Kai Wright: Hey everybody, this is Kai. The show you're about to hear is a special we did in partnership with WABE in Atlanta, that's the public radio station there. We're giving you the whole hour all at once. As a reminder, this summer we started giving you the weekly show in segments, so you get the first segment on Monday and the second one on Thursdays now. We did that to give podcast listeners a little more control over how you listen, to be able to hear each part of the show on demand as it were. We're still testing out that approach, honestly. We welcome your feedback. If you've got thoughts, send an email to notes@wnyc.org and let us know how it's working. Love it or hate it.

Anyway, here's the whole entire show for this week. Enjoy.

Regina de Heer: Do you feel represented in American politics today?

Serenity: Oh, that was loaded. I didn't expect that.

Amonee: I'm an international student. I'm not really into American politics.

Serenity: More than I would have been in the history of Black people in America but I definitely don't feel fully represented as a Black woman.

Jordan: As a Black woman, we don't really see a lot of representation in Congress or in politics in general. Roe vs Wade, for example, that affected a lot of Black women specifically. I'm going to say no.

Brandon: Honestly, no, from an age perspective. A lot of them are 60, 70. They've been in their seats for so many years. I wouldn't say that they really represent young African American people or young people of color in general.

Serenity: Especially as a woman right now, the abortion laws bans going on, it's multifaceted how underrepresented Black women are in media, in politics.

Jordan: I really need more Black women in politics.

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Kai: It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright and welcome to the show. Those voices you heard were students on Howard University's campus in Washington DC that our producer spoke with earlier this week. We're thinking about young Black voters this week because they are a key element of one of the biggest unanswered question in national politics, and certainly in the upcoming elections. Can the balance of power in the south change? I'm talking about the swath of states and counties that have historically been called the Black belt, a name technically drawn from its fertile soil but ultimately drawn from its history as a slave economy.

It has always been home to the majority of Black Americans. To this day, more than half of us live in the south, some 23 million people, and it would be difficult to look at the region's political leadership and say those people are truly represented in national politics. If that fact were to change, that would cause a seismic shift in American politics. We're going to spin this whole show on the closely watched midterm elections in Georgia, and in particular talking about the young Black voters who have helped upset a very old balance of power in that state. Let me also welcome listeners joining us from WABE in Atlanta for this special broadcast there. We hope to hear from you in particular throughout this hour.

Help us understand the dynamics in your state and especially if you're a young Black person because we're going to take your calls a little later in the hour. First, I'm joined by someone who has spent the past several weeks talking to students at Black colleges and universities around the country, including in Atlanta. Trymaine Lee is a Pulitzer prize-winning correspondent for MSNBC and host of the podcast Into America. He's been covering the intersection of race and politics for many years and he's playing close attention to the midterms in Georgia this year. Trymaine, thanks for joining the show.

Trymaine Lee: Kai brother, it's good to be here, man.

Kai: We'll talk about the conversations you're having on these HBCU campuses shortly but can you first just help me set the stage for why Georgia is so important nationally, right now? There is both the Senate race and the governor's race but you think I've accurately framed why they're being so closely watched outside of Georgia?

Trymaine: Well, I think Georgia matters in a particular way because it's more recently become in play because of some of the organizing on the ground but it also represents when you think about the history of the Deep South, and you think about all of the obstruction and suppression that Black folks, that our people have experienced for generations. The fact that it was organized and this history organizing that actually shifted it from red to purplish, and that people can actually harness people power and go to places that Democrats especially have long written off.

I remember having a conversation with Stacey Abrams many years ago and talking about this idea that there are no red counties. They are a county that people haven't engaged with properly. I think it matters because it's now in play and given history, it's not like it's Mississippi or Alabama. Georgia is special because of the Black Power Base but also what they've been able to do organizing-wise.

Kai: Stacey Abrams, who is of course running for governor against Brian Kemp. This is a rematch between the two. Also, give us a recap of what happened in 2020. People likely remember the fight over the recount but maybe in line with what you're saying, not the fact that it was very new for Georgia to be a battleground state in the first place. In your podcast, Into America, you pointed to some eye-popping data about the role that young Black voters in particular played in that election. Help set the stage again for what role young Black voters have played in making that state in play.

Trymaine: Young voters of color represent a huge, huge growing number of newly registered voters and voters who turned out which matters in a huge way, especially giving all of the suppression efforts that we've been talking about. You have SB 202, this law in Georgia that made it illegal for anyone beside the poll to hand out water. They had these voter purges, they're purging people for who moved locations or their signatures didn't match. Then to have young people organized in a way that they represent more than half of the people registered under the age of 40 are Black people, people of color. Pushing the line in that way mattered in a way that people simply just hadn't seen before.

Kai: The stat I'm thinking of I had not heard was that Georgia had the highest youth turnout in the country in 2020 I believe and a third of those people were Black. Those are striking numbers.

