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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and with us now on this Martin Luther King Day, Errin Haines, who describes herself as a Founding Mother and editor-at-large for The 19th, a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom covering the intersection of women, politics, and policy, and an MSNBC contributor. Errin was previously the Associated Press' national writer on race and ethnicity.

The 19th, for those of you who don't know it, is the news organization founded last year for the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. It's printed as The 19th with an asterisk, the asterisk referring to the fact that in reality, Black women couldn't vote until progress made during the civil rights movement decades later. Errin, we always appreciate having you on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Errin Haines: Thanks so much, Brian. I also declare myself a native Atlantan. So happy to join you as we celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday.

Brian: Yes. That's not where I was going to start, but I was actually going to get there and I will, but let me still start with one of your recent articles, which is called Women Overcame the Toxic Masculinity That Defined the Trump Presidency. Then It Was Displayed Anew. We talk here a lot about how the insurrection on January 6th was an expression of racism. Can you describe some of how you see it also as an expression of toxic masculinity?

Errin: Well, yes, I think that toxic masculinity is toxic white masculinity that is rooted in the racial backlash that always attends racial progress as it is made in this country. It was not lost on me in the piece that you referenced, and thank you for bringing that up, that this insurrection happened in the wake of the Georgia Senate runoff which, yes, elected two Democrats from Georgia, including for the first time, an African American and a Jewish American, but also was really the result of both the triumph of voter turnout over voter suppression as millions of Black voters, including many who voted in the runoff that didn't vote in the general election.

Even more Black voters participating in this expanded electorate that saw the election of Joe Biden and the first Black person who will serve as the second most powerful person in the country. All of these factors kind of combined to create a scene that we saw that was violent, mostly white and mostly male. I think that we have to point that out even as we talk about the threat to our democracy. What we're really also talking about is a challenge to who can participate in our democracy. Whose votes are legitimate and who is really going to be a part of our electorate, our democracy in our society going forward?

Brian: How much are you worried that the lie about the election being stolen and the push to audit "election systems" that were put in place for the pandemic will lead to new waves of systemic voter suppression? If so, what forms do you think those will take?

Errin: Well, I think it's time for everybody to get serious about the 21st-century threat to voter suppression, right? It doesn't look like having somebody count how many bubbles are on a bar of soap or how many jelly beans are in a jar. Certainly, misinformation has long been a part of the voter suppression playbook, but it has taken on new forms in this new century and that includes, obviously, threats from overseas and their ability to kind of exploit this country's racial tensions.

Also, domestically on social media platforms, continuing to spread misinformation, disinformation, questioning the integrity of our election, that's something that will persist even as the outgoing president leaves office because we now as a country are operating from a different set of facts. I think that also other traditional means of suppressing the vote as in through state legislatures, that is also something that I think we will probably continue to see and that folks will have to continue to push back against the closing of precincts, the shortening of early voting periods.

Even now, as you see, African Americans warming up to the idea of mail-in balloting, something that has long been used by Republicans and white Republicans specifically as they are beginning to take to that. Yes, that started because of the pandemic, but I think it's something that could become more normalized for African Americans or others who have been historically marginalized. What will the attack on mail-in balloting now be now that you see out of that is an avenue for those voters?

Brian: You wrote an article about where Black women political organizers are putting their energy next and you remind us that in the Senate runoff wins in Georgia, it wasn't just Black voters in urban areas but also in rural ones that made up the winning coalition. Are there certain states where that can be replicated and built on to have more historically different outcomes, let's say, as we just saw in Georgia? Because I feel like it's not much of a thing here in my area, in New York and New Jersey, that most of our listeners would be aware of.

Errin: Right. Potentially, yes. The Deep South, the Black Belt in particular where you have a large population of African-Americans upwards of, I'm thinking, 20%, 30% African-American populations. Many of those folks have not been seen or heard in our democracy. Many also don't necessarily make the connection or haven't made the connection always to voting in their daily lives.

There are others who have made that connection because they live in districts or areas that have been so heavily gerrymandered that in some cases in some elections, they may feel like their vote doesn't count because of the way that their voting areas are drawn, that it might not matter who they vote for because it's been the same person for generation after generation.

These Black women organizers do not take these voters for granted as they go, meet them where they are, talk to them about the stakes. Not just presidential elections or federal national elections, but really the elections that can potentially have the most impact on their daily lives. Those state and local elections, county commissions, city council, school board, those types of things.

Once they become engaged on that level and also as the grassroots organizers that a lot of these Black women whose names we know, Stacey Abrams, LaTosha Brown, Nse Ufot, and others as they get the resources to really do a lot of the work that, frankly, they've done informally and unofficially for years, those people can be mobilized and galvanized to make change.

