Page 4 - NewsletterNovember

Making Strides in Social Action – MAC Political Awareness and Involvement
Kynesha M. Brown

Seeing a great need in the Montgomery area to On September 30, the
encourage people to vote, the Political Aware- committee introduced
ness and Involvement Committee has been en- its inaugural Second
gaged and implemented several activities to in- Chance Resource and
crease voter registration and voter turnout for up- Job Fair that connected
coming elections. employers and organi-
zations with individuals
Their first step was a special appeal and partner-
ship with other area organizations in implement-
ing the Rollin to the Polls Voting Initiative, a pro-
ject started by the committee to help increase
voter turnout in neighborhoods with an average with past criminal con-
turnout or 23% or lower. victions. Workshop ses-
sions on job interview
In the month of August, the committee begin its and resume skills were
first activities under the initia- provided as well as a
tive by conducting voter reg- “Suit Shop,” where indi-
istration drives in well popu- viduals could acquire
lated areas such as high gently used professional
school football games. A new attire.
addition of the initiative was
to partner with organizations The committee also worked hard in coordinating
such as Legal Services Ala- activities for National Voter Registration Day,
bama, ACLU Alabama, and held on September 26. The committee, along
the Southern Poverty Law with partnering organizations went into four area
Center to conduct voter resto- high schools to register seniors. At the end of the
ration clinics. The voter resto- day, a total of 107 stu-
ration clinics, which were held in September, dents were registered to
were highly successful. Helping individuals with vote, resulting in a com-
past felony convictions, the clinics served to as- plete total of 210 people
sist in the application to have their voting rights registered to vote current-
restored. By having these clinics, the committee, ly under the Rollin to the
along with partnering organizations helped doz- Polls Initiative.
ens of individuals gain information on how to re-
store their right to vote.

September also introduced to new projects for
Political Awareness and Involvement. The com-
mittee kicked off its MACSpeaks series. Lead by
Soror Jaffe Pickett,
MACSpeaks is a series of
roundtable discussions that
focus on criminal justice
reform such as prison over-
crowding and how fines
and convictions affect the
poor. In the first part of the
series, the discussion fo-
cused on driver license
suspensions for minor drug offences.

4