Trymaine: I think what is amazing again, this isn't us bandwagoning on Stacey Abrams. She is a politician running for governor right now but what they've been able to do registering hundreds of thousands of people in Georgia, people who had not been touched before and young people especially. That's why we wanted to center on some of these HBCUs and the Atlanta University Consortium, Clark, Atlanta, Morehouse, and Spelman. What they've been able to do in terms of actually reaching young people and getting them mobilized is a feat in and of itself.

Kai: For your episode, as you said in Atlanta, you told the story of this organizing on the campuses of Spelman, Morehouse, and Clark Atlanta University. You talk to a young woman, I believe her name was Janaia, who was on Clark's campus at the time. I think the story of her political life is an important context for this conversation. She told you about being in middle school when Trayvon Martin was killed. I want to play that. Listen to this bit of the conversation for the podcast Into America.

Janaia: I watched that child on TV with my mother and she was just like silent tears. I wasn't crying but I was just taking in that moment. I remember being seriously infuriated.

Trymaine: Janaia took her anger and turned it into action.

Janaia: I'm literally in middle school. I didn't know what I was doing but I was just trying to show something of solidarity. I remember telling all my friends, everyone who trusted me as a leader, I remember telling them, "Come to school tomorrow with a hoodie, wear your hoodie over your head." We all walked in with hoodies on our head in the school and the teachers are just like, "Take that off." We didn't take it off. They were just like, "Take it off." We didn't take it off.

Trymaine: Janaia you said the teachers punished them with no recess that day but that didn't stop her from taking a stand.

Kai: I want to hear more about that political backstory for her Trymaine. First off, for listeners who may not know, one of your claims to fame as a journalist is you were among those who helped make the Trayvon Martin story into a national conversation. You've covered all the movements that have followed since then. Why did you feel like that was an important part of Janaia's story and the story of Black youth turning out to vote in both this election and the previous one?

Trymaine: Janaia, that story was so impressive to me because it speaks to this idea that our politics aren't separate from the way we actually live and, unfortunately, the way we often die. To hear the story of how Trayvon Martin catalyzed her into action, she wanted to push back against a system that had been hostile against her and our communities for so very long. She grew up in this very rural community where she often felt marginalized and silenced. That fit was the killing of a teenager, not very much older than she was, that pushed her into some action just spoke volumes because I think oftentimes, especially in these conversations that we have that's cable on networks and the one that on the radio, politics is like this horse race and it's interesting from afar.

It's like theory. It's like the ideas that we're positing and wrestling over when for Janaia to see a young boy armed with a can of iced tea and some skittles be gunned down and she had to mobilize and organize. When I asked Janaia if she considers herself an activist she said, "No, I'm an organizer." Activist carries a whole different connotation. When you're organizing you're touching people you're mobilizing people, you're moving people. It might not seem like a big deal now, this idea of losing recess, but you're a kid and your principal is glaring at you and the teachers are glaring at you. Still to stand up in that way and to see that she's carrying that on into this moment and energized by it, I think it's beautiful. That real action really matters in real ways, in the real world. She represents that.

Kai: Sorry to over intellectualize it too, but I mean I have to say so she's a middle schooler in that story and she goes on to tell you that then in high school was when she watched Colin Kaepernick take a knee and begin that conversation in the NFL. I just think about this particular generation of young Black people then coming of age and going to the polls in 2020. I just, I wonder about that arc of political life and how often you've encountered that in this group of people. Again, trying to explain such enormous turnouts in 2018 and 2020 in this group.

Trymaine: I think for better and worse, I don't think young people like Janaia in this generation have the luxury of parsing through the issues and the way it affects them. When they see law enforcement, violence by the state, they see COVID-19, the health issues and disproportionately impacting our communities. When you see the fallout again from COVID and the economy. You see mass shootings and they see the suppression efforts that are still going on today and they see it as this united assault. They see that they can utilize social media in a certain way to organize. There's this attack on all fronts. They're forced to fight back.

Yet still in these conversations I'm asking them can we politics our way out of some of these disparities? Can we politics our way, can we vote our way? Can we register our way out of these very base level disparities in America? All the threading of white supremacy that still touches us. They say it's not voting alone. They arrive here because they have no other choice. They have no real other choice but to use the mechanisms in the machine that they're given. As they're trying to tinker and they're trying to change and they're trying to mobilize, there still is this underlying frustration that maybe this won't even be enough.

"If I get my friends and my neighbors come out to vote and we see Stacy Abrams still lose when we see the promises about police reform and their reform still isn't met. We see the income and wealth disparities never changing regardless of which administration is in office even though we are told that if only we vote. We're told our people died for this," and so they feel mission driven and then it's that collision of the other realities like America just doesn't move like that.

