Evangelist Vikki Jackson admitted that her first response to Greater Cleveland Congregations’ new campaign, Voter Virginity, was disbelief.
“I am a very conservative minister,” Jackson said. “I got to tell you, this campaign slogan caused me to pause and say, ‘Shut the front door!’” But she came around when she saw the excitement in the young activists who inspired it.
Voter Virginity is the latest campaign in GCC’s ongoing Battle for Democracy, a 10-year plan to boost voter registration and turnout in several Cleveland neighborhoods and some inner-ring suburbs. GCC launched the new campaign at a press conference outside Shiloh Baptist Church Tuesday morning. Members, including some barely old enough to vote, proudly held signs with double entendres such as “it’s natural to be nervous” and “make your first time count.”
Jackson acknowledged that the cheeky theme is “risky,” but added, “desperate times call for bold measures.”
“We realized there was a real lack of joy about voting,” said Keisha Krumm, GCC’s executive director and lead organizer, at the press conference. Others made similar comments about changing people’s associations with voting.
“Many in Cleveland don’t see the point in voting,” said Rev. James Crews, who serves on GCC’s strategy team. “They say, ‘The political system doesn’t impact my daily life. … Nothing changes either way. It doesn’t matter.’ … In GCC style, we said, ‘We have to shake things up.’”
Crews cited other milestones that people celebrate — getting a driver’s license, graduating from high school, turning 21 — and said, “It’s time to put voting on that joyful list.”
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‘I’m sick of seeing politics tear apart families’
Voting for the first time “is no less sacred than all the others” that families celebrate, said Rabbi Josh Caruso of Congregation Mishkan Or in Beachwood.
“If there’s one thing the church doesn’t talk about enough, it’s voting,” said Rev. Ryan Wallace, senior pastor at Fairmount Presbyterian Church in Cleveland Heights. Sex, he added, is a close second.
“I’m sick of seeing politics tear apart families,” said DeMario Steele, a student-athlete at Cleveland State University and one of the young adults who is helping to guide the GCC campaign.
Voter Virginity’s primary goal is registering and turning out first-time voters. GCC shared recent research from UC Berkley showing that “many young voters appear to share a belief that fractured, dysfunctional government systems are incapable of addressing critical challenges that fall heavily on their generations. A sense of fatalism extends across the right, center and left.”
But the campaign will also seek out lapsed voters. One of the signs at the press conference said, “It feels like the first time.”
Playful messages like that will soon be seen on billboards and posters in Slavic Village, Lee-Harvard, Central, Fairfax, Mt. Pleasant, East Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, Euclid, South Euclid and Warrensville Heights. Crews said that if the experiment is successful, it may be rolled out in other cities.
