Alder Throws Down For Big Election — In Georgia
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| Jan 3, 2021 2:48 pm(20) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author
Posted to: Opinion, Politics
Sixty-five New Haveners have been down in Georgia trying to turn out the vote for the two Democratic candidates in Tuesday’s U.S. Senate run-offs, elections that will decide which party controls the Senate for the next two years. They are among 900 canvassers there affiliated with the UNITE HERE union. New Haven Alder Ron Hurt is one of them, and reflects on his experiences here.
(Opinion) In Columbus, Georgia, many voters old and young have doubts about the power of their vote.
On the doors they have pointed out that a tree used for lynching still stands in the middle of the town, symbolizing their ongoing oppression. They argue that the consolidated government, which joins municipal and county powers, is controlled by a few powerful families. They cite a felony charge that a candidate, who challenged the incumbent district attorney, received for shooting a commercial with black drivers who were spinning donuts in a vacant parking lot.
I understand this despair, and yet I know change is possible. I’m proud to be working with New Haven Rising and UNITE HERE to join the team of fighters like Stacey Abrams, Fair Fight, the New Georgia Project, and others who have been building power in Georgia for decades. Together we are fighting to take back the Senate and grow a movement that will change politics in the South.
As the alder of the Third Ward of New Haven and as someone who has struggled to make ends meet, I know the spiritual anguish of segregation. I know the pain of going to bed hungry, and I know the fear of being evicted. For generations, segregation has denied opportunities to so many people in my community and across our country. The legacy of racism saddles us with a heavy inertia, making us doubt the possibility of change, even under such dire and painful circumstances as ours today. History has taught us to lower our expectations for what life can be; it has taught us not to hope.
I challenged this history when I ran for alder, and I am challenging this history today as I mobilize voters for the runoff election in Georgia. The Covid-19 crisis threatens to further segregate our city and country, and I know that the fate of my community depends on what happens in Georgia this Tuesday. Every day, on every door, I carry my struggle in the Hill with me. This struggle allows me to bring voters in Georgia hope. The people in power most want us to give up on hope because hope inspires us to fight, and I know from experience that when we fight, we win the change we need.
In New Haven, the Board of Alders is committed to changing the map of segregated development. Every poor neighborhood New Haven was marked hazardous or declining by redlining maps drawn in 1937. The map of home foreclosure rates after the Great Recession mirrors the Covid-19 infection rate map. These maps line up with a variety of other challenges including unemployment, asthma, and shorter life expectancy. The Hill is one of the poorest neighborhoods in New Haven and experiences all of these challenges. For example, even before Covid-19 hit, 25 percent of the 30-year-olds who grew up in my ward were unemployed.
Changing this map requires focus from local elected leaders, investment from powerful institutions like Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital, and a movement of residents who are building power for working families. But that’s not enough: changing the map also requires support from the federal government, especially after the Covid-19 crisis. The relief bill that Congress just passed did not contain support for state and municipal governments despite the fact that these governments have lost revenue and have been forced to provide many emergency services. Now, as our families face hunger and evictions, Mitch McConnel refuses to even allow a floor vote on providing working people with $2,000 of relief instead of just $600. He refuses to help us after four years of Republican attacks on workers’ rights, immigrants, the environment, and democracy itself.
Looking at this cruel reality, I understand why people lose hope. But I know change is possible: Georgia can make the difference.
That’s why I gave up Christmas with my family to live alone in a hotel room in Atlanta and canvass non-stop six days a week since Dec. 6. I am proud to be part of a canvassing operation organized by UNITE HERE that currently has over 900 people, primarily unemployed hospitality workers, canvassing to take back the Senate from the Republicans and the wealthy destructive interests that they represent.
Talking to voters in Georgia, I see that many people here face similar struggles against racism to those that we face in the Hill, and some challenges are even worse.
People are out of work. Others are working multiple jobs and still fighting to make ends meet. Voters here live under the shadow of Jim Crow and campaigns of racist terrorism that involved lynching and other horrific tactics. In school funding, Georgia spends about $9,000 less per pupil than we do in Connecticut. Gov. Kemp refused Medicaid expansion, which means people like parents of new born babies face tragic choices of foregoing necessary medical care or building up years of medical debt.
Again, this reality would be enough to make anyone lose hope, but it doesn’t have to be this way. In both Georgia and the Hill, the first step to confronting our challenges is restoring hope and insisting on accountability. Voters in Columbus, Georgia, remind me of voters in the Hill when I first ran for alder. They challenge me by asking why they should vote. They tell me that no matter what they do, nothing will ever change. They say that the system has been captured by powerful interests. They argue that they have always been cut out of opportunities, and they don’t believe that one vote is going to change that.
The current election is of historical consequence, but I know that I cannot convince voters by telling them that voting in one election is going to change everything. Instead, I share my story and the reasons that I became involved in politics. I tell them about the challenges of racism and segregation in the Hill, and my decision to make a long-term commitment to overcoming these challenges by organizing my community. I share how this commitment is rooted in my own history of confronting police violence against my family in the South. I urge them to hold their elected leaders accountable after they are elected. I also urge them to hold themselves and their neighbors accountable to building power and working with elected leaders who are trying to confront our nation’s history of segregation and racism.