Kai: If we have any young Black people listening for whom Janaia's story sounds familiar, especially if you're in Georgia, give us a call. We want to know what you're thinking about now, or maybe you've got someone like Janaia in your family who you've watched developed politically. Your son, your daughter perhaps. This is Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright and I'm talking with Trymaine Lee, host of the Podcast into America and is correspondent with MSNBC. We're going to take a short break and we'll be joined by Rose Scott from WABE in Atlanta. Stay with us.

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Kusha: Hey everyone, this is Kusha. I'm a producer. Last week we asked Iranian and Americans how it felt to witness the protests happening right now in Iran from so far away. Here's one message we received.

Speaker 9: As an Iranian in the US It's been really difficult watching what's happening in Iran right now. So many people have asked me with intentions, how they can help. I don't know what to tell them because there's nothing they can do, just like there's nothing I can do, but o sit and watch and to amplify their voices and share with my friends what's happening there. I feel helpless. I feel very lonely and scared for speaking up. At the same time, I keep telling myself everyone there is literally putting their lives on the line. The least I can do is speak up and say something about it because if this continues and something actually changes I won't have to be afraid anymore. That's really what this is all about.

Kusha: Thanks to everyone who's been talking to us. If you like hearing messages like these, check out our new Instagram page. We're featuring more voicemails from all our episodes. You can find us with the handle @noteswithKai. That's K-A-I. If you heard anything you want to chime in about this week, record a message and send it to us right from our website, it's notesfromamerica.org. Just click the green button to record. Thanks. Talk to you soon.

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Kai: It's Notes from America with Kai Wright. That's me. I'm joined by Tremaine Lee, host of the Podcast Into America and a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter on the intersection of race and politics. We're talking about the political story in Georgia this fall and the pivotal role that young Black voters have played in making the contest for both US Senate seat and the governor's office among the most hotly fought closely watched races in the country. We can take your calls. I'm particularly interested in hearing from young Black voters or potential voters I guess. What's been your political evolution and what's on your mind this election especially if you're in Georgia? Let me welcome Rose Scott. She is host of Closer Look which airs every weekday on WABE in Atlanta of course there's a podcast. Rose thanks for joining us.

Rose Scott: Not a problem. I appreciate it.

Kai: Rose, I want to play you something that a young woman said to Trymaine in his show. This is a young woman who has been registering voters at HBCUs in Atlanta. She was in college during the 2018 campaign, which was when Stacy Abrams of course lost to the current governor Brian Kemp. As we've said, they're in a rematch this fall. Here's what she told Trymaine about watching that race as a young Black woman.

Speaker 10: A lot of us were under the understanding that Georgia was a hard red state. If we wanted to see progress then maybe we'd see it in Atlanta and that metro area, but as a state we were never going to be that progressive. It was just seeing Stacy Abrams run. Yes she lost, but yes it was closer than a lot of us even thought possible at the time.

Kai: Rose, setting aside the partisan question here if that's possible. Just really thinking about the young Black people in general in Atlanta and in and in Georgia. Does what she said resonate with you? Is that a common sentiment among Black voters in 2018 that like, "Wow, this changed my understanding of what we could do in this state?"

Rose: I think so. I think particularly for her demographic. First of all let me say thank you for inviting WABE on this broadcast and as well what's up to Trymaine. I love his work. I think back to 2008 when Barack Obama was running and I remember covering the AUC here which are the historically Black Colleges, Universities. Spelman Clark, Atlanta, Morehouse, Morehouse School of Medicine. You name it, everybody over there. I remember just the excitement and the motivation and I think we're seeing that now. We saw it in 2018, we're seeing that now, a Black woman who is a product of an HBCU, let's be really clear about that, who was running for the highest elected position in the state of Georgia for governor. It was closer than what a lot of people thought it would be.

I think whether the folks argue about whether or not Georgia has truly turned blue or is it fading out of red or if it's purple whatever folks want to call it, this state is changing because of the demographics, the population. Also I think to what Trymaine has been doing in talking to young folks is that you are seeing this motivation, it's a motivation factor for young voters. Democrats, progressives, Republicans but particularly with the young Black voters. I think there is a problem though, and we'll get into that, and that is also engaging young Black males and Black males in general.

Kai: Maybe you're already answering this question, but I started by saying that this election and really the past few elections in Georgia feel like the ultimate bellwether. Again, I mean not just about electoral politics but just thinking about race and political representation more broadly in the south. Am I putting too fine a point on that? You've been reporting there for 20 plus years. Does it feel like the state is at a crossroads or can that be overstated?

Rose: No, look, Georgia is changing. Again, I can't harp on this enough. The demographics are changing. I also think the mindsets are changing. It used to be that if you're a Democrats you could depend on the Atlanta area and maybe a few counties around that. Then the southern counties, the rural parts of Georgia were going to go to Republicans. That's not necessarily a given anymore but this state's population has changed. I think also too, remember this now. From probably 1972 to about 2016, unless there was a southern Democrat on the ticket, which would be Bill Clinton, and then obviously-- Look, Republicans held on to Georgia in terms of winning.

