The uprising seen across the country after George Floyd was killed was like nothing many of us have seen in our lifetimes.
Not just activists, but regular citizens from many backgrounds, were jolted into an abrupt reckoning with racial inequality and systemic racism.
Will that momentum be carried to the ballot box next week? Or will a Trump supporter backlash to riots be stronger?
In the next installment of our Behind the Ballot series, Sloane Martin explores how Floyd’s death and the protests that followed could have an affect on the 2020 election:
While people scooped up books and had talks about their kids about anti-racism, the state that consistently is in the top in the nation in voter turnout turned their attention to the 2020 election.
Dr. Yohuru Williams, a distinguished chair professor of history and founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas, compares this election to 1968 when after student unrest, anti-war protests and two assassinations, the country “felt on the brink of collapse.” Of course Richard Nixon won that election vowing to restore normalcy.
However, he said for many, the implications of this election extend far beyond the next two or four years.
“(Voters) are going to see the protests as a symptom of a larger disease of what happens when you shut down legitimate pathways for people to have a voice in government and that’s what you get,” he said. “Historically this has played out differently in different moments. I think 2020 is unique. I think the global pandemic in addition to the racial turmoil the country’s undergone in the last 10 months in particular, are going to focus people in a particular kind of way.
“In some sense, the election of 2020 will be a moratorium on American values unlike any election we’ve ever had.”
Dr. Michael Minta, an associate professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, said it’s possible more underrepresented groups will be compelled to vote.
“People 18 to 25, their voting turnout rates are relatively so I think just getting involved in a social movement like Black Lives Matter, it could make a difference having more people get out to the polls and getting active in traditional politics,” Minta said. “We see it now with the protests. People went to the state capitol supporting police reform, city council. I don’t think it was regular, normal activists. I think you had a lot of ordinary people being engaged in this.”
The mourning, the anger, the sadness, and for many, the trauma of Floyd’s death condensed down to a theme: dismantling a system that leads to deadly outcomes for Black people, one that has been entrenched in inequality. With all of that fresh, it made sense to first turn to foundational mechanisms: voting.
Brian Fullman, a lead organizer with Faith in Minnesota who heads the voter engagement program for the Barbershops and Black Congregation Cooperative, said the diversity of Twin Cities protests signaled to him that things were different.
“The first thing we’ve seen (in the protests) which was very profound even for me as a 49-year-old man was that it wasn’t just Black people out there,” Fullman said. “You see people from every community saying, ‘Enough is enough.’ And those people were younger, who were saying, ‘We’re going to own our past together. You cannot do a particular community like that. You cannot do any of us like that. We don’t deserve that. There has to be a better way.’”
The BBCC, which uses texting, phone banks, social media and traditional media advertising, works to galvanize the Black community around elections.
“I’m actually inviting my community to have a political imagination of what’s possible,” Fullman said. “What are the things you feel you deserve? What would it be like to have all the resources you and your community deserve? What would that look like for you and your life right now?”
Black voters are not a monolith and statistically vote at a higher rate than Latinos and Asian-Americans.
According to the Pew Research center, 64 percent of eligible Black women voted nationwide, compared to 54 percent of Black men.
According to the site WalletHub, Minnesota ranked 7th nationally in Black voter turnout in 2016. However, the overall Black voter turnout dipped four years ago after a record 66 percent in 2012.
Many states lack the ease and access of voting in Minnesota, but there remain systemic barriers to Black voter turnout. Anika Robbins, founder of Black Votes Matter Minnesta -- a nonpartisan voter engagement and leadership development program founded after Jamar Clark was killed by Minneapolis Police and seeks to increase voter turnout in underrepresented communities and deepen civic engagement -- said it’s partly due to long-standing skepticism and frequent let-downs.
“There’s a distrust for government,” Robbins said. “They haven’t seen the evidence of the follow-through of electoral promises made during campaigning. There are concerns around criminal justice reform, police reform.”
That point is backed up by Williams, the St. Thomas history professor. He brought up the 1960 election when John F. Kennedy promised to address civil rights and housing discrimination, which went unfulfilled.
“It’s those wounds that happen at both the local level, at the state level, at the national level that sometimes convince or produce a lack of optimism in communities of color around the efficacy of the vote as a mechanism or a tool for change,” he said.
Dr. Minta, the U of M history professor predicts congress and a potential Biden Administration will have “a lot of pressure” to take action to address police reform and other inequities for that reason: after everything that’s happened the last seven months, voters will demand tangible action.
“I think that empowerment,” felt by voters, he said, will raise the question of, “Why stop here?”
Fullman, the community organizer, said the protests forced people in power to listen. The question now will be if voters can harness that power and carry the momentum.
“Now that we have that attention, what we have to do now is exercise and bring Black dreams and Black hopes through voting,” he said. “How do we take all of that pain, that unification, that anger, that frustration, that strength -- how do we take these things and cash in, for lack of a better term, how do we take this and leverage this together and say, ‘Here’s our vote. We’re not done yet.’”
Even as some voters feel a sense of positive momentum on their side after the protests, could there be a backlash at the polls like seen in 1968 with Nixon’s victory? Republicans in state races far from the metro have driven home a “law and order” message based on the unrest there. Dr. Williams said it’s possible.
“There have been moments in our history where there have been really terrible, traumatic episodes that have led people to vote for one particular candidate or one particular party based on really wanting change,” Williams said. “There have been other episodes where people kind of vote against what they see as things going too far.”
The pandemic’s role in the election is yet to be determined, but those NewsTalk 830 WCCO talked to said they do see the protests having a galvanizing effect.
“I’m very hopeful on what’s waiting for us,” Fullman said. “Because it sounds like to me, not just in this state, but across the country, people have enough. People have had enough.”
Some protesters chanted for revolution. But for those who have been on the ground trying to increase civic knowledge and voter engagement, there’s some comfort in knowing that where people turn on the path to change, is the ballot box.
“What keeps me going after Trayvon Martin, Jamar Clark, Philando Castile, George Floyd and others, is we have not fully participated and utilized the tools at our disposal,” Robbins said.