I empathize with the difficulty of sustaining hope and commitment when injustice meets us at every turn. Still, I press them to consider the consequences of inaction. There is no easy path to freedom and no alternative to being in the fight for the long-haul.
A Vote Won
This message resonated with voters when I ran for alder in the Hill, and it resonates in Georgia now. One voter in Columbus stands out for me.
At his door, his mother told me that she was on her way to vote. When I asked about her son, she said that he was inside the house and that I could try to make him see things differently.
He came to the door steadfast in his resolution to stay home. He told me he didn’t care about politics and that elected leaders didn’t care about him. He argued that even if Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff win, his local government still wouldn’t be accountable to him or his community.
I asked him why he registered to vote if he didn’t want to follow through by going to the polls. I shared my story and told him how confronting the problems in my neighborhood inspired me to run for office. I told him that I look to my constituents as partners in building a movement because no elected leader will overcome the challenges we face alone.
After our conversation, he claimed his agency by joining his mother to vote.
Hard as the people in power make it for us to believe, we can change our lives, one conversation at a time. When I look to my community, to the people I meet on the doors, they give me all the hope I need. I know that, together, we will hold politicians accountable and change our lives.
Tags: Georgia run-offs, U.S. Senate, empowerment, voting
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posted by: Noteworthy on January 3, 2021 6:35pm
Ron Hurt is an alder still living in the past. He uses past sins to justify his existence as an alder today. He lives, eats and breeds hostility in order to enjoy power, prestige and his manipulation of the regulatory process in an attempt to get unjustified benefits. This doesn’t instill hope. It instills blame and shame – that others are responsible for the plight of those he portends to represent. He embraces regressive taxes, unlimited spending and debt and rubberstamps every decision that comes from the union, from the mayor and his fellow union members who control the board of alders.
Those taxes and poor management have left the city strangled by debt and irresponsible spending. He has never once voted to cut the budget, to realign existing spending to higher priorities – he just adds to the priorities and then taxes his way to spending it. Has he ever agreed to cut one position from city hall staff? No. He did vote to eliminate some police positions that were vacant and hadn’t been filled in more than three years. That’s nothing.
Has he ever suggested a metric for accountability? No. He blames Yale, Yale New Haven Hospital. He blames white people living in the suburbs. He blames the middle class. And Johnson complains about foreclosures, evictions and poor economic status of black and brown people – and then makes home ownership nearly impossible for them because of the property taxes he constantly votes supports that when added to the cost of purchasing the home, makes the monthly payment impossible to pay.
People need an opportunity to work in New Haven. They don’t need homes in the suburbs. They need stable employment but then he goes along with Mayor Elicker’s anti-business, draconian shutdowns, the blockading of our generous parks and waterfront so that people don’t have open space to enjoy and get fresh air.
He spends time, when he should be championing economic freedom here worried about an election 750 miles from here. His agenda isn’t ours.
posted by: BevHills730 on January 3, 2021 10:05pm
Awesome to see Alder Hurt out there fighting against such a long and tragic history. If Alder Hurt prevails New Haven will benefit!!
Meanwhile a commenter here continues his reactionary whining and complaining from the safety and comfort of his home.
I’m sure glad Alder Hurt’s strategy is smarter and more effective!
posted by: Greg-Morehead on January 3, 2021 11:02pm
Question,
With UniteHere, are they using Union dues to send these workers to different places in the US? How is that even legal?
Has anyone seen the bylaws for UniteHere? Where does it state that Union dues will be used for xyz purpose?
Just wondering…
posted by: Dennis.. on January 4, 2021 2:14am
Noteworthy knocks it out of the park…again. Thank you!
By the way, I guess the warnings regarding traveling out of state dont apply to the politicos.
posted by: Dennis.. on January 4, 2021 2:22am
I would love to hear the conversations the Alders are having with the people in George.
” Hi, I’m an alder from New Haven, CT. We’ve had one party rule and union control for decades. Our city is bankrupt. Our Schools are a failure, And in 2020, we had 20 homicides and 100 people shot. We’ve come to Georgia to show you how it’s done. ”
posted by: CityYankee on January 4, 2021 7:20am
Thank you , Noteworthy. What a NH alderman is doing in another state when our city and state is in a shambles is beyond comprehension. Of course, the retro-heads in his ward are still fighting the Civil War. Yes, alderman— please point out to the people of Georgia that they should be like NH—- that should insure a Republican victory if those folks bother to check your claims!!!
posted by: BevHills730 on January 4, 2021 10:45am
The keyboard warriors are out in force.