Joe Biden won over Donald Trump. It was by a very small margin, but he won. It was the narrowest margin of victory in the country that year. Georgia has been changed, but also too, I think that the electorate realized that there was some issues with the Trump administration. I think people were tired of some of the issues with the Trump administration. I think you saw people-

Kai: To put it lightly.

Rose: I am trying to behave. People in Atlanta know me, so I'm trying to behave. You also saw a lot of folks cross party lines, and that could be an issue this year this time for both parties.

Kai: Well, let's hear from some callers. Let's go to Pebram in Atlanta, Georgia. Pebram, welcome to the show. Am I pronouncing your name right?

Pedram: Pedram, P-E-D-R-A-M. Like Pedro, only with -ram at the end. Thank you.

Kai: Got it.

Pedram: How are you?

Kai: I'm well. Thanks for calling in. What do you want to share with us?

Pedram: I wanted to share that while it is absolutely true that a whole bunch of young people suddenly got engaged, one of the pivotal reasons for that engagement was the specific work of Stacey Abrams and her organization and all the community organizers that she worked with after she had lost a narrow loss in 2018. I think just that organization alone, if I'm not mistaken, I bet Rose probably knows the number, but I remember hearing something like over 160,000 people were registered or maybe 200,000 people. That was the last election.

Kai: Your point being that the electorate has been expanded. This was the core idea of Stacey Abrams' campaign in 2018 Trymaine, well either of you, but I see you nodding Trymaine, that she was going to expand the electorate, and that worked.

Trymaine: I think for a long time, again, this idea that you can just discount certain communities or always already bank certain counties and certain groups of people who were under-engaged or unengaged. She went out there and did that. Then you have organizations who rode in on some of that momentum, like Black Voters Matter and a bunch of other really smart, really dedicated-- Forgive me, had some Brooklyn sound back there.

Kai: It's okay.

Trymaine: This idea of Stacey Abrams, certainly her organizing heft, but also all of that momentum. People saw what was happening and what was possible, and so you had had all these other organizations out there also pushing. If you go to people and you have a message and you want to put people in the fold, you could do that. You just have to put in the work. They certainly put in that work.

Kai: Rose, is that energy still in the air? I'm thinking, again, Trymaine and I were talking earlier about the, particularly for young Black people, the political arc of the last X years, and thinking about 2020 people were in the streets, particularly in Atlanta around George Floyd's murder. That swept folks into the polls. I wonder, do you feel that same energy in this election cycle?

Rose: Well, if folks won't be convinced by the energy-- Let me throw some numbers at you because as journalists we have to work with numbers and facts.

Kai: Please do.

Rose: Understand this. That right now it is projected that this state is looking at about 11% increase than in 2018. We're talking about more than 200,000 people who have applied to vote, whether they reregistered or they're new voters. That is significant. Now, in terms of the breakdown, if it's Democrat or Republican, depending on who you ask, each will tell you, "Those are our voters," but that 11% is going to be key. When you look at the polls, the folks--

Kai: That's 11% above 2020?

Rose: That's 11% above 2018. I think that's important to note because in 2018 we had a different president. I think that's important, when you go from midterms and midterms, I think that's important to note that these 200,000 plus folks who've applied to vote-- Early voting starts tomorrow, Kai, so we're going to have an extra 216,000 people. That could turn any of these races any way. Any way.

Kai: Let's hear from Andre in Houston, Texas. Andre, welcome to the show.

Andre: Hello. Hi. Can you hear me?

Kai: We can. What do you want to share with us?

Andre: Wonderful. Well, one thing I was just discussing is that while I appreciate what's going on in Georgia, I think that honestly that we also aren't looking at the bigger picture. There's an interesting book by Charles Blow called The Devil You Know by Charles Blow A Black Manifesto Power. Mississippi and Alabama have if not the same potential, if not more. Mississippi is 40% Black. I'm actually going to be moving to Mississippi in a month, and I want to be a part of the process of empowering our community. The census says 40% of Mississippi is Black. I'm sure that there's an undercount as well, and so that's clearly one of the biggest potentials we have.

While we can learn from the example that's happening in Georgia, I think that the same thing can happen in Mississippi, if not Alabama as well. I think that that's the area that we need to invest in and support as well.

Kai: Thank you for that, Andre.

Andre: I'm learning from the example that's done in Georgia.

Kai: Thank you for that, Andre. Trymaine, part of your tour of HBCUs that included, you talked to folks in Mississippi, you talked to folks in Texas. Florida I think was on the list. What about this idea of what is happening in Georgia in terms of the registering and mobilizing of Black voters to change the outcome or to change the balance of power exporting to other southern states where you similarly, as Andre says, has huge Black populations that have been, historically, frankly disenfranchised?

