictions for Texas voters,

01:49directly resulting in a decrease of election judges and poll workers.

01:53I couldn't agree more, Kimya. You know, you being based in Texas, a Texas native,

01:57and me, a Louisiana native, these are the kind of states, among others,

02:01that are really in the belly of the beast.

02:04The reason that they're trying to discourage people from voting is that

02:07because elections are won only on the margins.

02:11They're won by one percent, two percent.

02:13So if we can discourage those few people from being able to vote,

02:19then it could affect the outcomes of elections.

02:24What has been an unfortunate trend that we've been seeing is then we have states,

02:30you know, you talk about Texas and Louisiana and others like Georgia,

02:34who then look at how particularly Black people access the ballot

02:40and then went after absentee voting, making it harder to vote by absentee,

02:46requiring photo ID, having shorter deadlines, going after the drop boxes that we use,

02:52making it harder to access those drop boxes,

02:55making it harder to have a vote count if you accidentally vote at the wrong precinct.

03:01That's also what Election Protection is working on this year,

03:05is making sure that voters know what the barriers are,

03:09have a plan to address those barriers,

03:12so we can push back against the backlash to our participation.

03:17What we want voters to know is that the Lawyers' Committee

03:20has a national network of election protection coalitions

03:23who have a streamlined process of opportunities for volunteers to become poll monitors.

03:30We want Black women to show up at the polls with us

03:33to help us poll monitor for the 2024 general election.

03:36I am spearheading our national voting rights campaign, Ojo Ase.

03:40Ojo Ase is a Lawyers' Committee Election Protection 2024 initiative

03:45that aims to engage, recognize, and educate people

03:49about how they can be a part of the solution in protecting our democratic process.

03:53Ase is derivative of Yoruban dialect, meaning a blessing of the ancestors.

03:58Ojo meaning I.

04:00Together, Ojo Ase means the ancestors are blessing us and watching us

04:06as we take on this poll monitor effort for the general election.

04:10I can't help but think about what our ancestors would have done

04:13with a resource and a tool like this

04:15when they were mass mobilizing for the future of voting rights.

04:19When I was creating the campaign Ojo Ase,

04:22it was important for me to incorporate the work of the Black women who came before me

04:26and contributed to our democracy today.

04:28When you think about this election, don't think just about a candidate.

04:32It's not about them. It's about us.

04:34Let your vote be your voice.

04:36And let your voice be heard loud and clear.

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