State: Black voter drive begins anew

[Times photo: Michael Rondou]
A fundraiser for St. Petersburg mayoral candidate Rick Baker, attended by Gov. Jeb Bush, draws protesters to the USF St. Petersburg campus Friday.

By JOUNICE L. NEALY

In the days after the Nov. 7 election, tales of African-American voters feeling left out at the polls spread around the country.

Accusations began flying about blacks being turned away at the polls, incorrectly listed as felons or not listed on voter rolls at all.

Civil rights leaders and community activists concentrated on getting people registered but never thought that voters would be turned away in the closest presidential race in the country's history.

"I thought that all we had to do was (produce) a massive black turnout," said Tavis Smiley, an author and TV talk show host whose political commentaries are heard on the Tom Joyner Morning Show radio program.

Smiley and activists throughout the nation have decided that African-Americans' votes will count from now on when they go to the polls. And they are not waiting until the next presidential election swings into high gear. There are legal and social efforts afoot even now to remedy some of the problems at the polls and get even more people educated and registered to vote.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition is sponsoring an "Every Vote Counts" voter registration rally that begins today as the nation celebrates the birth of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Jackson was in Orlando last week, in part, to invigorate the fight against disenfranchisement.

"What Rev. Jesse Jackson is trying to tell everyone in Florida is that if we can keep our communication open . . . we can be a stronger power as Democrats, and we're going to need that in the coming election in 2002," said Margie Thorpe, campaign chair of the Pinellas County Democratic Executive Committee, who attended Jackson's Orlando visit last week.

A march in Tallahassee set for Saturday will be the first post-election statewide demonstration. The NAACP also is expected to launch a voter campaign Saturday.

Next year, a third of U.S. Senate seats are up for grabs and a dozen governor races will be decided. It's unclear how many U.S. House seats will be available, although it has been predicted that between 60 and 80 seats will be open.

"This fight is not over," Smiley said. "It's not over in the sense that there is another election."

The fight continued in St. Petersburg last week as nearly 20 demonstrators protested at the University of South Florida, where Gov. Jeb Bush attended a fundraiser for mayoral candidate Rick Baker.

The protesters criticized Bush's "inability to intervene" in allegations of voter fraud committed against black voters in the presidential election of his brother, George W. Bush. They also protested the governor's support of Baker.

"(Jeb Bush is) here intervening in a non-partisan election," said community activist Alvelita Donaldson. "We don't want the local election to be impacted by the Bush brothers."

Lessons of Florida

Smiley delivers his commentary on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, which has about 1.5-million listeners on 100 stations. Smiley and Joyner pushed for Rosa Parks to be recognized by the federal government for her role in the civil rights movement. President Clinton awarded Parks the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress' highest honor. Parks also has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Smiley and Joyner urged CompUSA to advertise in minority media, prompting the company's CEO to call the show and promise to make amends. And they urged Christie's auction house not to auction off slave memorabilia, and a sale was canceled.

This month, Smiley discussed his strategy in the latest war. It includes reactivating a toll-free number (866-YES-VOTE) and an online site for prospective voters. In months leading up to the Nov. 7 election, Smiley, Joyner and the NAACP registered 100,000 mostly African-American voters over the telephone.

And even though they are proud of the numbers, Smiley said in a telephone interview last week that "we have not done enough education on how to vote. There are a lot of immigrants of color who didn't understand the ballot, and the butterfly (ballot) made it even more confusing."

Critics say the butterfly ballot layout prompted many Palm Beach County residents to cast votes unintentionally for Reform Party nominee Pat Buchanan.

As part of that education and in an effort to maintain the momentum of last year's voter campaigns, Smiley said, the Joyner show is coming to Florida to conduct a live town hall meeting to talk about political issues and maintain interest between election years. Smiley is urging African-Americans to become active in the Democratic National Committee and is pushing for diverse leadership, specifically lobbying for former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson to become the group's next leader.

"I don't think folks inside the (Washington) Beltway, the Democrats, understand how angry these black folks are," Smiley said during an interview. "I have not heard anyone in the hierarchy in the leadership of the Democratic Party or seen any of them rushing to Florida to find out what happened to their most loyal constituency."

And Smiley already has a battle plan ready in case Florida's Secretary of State Katherine Harris makes a move toward becoming a diplomat.

And "I'll be doggone if (Harris) is going to be awarded with an ambassadorship. I don't think so," Smiley said during a recent commentary. "We will pack the hearing room and do whatever we need to do to make sure that (she) does not get an ambassadorship as an award."

Harris has said that she is focusing on the job she has right now.

Voter education

This civil rights movement of the new millennium, although partly reactionary, also is the result of a heightened sense of urgency on voter education, according to Darryl Rouson, president of the St. Petersburg branch of the NAACP.

"It's heightened a sense of urgency to educate our young people about the importance of the vote, to encourage people to be more knowledgeable and accountable," Rouson said. "I think it's exciting too. It's exciting that all of this has re-energized people to be committed to the process."

Some have taken a more extreme approach. An anonymous e-mail has called for a boycott of the state, but there seems to be no organized effort. None of the civil rights organizations are talking about a boycott.

Smiley, who did support the NAACP's boycott of South Carolina because of the Confederate flag, calls a boycott of Florida counterproductive.

"Sometimes you call for a boycott. Other times you need to go to the state to make sure the changes are being made," he said. "We need to go to, not turn away from. We need to go to the scene of the crime as often as possible. You can't do that by boycotting the state."

-- Staff writer Patrick Cooper and Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Information from the Washington Quarterly and USA Today also was used.

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