Trymaine: Certainly organizers are trying to use that blueprint that we saw in Georgia, but also when you think about Georgia, you have Atlanta, you have DeKalb County, you have all these surrounding counties where a lot of Black folks actually live or moved down from the north and are filling out that suburban area. When you get to Mississippi, you start getting outside of Jackson, you're in some of the rural areas. The way that some of these voting districts have been packed in with Black voters, where that's why they haven't been able to really have any power statewide because of the way that these districts are drawn. You have this concentrated power around Jackson, but then you have an inability to organize outside of that to really harness any real power across the state, and so Atlanta is just not Mississippi. Mississippi has been at work in suppressing votes and capturing and packing Black voters for a very long time. They've mastered it.

Kai: Well, as you talked about in your episode on Georgia, the voter suppression story is a big part of the Georgia political story as well. Alongside the expansion of the electorate, there has also been a wave of new laws that both you and Rose have hinted at, we can talk about them in a little more detail, that have restricted voting and that have been targeted at Black communities, some would say. I would argue. Can that also be exported from state to state, I guess?

Trymaine: Well, that's certainly been. I was talking to a professor at Jackson State University about this very thing and I was asking about voter suppression. As we see Black political power growing in Jackson and the influence, have we seen that pushing into the state? He said, "You have to understand. Suppression is baked into the constitution of Mississippi. Black voter disenfranchisement is part of the entire system and always has been." He's like, "That's the default position." It's not a matter of exporting the suppression efforts to a place like Mississippi. Mississippi is an OG in that suppression game. The way he described it, that it's baked into the fabric in a certain way where it's written into law early on and we've just been responding for the last 200 years, I think that says a lot

Kai: Rose, that fight over access to voting that we've alluded to a few times in Georgia, it got obscured in 2020 with the fight over the presidential outcome when Georgia Republicans did not embrace Donald Trump's effort to overturn the results there. That became the big story. Before that, there was quite a story, and particularly in the debate between Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams, about whether or not there was an infrastructure suppressing Black votes. There's been a new law that took effect in 2021 in Georgia that, among other things, put some new restrictions on absentee voting.

One thing that has stood out that I want to ask you about, that this has become part of the national news, is the piece of the law that's a provision banning people from doing stuff like passing out water to voters who are standing in line. From a local perspective, why was that such a big deal to people and why is it said to have targeted Black voters?

Rose: Well, for example, in Fulton County, which is very populous, you all know that, and you have long lines. You tend to have long lines. Also, in Fulton County and DeKalb County, you might have a huge percentage of older citizens. Look, sometimes it's hot in Georgia in October, in November. We definitely know it's hot in the summer, but the mere fact that this law was going to prohibit-- Now I want to be very fair about this because there is a distance. I don't know if it's 150 feet, it's some 1,000 feet. I don't know what it is. It's some measurement that you can't give water.

You consider that you have long voting lines and you have a percentage of older folks, or you may have a unexpected person and you're standing out there and what? Someone can bring you water or someone can't give you a slice of pizza. We've seen that, we've seen organizations come out with donuts and coffee and pizza. For some people that say, "Now you're suppressing," because let's be clear. For some folks they will wait in line. We've had instances where folks didn't get into the poll until after 10 o'clock at night. When folks want to vote they will stay in line in the rain. It is very interesting. I remember talking to Ambassador Andy Young about this. Talking about his race. He was polling very low.

It was raining. It was raining, it was raining. He said it was thunderstorms. People were telling him, "Andy, you may not win this." He said to me, and he said, "Black folks stood out there, stood in the rain, and they voted." Whether you want to take away folks' water or donuts or what have you, I think that narrative of that suppressing votes, yes, it could be. Let tell you something, folks in Atlanta, when they want to vote, they will vote. They will stand in line. Anybody wants to dispute me on that, they can send me an email rose@wabe.org. Could it be a factor? Yes.

Trymaine: You mustn't smoke. You can email her. Anybody has any problem with that?

Kai: you can email her, not Trymaine.

Rose: You don't want the smoke. What I'm saying is that sometimes, and Trymaine, you may back me up on this, you may not. Sometimes I think we have to be careful about certain narratives that we disseminate in the media. Yes, that is a provision. If you keep saying it enough and enough, that folks may not even come out to vote. That's not what democracy's about when it would comes to voting. Voting and democracy go hand in hand when it's about access, fair and equal and access. That's what we should be talking about.