Dennis maybe you should have gone to Georgia. I think your advocacy of white vigilantism, attacks on immigrants, and defense of racist police would probably be quite effective on far right doors in the South!
posted by: Dennis.. on January 4, 2021 1:22pm
BevHills730..There you go again..spreading lies from the shadows., and getting a pass from the editors of the NHI.
posted by: Heather C. on January 4, 2021 2:02pm
The fight for civil rights has always had people from other states traveling to help the cause and to bring their enthusiasm and idealism to the battle in other locations. The more people who vote, the more people who participate in our election process, the better for the health of our democracy. Traveling during a pandemic is dangerous, but protecting and defending civil rights have always been a dangerous calling. Fighting for people’s rights
and organizing the powerless to stand up against the powerful is a calling worth dying for.
posted by: DawnBli on January 4, 2021 2:03pm
I appreciate the effort and recognize the union influence however, given the violence in his ward perhaps his efforts are misplaced at best…this is the ongoing problem with the boa…they dont seem to be aware of their surroundings. Is iit not more important to deal with your backyard than one hundreds of miles away?? There are children here hungry…not receiving adequate education nor protection from harm. Yet his answer is to spend time and money on and with people who did not vote him into city hall…shame on u Hurt…
posted by: Dennis.. on January 4, 2021 2:39pm
BevHills730 your advocacy of hate and racism is unparalleled on the NHI. BevHills730 is one of those people who looks at everything in terms of black and white, and then acts surprised when he see everything in black and white.
posted by: BevHills730 on January 4, 2021 2:48pm
Dennis,
I’m sincere. I think your viewpoints would be valued in far right Southern white households. That is the demographic that the Republicans need to turnout. For example, your view that a police officer sounds “reasonable” after consistently posting racist conspiracy theories is something that would have traction. But if you wanted to mobilize these voters, you would need to get out from behind the keyboard!
posted by: Stephanie FitzGerald on January 4, 2021 6:07pm
Thank you, New Haven Alder Ron Hurt, for canvassing door to door. This is the most consequential election since Biden’s win. If Democrats win tomorrow, it will be possible for the USCongress to get things done to benefit all Americans.
If they win tomorrow, our job as citizens is to make sure the politicians make it happen so our country becomes more like it can be – jobs, income equity, housing, health care, education, infrastructure.
posted by: Noteworthy on January 4, 2021 9:41pm
Good Grief:
Heather – This is not about civil rights. It’s about democrat power. Hurt is just using race and segregation, fight against “the man” to gin up votes to deliver power to national democrats who will use it to expand and pack the court, to structurally change the way this country operates in an effort to keep them in unchallenge-able power perhaps forever. Hurt better quarantine when he gets home – and by the way, this real program of power grab and appealing to the most base level is not worth dying for – it’s not even worth a plane ticket or gas money.
BevHills – your blatant race baiting and denigrating is a poor excuse for a discussion about policy and how alders are spending their time hundreds of miles away while their own ward implodes at home while this mayor and his yes men destroy the ward’s ability for economic stability.
Stephanie – what you really mean is getting lots of free stuff that other people will pay for; and seizing power without having to be reasonble, negotiate or come to a consensus.
posted by: BevHills730 on January 4, 2021 10:58pm
It is just so fitting that Noteworthy, Dennis, and CityYankee would attack someone who is fighting against a history of voter suppression in the South. Meanwhile, Noteworthy defends Trump’s idiotic and delusional attempt to disenfranchise thousands of Georgia voters. Of course, threatening Republican power in the South brings out anti-democratic thugs.
posted by: DawnBli on January 6, 2021 10:39am
BevHills730…u hit the nail on the head. Fighting in GA…not here in NH…where his constituents live…another misguided one watching Rome burn….
posted by: Brian L. Jenkins on January 6, 2021 2:24pm
I’m not familiar with the brother’s voting record. However, if he does have a fidelity to raise taxes on the poor as has been stated, I too have a serious problem with that. That said, as a former Alderman from New Haven, and the President of a NAACP here in Metro-Atlanta, I welcome the visit from all who came here from my home to help us get the vote out down here in Georgia.
The organization I created earlier this year (Black Men Vote Also) understood the national importance of this election, and the outcome of our toiling, could have not been more palatable.
So thank you again New Haven, for your interest in this vote beyond your shores. Lending your talent to assist in making history in our State, will now, most assuredly, help us Make America Great Again!
posted by: BevHills730 on January 7, 2021 10:53am
Dawn,
Respectfully, you should broaden your vision. The victory in Georgia is a powerful and good force for the Hill and New Haven. It will mean more support for New Haven and more relief for the Hill families.
While others were enjoying their Holidays Alder Hurt was out fighting for his neighborhood, city, and country in one of the most effective ways possible.
posted by: Austerity for whom on January 9, 2021 6:27pm
It gives me pride and indeed Hope that we finally have some elected leaders who not only know the struggle first hand, but recognize the work it takes to make change. Before this movement stepped to the plate alders barely saw beyond their own pockets and power. They were content to sell their vote for a job for their nephew at the expense of their whole ward and the city. Finally we have leaders who understand we must look beyond ourselves and beyond even our wards, sometimes even our own states to achieve long term systemic change.
Keep pushing, Alder!!