Vote That Jawn

Vote That Jawn

The Citizen joins bestselling novelist and SafeKids Stories founder in launching a citywide effort to go young people to the polls. We demand them now more than ever

Aug. 24, 2018

Right now, outside my building at 34th and Walnut streets, a marching band is playing to welcome first-year students to their new dormitory. Higher up the depression mumble of traffic, the air shimmers with brassy sound. An arch of reddish balloons with the large silvery number 2022 aims them at their presumed successful graduation engagement. Infant showers, weddings, rites of passage programs, b'nai mitzvah , consecration ceremonies of all kinds: nosotros've created these rituals to welcome immature people to machismo. We're telling them what we wait, and hope and dream for them, even as the ritual and our lives testify them how difficult it can be sometimes, and what it looks like to fail.

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How does democracy do it, this big, sprawling system of governance built to grow with usa and to change with our needs? As a center-schooler just w of Cobbs Creek, I marched with my class to the circumvolve on Whitby Avenue. This was right around the fourth dimension of the Voting Rights Deed, when African-Americans in the South had just been written dorsum into the electorate. Nosotros stood in a circumvolve, like the Whos down in Whoville, singing while the flag was hoisted high. The housing that held the rope clinked confronting the pole to keep fourth dimension. We were told well-nigh the privilege of democracy, and that ane solar day we'd participate past voting. To this day, every June 14th, I recollect: "Yeadon, home of the founder of Flag Twenty-four hours!"

In high schoolhouse, as more and more immature men were sent to Vietnam, I heard the phrase "Onetime enough to die, old enough to vote." The Firm tacked an subpoena onto the Voting Rights Act dropping voting age to 18, only then it was challenged in court for an fifty-fifty bigger mash-up.  Here's what the House of Representatives history site says:

The Courtroom decided that the law was valid for federal elections, but non at land and local levels. To avoid the complicated and costly voting process established past the Court'southward conclusion—separate elections for national and country and local contests for about states—Congress scrambled to pass a constitutional amendment to lower the voting historic period. The proposed 26th Subpoena passed the Firm and Senate in the bound of 1971 and was ratified by usa on July 1, 1971.

As far equally we could estimate, the vote mattered to the country, but nosotros young people were lobbied about it mostly in the service of item candidates or causes. Information technology was a milestones, simply not prepared for: such as scoring a driver'southward license, getting a job, or going to college. No one mentioned voting in our graduation rituals. No public service annunciation, similar the seat chugalug entrada, was rolled out to make immature voting a new behavioral norm.

Terminate Smoking!

Don't take drugs!

Practice safe sex!

Vote!

Learn nigh candidates!

Follow them once they are in function!

Nosotros have launched VoteThatJawn to be but such a super-local, denizen-led rite-of-passage into democracy. It'south meant to bring youth together to convince other youth to vote—or to register their parents or neighbors. The website volition post content that youth (and others) can share easily. The Twitter feed will deed as a slow-drip, civic 4 with quotes, facts, bits and pieces to prick our minds as we do every twenty-four hour period with other less important facts. The idea is to accept the sweet-northward-sour edge of fun. Information technology's serious engagement—with no diminution of smarts—that immature citizens insist on, as in merely-turned eighteen-yr-former Tv set actor Yara Shahidi'due south excellent national platform EighteenX18 .

Merely thoroughly, totally, completely Philly. Which is how the young Steering Committee that planned all summer decided on "Jawn" for the jawn itself: Saturday, September 22nd, from 2 to 4pm, in Hamilton Commons at WHYY, where a  a city-wide youth house band and local DJs will welcome teams of immature people. They'll hear tips from expert guest speakers, and have access to generous coaching from PR, marketing, and organizing professionals on manus. The teams volition then be tasked with creating different strategies to bring friends (or parents or neighbors) to the election box, particularly first-fourth dimension voters.

Iii young Philadelphians are busy animating a curt how-to-annals video nosotros'll post in mid-September for young people to share. And a young rap duo has created a VoteThatJawn song that's worthy of our Philly audio legacy.  To a higher place and around this endeavor, throughout the city, are fabulous youth voting programs we hope to connect to, write about, share, and help others admire, like Girls, Inc.'south " She Votes ," the universities' dissever and numerous programs, Ascent Sons' Vote4Me , the local sites for Higher Election Engagement Projection (CEED), and so many more!

Start in 1942, presently afterwards FDR dropped the age for military typhoon to get more men into World War 2, Congressman Randolph Jennings brought the offset of 11 bills to the floor, urging Congress to brand these young soldiers eligible to vote for the people who were sending them to state of war. But he also believed that the youth vocalism was an unused resource. Youth, he said, "possess a great social conscience, are perplexed by the injustices in the earth and are anxious to rectify those ills."

However true. So let'southward invite them to share this privilege with the states. We need them to vote that jawn.

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/vote-that-jawn/

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