Trymaine: When you think about the issue with the water handing out food in particular, I think as our friend Adam [unintelligible 00:31:54] said, the cruelty is the point. Not to jump from voting to water infrastructure in a place like Jackson, but you think about the spitefulness that you feel and the animosity between Black Jackson and the white power structure. Again, that is the capital. They're right down the block from people who are suffering in great ways. There's animosity and anger, and some would venture to say a hate, right, between the white power structure and the poor Black citizens who have the gall and audacity to want fair treatment and control of their city.

Whether it's a suppression issue trying to tell people that, "Don't even come out because it's going to be a long line. Can't get any water." That's one thought. The other thought is, "My God, that's just cruel."

Kai: It just sounds mean. We got to take a break. This is Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. I'm talking with Rose Scott post of the daily news magazine Closer Look on WABE in Atlanta and Trymaine Lee, correspondent for MSNBC and host of the podcast Into America. More with Rose and Trymaine and more of your calls after a break. Stay with us.

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Kai: It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright, and let me play this clip from the late representative John Lewis.

John Lewis: Those we have said be patient and wait, we must said that we cannot be patient. We do not want our freedom gradually, but we want to be free now. We are tired. We are tired of being beaten by policemen. We are tired of seeing how people locked up in jail over and over again. Then you holler, "Be patient." How long can we be patient? We want our freedom and we want it now.

Kai: That was the late representative John Lewis at the march on Washington in 1963 when he was a young student activist who wanted to see change and see it fast. I'm still joined by Rose Scott of WABE in Atlanta and Trymaine Lee of MSNBC's Into America Podcast. Trymaine, I play that John Lewis clip because it makes me think about something one of the young people you interviewed said. She said that one problem that she has when she's talking with her peers about voting and trying to register voters is that political parties, and really we're talking about the Democrats here I suppose, they promise immediate change that then does not materialize.

Then young people in particular are like, "Forget it. I'm done with that." How often do you hear that story in your conversations?

Trymaine: It happens a lot, but first, let's ponder for a second, John Lewis. We breathe the same air as John Lewis. Such a giant. A smaller man, but a giant, who was so courageous. Every time I see those old photos of him in Selma, his backpack on, he just screams youth. Looks so young. In talking to young people, that is one of the things that they-- I asked him a question about enthusiasm and are people excited and motivated. They say, it's not that people aren't motivated or engaged, it's that we're promised so much and we put in the work and then nothing materializes from it, especially from the Democrats.

Then they point the blame at us when Black folks, young Black people don't show up. You say, "Well in Milwaukee this happened. They didn't show up. In Pennsylvania they didn't show up." That's a serious issue because for organizers, especially who do believe in the process, they're trying to get people to participate in the process. It's a hard sell for them to say, "Hey, just vote. Tell your mom and them to vote. Tell your friends and them to vote. Come on out because this matters." Then in the long run, all you get is some attention when it comes time to get out to vote. These politicians will only stop by Spelman and Clark and Moorehouse when it's the last-minute push.

They're not actually ingratiating themselves in the community. They'll go to the church, they'll talk to the older folks who are reliable every now and then even though they know they can bank on that vote already, but they're not engaging with the youth. That's come up from every campus we've been on. That's been a central theme.

Kai: Rose, what do you think about that? I heard you agreeing, but also somebody else we talked to this week pointed out that it's just they're tired of how long people stay in office, which I feel like is a related theme. I agree cool John Lewis, but I also think about some of the Black elected officials, particularly in the South, John Lewis amongst them, who stayed in office a really long time. How much that depresses enthusiasm amongst young voters in particular. I just want to throw that to you Rose.

Rose: I think Trymaine has a point. Consider this generation, there has been a disconnection with I would say maybe folks 30 and under. I don't mind telling my age. I'm my 50s. I could connect with Dr. King and those from Civil Rights Movement. I knew people in my family who were part of the movement. You talk to someone now who's 21, and it may be hard for them to connect because we got Black History month, and every year we talk about Dr. King, and every year we talk about John Lewis, and then we talk about these other great civil rights activists. I think what's been interesting is that perhaps there hasn't been a stronger passing of the torch, or perhaps there has been differences in terms of ideology or strategy.

I've talked to young folks who identify as progressives and they say, "Yes, we can borrow template from the Civil Rights movement, but this is different. We have to have a different way, we have a different way of thinking. We have a different way of mobilizing." Dr. King didn't have Twitter. Dr. King, they didn't have that. We have a different generation. I think there's something to be learned from both sides. I think you can learn a lot from the younger generation to say, "How are you all going to mobilize and how are you going to get your message out?" If they feel like they're not being heard, or if they feel like they're only being catered to, as Trymaine mentioned, when it's election time, then they become disengaged.

I totally understand that. I get tweets all the time from folks that say, particularly with Black males, they say, "Look, you know what? You all only wanted to come to us when it's time to vote, but what about the issues that are important to us?" I think that's where, and we just talking about the Democratic party, that's where the democratic party's got to be stronger in. This is not a Stacey Abram's problem with young with Black males. This is a Democrats problem and it's been trending for a long time.