Brian: My guest, if you're just joining us, is Errin Haines, editor-at-large for the news organization, The 19th. As you said at the beginning of our segment, you are originally from Atlanta. I'm curious if you grew up with an awareness of Dr. King, who, of course, was based there, that might have been more or different from people growing up elsewhere in the country.

Errin: 1,000%, I would say yes. To grow up in Atlanta is to be hyperaware of Dr. King, of his legacy, but not just of his legacy. Coretta Scott King, his widow who kept his legacy, his memory alive, and who frankly changed this country's perception about who he was. Let us not forget that at the time of Dr. King's life and certainly his passing, he was not the heroes that a lot of us consider him to be today. A lot of people in this democracy did not consider him to be this beloved figure that we honor and revere and quote on Twitter and our Facebook pages right now. She is somebody who brought that about. She would not let his legacy and his teachings of nonviolence be forgotten.

She almost immediately got to work on building the King Center in the basement of their home even as she was raising young children and grieving his murder. I think it's very important to also talk about her. She was with us for decades after he passed. She was in and around Atlanta and somebody that we could see and touch and be aware of on a regular basis.

Also, many of Dr. King's lieutenants, including Ambassador Andrew Young, Congressman John Lewis, who we just lost last year, the Reverend Joseph Lowery, the Reverend CT Vivian, these people all live in Atlanta. They spoke out, continued to be on the frontline against systemic racism, against voter suppression, and continuing to push for this country to address institutional inequality. I think that just as they did, many of those folks did that until their last breath status. That is what Dr. King would have continued to do if he were alive today.

Brian: He would be 92, just for people who don't know, even as we celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday, when he was born or how old he would have been, could have been alive still at age 92 were he not assassinated. What's the resonance for you then of Raphael Warnock being elected to the Senate now from the same position that Dr. King held pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta?

Errin: It's quite interesting to think about that trajectory. Dr. King was somebody who agitated from the outside. He never held political office. I know it's strange to think about that, given his outside influence on our country's politics, in our country's democracy. Certainly, the tenet of Dr. King, I know from having covered Reverend Warnock as a reporter in Atlanta for several years that he absolutely espoused those tenets and frankly came at his own faith from a social justice perspective just as Dr. King did using his pulpit to speak out against racism and injustice and inequality. In a way, certainly, being the head pastor of Dr. King's spiritual home means that he does take a large part of that legacy with him as he heads to the halls of Congress.

Brian: You wrote an article on The 19th the other day, looking ahead to Kamala Harris's swearing-in on Wednesday, noting that she'll be sworn in on two Bibles with particular personal resonance. Would you start there and talk about what you'll be looking forward to at the new vice-president's swearing-in?

Errin: I think that it was important to point that out. She's going to be sworn in by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is another first, the first Latina member of the court. She was nominated by a first, the first Black president, Barack Obama. One of the Bibles that she's going to have belong to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who was a first as well, the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court, who was also a personal hero of Kamala Harris's. She talks about her decision to get into the law because she felt like the law was a tool that could be used to help to protect our democracy.

They also both went to Howard University. Thurgood Marshall, a valedictorian of the Howard University School of Law, and then she, of course, many decades later, is a graduate of Howard University. Dr. King also, a historically Black college university graduate, went to Morehouse College in Atlanta. Her lived experience draws on so many aspects of African-American life, the lives of people who have not always seen themselves reflected in our democracy. All of that symbolism will very much be on the day as I think as we see her taking the oath of office on Wednesday.

Brian: I know you have to go in a minute. Do you have any sense yet of what role Vice President Harris will be playing in the administration? It's different for different vice presidents.

Errin: It is. I think that if the interviews that we've seen with President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris are any indication, they seem very sincere that they plan to be governing partners much in the way that Joe Biden was a governing partner to then-President Barack Obama. Also, they do both talk about confronting racial inequality as one of the four crises that they believe that they will inherit as they prepare to take office. I think, certainly, the events of January 6th showed us that.

Joe Biden, as somebody who ran for office, saying that this was a battle for the soul of America and has evolved from the idea that this is not who we are to, "Is this who we want to be?" asking the American people that. A couple of that with what Kamala Harris said when she ran for president, which is that it is time to speak truth about who and where we are as a country. That includes speaking truths on race. That could be a partnership that may well be what is necessary for the type of healing and unity that at least they say they want to try to bring about in this country, but it certainly feels like on this King holiday, a pretty tall order.

Brian: Errin Haines, editor-at-large for the news organization The 19th and an MSNBC contributor. I know you're doing a lot on this Martin Luther King Day, so we really appreciate the time this morning. Thank you so much.

Errin: A privilege to spend this time with you.

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