WeROC Joins New Campaign to Stop Voter Suppression in Michigan
WeROC has joined a new coalition determined to hold Michigan corporations accountable for supporting politicians working to make it harder for Black and low-income people to vote. The Defend Black Voters Coalition (DBV) challenges corporations to commit to cutting off all forms of financial support to legislators supporting voter suppression. Read the Defend MI Vote Pledge here.
You may already know about the cowardly and insulting efforts by the majority party in our State Legislature in Lansing to bypass the will of 67% of the voters to pass new laws intended to roll back the historic expansion of voting rights for all of us that we won in 2018. The latest scheme is to get around 350,000 signatures on a deceptively named “Secure MI Vote” petition (we say, “Decline to Sign!”) so they can ram through voter suppression legislation that Governor Whitmer can’t veto. Most disturbing of all, they know that we know that the overall goal is to try to reduce the numbers of Black and Brown voters — the voters who have been coming out in record numbers and who have been so crucial to recent victories for working people in our state — but they clearly don’t even care.
What can we do about these shameless actions by a minority of our State? One step is to take away something very precious to them — their campaign dollars! Please take five minutes to hear the powerful words of the coalition leadership at the Defend Black Voters kickoff rally earlier this month in Detroit.
To ensure the campaign is rooted in the urgency of those most directly impacted by the voter suppression effort in Michigan, this multi-racial coalition is led by a steering committee consisting of Michigan-based, Black-led racial justice organizations (MOSES Action, Detroit Action, Michigan People’s Campaign, Mothering Justice Action Fund, and Emergent Justice) and the convening partner, Community Change Action, https://communitychangeaction.org/. WeROC is supporting this group of Black Leaders in a new strategy to ensure sacred voting rights for all.
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Stay tuned as we ramp up the campaign to pressure major Michigan companies to sign our pledge – to live up to their public support for the Black Lives Matter movement — and immediately end their contributions to politicians who are blatantly working to suppress the vote. We’ll keep you posted for actions we can all take.
Cindy Bodewes, WeROC President cbodewes@umich.edu, 734-358-6994
Tad Wysor, WeROC Lead Organizer tadwysor@gmail.com, 734-883-3225
Agitation is an act of Love