Kai: Trymaine, you were trying to hop in there. Go ahead.

Trymaine: I was just going to say that I think you're right in that there hasn't been a passing of the torch and a grooming of the next generation. Young people have had to snatch the torch, but the fact that they have to take it and they have to have this adversarial sometimes relationship with the machine, because that is the other thing that we've known for a long time. There are Black gatekeepers in our communities who they are the power brokers. You went to South Carolina, who you going to go talk to. Before you went to Missouri, you knew who you were going to go talk to. I think this generation, they're not content with that necessarily in places where they actually--

Think about it in Missouri, you had Ferguson, you had St. Louis, and you have a whole generation of activist leaders emerging from that had the power and the mobilizing skill and apparatus to actually challenge the machine. Everyone's not so fortunate.

Kai: Quickly, we have a YouTube question about when does early voting begin? If you're in Georgia, it begins tomorrow. Otherwise it's different in every state. A number of states have started to vote. The election is upon us. Listeners, we can take your calls more broadly now. I'm going to open it up to everybody. If you've got a question about the midterms, particularly in Georgia or about the change in Black political power. I'm using the word change. I'm not going to say rise or fall. The change in Black political power. I do want to talk a little bit about the races in Georgia themselves.

Rose, you hinted at this story that has been percolating. There seems to be polling that says that Black men in particular in Georgia are saying that they're ready to come out and support Rafael Warnock in his race against Herschel Walker for Senate, but they are not going to vote for Stacey Abrams, that they prefer the Republican candidate Brian Kemp or they're going to not vote at all. Is that something you're hearing? If so, do you get a sense of what's behind that?

Rose: Let me start by saying this, and I said this earlier, this narrative of Black men not supporting Stacy Abrams. If you want to believe that shouldn't be surprising cause Democrats have had a issue with getting Black men, engaging Black men in their issues and those policies, those issues that are directly tied to their quality of life. Now, depending on whom you ask and let's be really clear about this, I have seen Brian Kemp at a couple of functions with Black folks. I've seen Stacy Abrams at at least two dozen functions with Black folks, with Black men. Again, going back to what I said earlier about narrative and how we disseminate information.

If you ask one individual and they say, "I'm not going to vote for Stacy Abrams because of XYZ and I'm a Black male," okay fine. I think you have to understand the core of this. This is not a Stacey Abrams problem. This is a Democrats' problem. It's been brewing. Now, if you look when Governor Kemp defeated Abrams back in 2018, it was about 50,000 votes something like that right? We found that he had about 98% of Black women voted for Abrams compared with about 88% of Black men. Some will say that's not bad. If you're looking at this 9-10% that they say Brian Kemp received in votes was because they were disengaged with Stacy Abrams, I'm not sure that's a fair assessment.

I just don't believe that. I think if someone votes across party lines, there's a reason for that. I believe it has to do with the policies and the issues. Now, could Stacy Abrams have done more to engage? I don't know because I've seen her out and I've seen Brian Kemp I know at two events. Two versus two dozen, I'm not sure that's a fair analogy there, to say then Stacy Abrams has a problem with Black men. She did say, "I need the Black male vote." Sure she would want more Black men voting for her. I think we have to be careful when we talk about who's not voting from whom, if we don't have any real data to support that. I think that's dangerous on both sides.

Trymaine: I'll tell you what is insane and obviously this is the ecosystem, the political ecosystem in which we exist. 88% of Black anybody voting for anybody, that's a big no. That's a huge ginormous number in that there almost takes complete felty. We need 99%. Who else is that asked of? I'm not saying that we understand what the context of these two parties and one is openly hostile and one may take Black voters for granted. That sounds insane. Rose, when you talk about narrative and I agree wholeheartedly, one thing that we've done and I think unwittingly, when we talk about the base of the Democratic Party, it's Black women and the church and the matriarchs.

When you go to the church it's filled with black women. It ain't filled with Black men. All these community organizations, women will save us and have saved us. Then we add to that LGBTQ, which we should, with everybody and it's BIPOC and it's all these other things, but Black men, we are the subject and the object of police violence and community violence and the mass incarceration and all the things. I actually had a chance to sit down with some Morehouse men, and we watched the Warnock-Walker debate. I asked them that very question because I said, "This is a rare moment. Two black men, regardless of their politics, running for Senate in the deep South in Georgia. Does that spark anything in you?" They said, no because they recognize one is a puppet. They say this.

Then I said, "Is it enough to get Black men off the sidelines though? You got two brothers running, maybe your politics skew one way. Is it enough?" They say, "No, because we are never, ever engaged." Now, these are Morehouse men. These are smart young men, bright young men, motivated young men who understand politics but they say, "It's not enough because no one really cares about us. No one cares about we're always the subject as the problems like the Negro problem. It's the negro male problem, fatherlessness, absenteeism the list goes on." They articulated it so clearly that like of course a lot of brothers won't be engaged because we're never, ever directly talked with. We're talked to, but never with.

Kai: Let's hear from Kenyan Sola in New Haven Connecticut, welcome to the show.

Kenyan: Hi. Thank you all for what you've been sharing and discussing tonight. I wanted to respond specifically to I think something that Rose brought up about young Black people or college age students, young people seeing a disconnect from the civil rights movement or the issues that the history of Black liberation movement. I'm a college student and I just feel that yes there's an element of the torch not being passed down but there's also an element of frustration thinking that the issues we were fighting for 50, 60, 70 years ago are the issues we're still fighting around now.

It's not just not knowing the history or not feeling engaged with the history, but honestly knowing so much of the history that it's starts to feel, "Wow how can it be that we're in the same place? How much can I really put in the process if I'm looking back at my history? It's so being repeatedly echoed by what's happening around me today." I think that is also a major source of disconnection or frustration or just lack of enthusiasm to engage is knowing what's happened in the history of Black movement for freedom and seeing that those visions for freedom didn't come to pass and that we're still like fighting for the same thing.

Kai: Can I ask what that means for you in particular? How do you process that?

Kenyan: Yes. That's a great question. I go back and forth between feeling, I think I've settled in a place of not total disengagement but really actively honing in on what's a tiny scope of what I can really contribute to and feel I'm being part of a community that's fighting. Because the other thing is social media and internet and its impact on how people can engage social movements and social issues, because we're getting fed a lot of content about the world and how it's exploding and falling apart and we see a lot of images and violence and brutality and they're at our fingertips all the time.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by that too. Honestly, personally I was in high school when Trump was elected and I saw that as a indictment of the media landscape and its relation to social change. I saw these images being propagated and I saw people zoomed into Facebook into their phones and not having any positive impact, I felt like. I just took a big step back from engaging via social media and the internet with things I really care about and really tried to think about can I get specific about a set of issues that really matters to me?

Kai: I'm going to stop you there just because we're getting close to time and I want to give Rose a chance to respond to this, but that's interesting. You zeroed in on issues instead of this big broad thought about politics. Rose, do you want to chime in to what Kenyan told us?

Rose: I think she's absolutely right. Look, she has certain issues that are tied to her quality of life and look, social media, news media and then news you get from your Uncle Bob on Facebook. The issues that are important to probably her generation which would be student debt, student loan debt obviously, the job workforce development. She's absolutely right and it gets a little bit overwhelming because she wants to hear issues for her generation and she's not getting that because it's saturated with all this other stuff that we're covering. I understand that and she's absolutely right.

Now, when you ask about what's the key then? How do the parties zone in on this demographic? This is where you go back to old school, back to the '60s and the '50s. This is where politicians have to hit the ground and they have to go into those communities. They have to go to the HBCUs, they have to go to where these young folks are and they have to talk to them, as Trymaine said, and not at them. That's the way that you get them engaged and that's the way you get them to vote whichever way they're going to vote.

Kai: Trymaine, in the 60 seconds or so we got left, 30 seconds really, talk to the cynic in me about your effort to talk to young people at HBCUs. It feels like we're always looking to the kids to change the future. Why was this important to you?

Trymaine: I think this matters because, one, they are among our best and brightest and we should be talking with them because they will be the ones that tinker with and change the future. Piggybacking off what our caller said, fortunately and unfortunately what we've seen is young people all across this country on these campuses finding ways to provide help, to fill in the gaps where the government and politics don't. Whether it's Jackson, Mississippi. Young organizers and activists who are providing access for reproductive care, getting folks to a place where they can get an abortion, providing water.

Whether it's FAMU in Florida, where they're finding ways to study data that might save the oyster and save us all. Unfortunately, because of what she just said, maybe politics is not the end-all-be-all, but we got to find a way to do it ourselves. It was important that we went out across country and did just that, talk to these folks.

Kai: Got to leave it there. Trymaine Lee is host of MSNBC's podcast Into America. New episodes every Thursday. Rose Scott is host of Closer Look, a daily news magazine on WABE in Atlanta. Thank you to you both. Notes from America is a production of WNYC Studios. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts or find us on Instagram and Twitter. We're @noteswithkai. That's notes with K-A-I. If you want to chime in about anything you've heard tonight, you can now leave us a voice message right on our website. Just go to notesfromamerica.org and look for the record button.

Matthew Miranda is our live engineer. Music and mixing by Jared Paul. Our team also includes Regina de Heer, Karen Frillmann, Vanessa Handy, Rahima Nasa, Kousha Navidar, and Lindsay Oscar Thomas. I'm Kai Wright. Thanks for spending this time with us and I will talk to you next week.

 

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