Apparently i’m a pessimist! Who knew? While i was sleeping, i got a text from Aubrey at 2:04, one of our Albany State original organizer/alums.
“What is democracy?” is all it said.
At 3:21 AM came a text from another organizer. “What is the deal?”
Almost an hour later came another. “What would it look like?”
I am slow to wake up, in general. Coffee is a necessary ingredient, but even then, i knew what they were doing. But i bet i smiled. They are getting excited, eager — READY TO GO! It’s 2024 and there’s a lot at stake.
We call it, for lack of a better term, the Georgia Benediction. The last 7 stanzas of a song by Jackson Browne that some of our organizers have used as an end of their Saturday trainings that recognizes volunteers for their outstanding performance on the prior Saturday.
Since 2020, Hope Springs from Field PAC volunteers have been knocking on doors of Democrats and unaffiliated voters (with the occasional Republican who resides in the same household as a Democrat) with an in-person direct voter contact approach that has proven successful in turning out voters in the next election. Hope Springs is a grassroots-driven operation, and these organizers were asserting a bit of their grassroots spirit to let me know. There’s a lot of work ahead, and they figured they’d get a jump on me before we all start cutting turf for volunteers to walk on Saturday.
We built a culture for success in Georgia, starting in the first Georgia U.S. Senate Runoffs in 2021. That culture not only led to a continuation of our canvassing efforts in the Summer of 2021, but led to a number of our “super volunteers” go to North Carolina in September of that year to help register felons parolees who had (temporarily) won their right to vote in court. It didn’t last long, but one of the things that came out of that visit was a playlist one of our organizers created for the road trip. It included the Browne song, Until Justice is Real.
But it wasn’t that road trip that made this song into the Georgia Benediction. Some of the organizers from that road trip, though, started to use the last 7 stanzas as an ending to each week’s training. Canvass volunteers would gather in a circle in the parking lot, sometimes holding hands. And, seemingly spontaneously, one volunteer would start. Then another would follow. And another, “What would it look like?”
At 5:04 came the next text: “How would it feel?”
Earlier (for whatever reason, i got the lines out of order) LaTesha sent: “Are you ready to Put[ting] your shoulder to the wheel? It’s 2024 and we can’t wait!”
Now i started cutting turf for this Saturday’s canvass in Arizona, Las Vegas, Florida and southern Georgia awhile ago. I doubt anyone else has, but you have to cut more than you need because we don’t want to turn anyone away. And the Georgia Benediction has spread from Dougherty County and it’s Albany State origins. Not every organizer uses it, probably not even half our organizers use it. But there are volunteers who have demanded that their group use it, as a way to ground volunteers about why they are there, giving up their Saturday morning, talking to voters and spreading the good word about Democrats and our candidates.
At 5:52 i got the next one, “And staying with it until justice.”
A little later the final line came: “Until justice is real.”
As i started to write this, i got another text: “Fired Up!”
.
“We’re Ready to Go, Alan.”
It’s been my honor, my pleasure — my inspiration — to knock on doors with these fine folks. As we start again this year, we all know what is at stake this year. And it is different to different people. For some of us, it is Democracy. For others, it’s Reproductive Rights and Freedom. But, for many of us (including me), it is about Justice. And i would bet that more than a few of those who we found in Georgia, in Pennsylvania, in Milwaukee, won’t stop “Until justice is real.”
I admit that i found this spoken version more moving than the song, but it said something about why these primarily African-American (overwhelmingly HBCU students) volunteers continue to organize and canvass week end and week out, year after year. They weren’t getting paid (no one is, so far), they only want the lit, the tools (like VAN) and the guidance to talk to other Georgians (in their case) about the task at hand.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors in a grassroots-led effort to prepare the Electoral Battleground states in what has been called the First Round of a traditional Five Round Canvass. We are taking those efforts to the doors of the communities most effected of the new voter suppression laws as well as the suburbs where the Democratic Party has not been as organized.
Obviously, we rely on grassroots support, so if you support field/grassroots organizing, voter registration (and follow-up) and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopemobilization2024
Hope Springs from Field understands that repeated face to face interactions are critical. And we are among those who believe that Democrats didn’t do as well in the 2020 Congressional races as expected because we didn’t knock on doors — and we didn’t register new voters (while Republicans did). We are returning to the old school basics: repeated contacts, repeated efforts to remind them of protocols, meeting them were they are. Mentoring those who need it (like first time and newly registered voters). Reminding, reminding, reminding, and then chasing down those voters whose ballots need to be cured.
As i mentioned above, organizers don’t use the Georgia Benediction everywhere. At our height last year (before the heatwave played tricks on our plans), we had 59 canvasses going on a Saturday in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconins and Virginia. We’re adding Maryland to the mix this year. But, in some places, the “benediction circle” was something some organizers liked to nurture their community of activists.
But that is what grassroots action does. Tilt the playing field. “Until justice is real.”
Our systemic approach to canvassing, our Early Organizing, makes it easier for all Democrats, not just because we are out there each week collecting data that can be useful to the Democratic campaigns that use VAN, but because we create goodwill among voters.
My intrepid organizers wanted me to know they were ready. That they are fired up, ready to go. I don’t know about you, but i am ready to go, too. Like i said, we never know what to expect in our first week of canvassing. But we have to plan for more just because we don’t know. And you can expect to see our reports on our door-knocking efforts right here!
While most GOTV efforts have traditionally been “directed towards high-propensity voters,” Hope Springs expands beyond that because we understand that Democrats must always be expanding the electorate in order to win. We can never sit on our laurels.
2023 Hope Springs expenses
We will start up our Issues Canvass again on March 2nd, and will expand into Maryland in addition to the 11 states we organized last year. Our biggest expense remains the Voter File. But it is also a fixed cost. That won’t change as we raise and spend more money. Printing literature is our second largest cost. Printing and mailing out our Post Cards to New Voters is our third major cost and paying the fees for ActBlue is the smallest of our monthly costs.
Hope Springs is a seat-of-the-pants grassroots-driven operation. We don’t have employees and we realize that to formalize and professionalize this effort that will have to change. We spent less than $70,000 last year because we raised less than $70,000. We still haven’t paid for all the literature we distributed in Ohio last Fall.
If you are able to support our efforts to protect Democratic voters, especially in minority communities, expand the electorate, and believe in grassroots efforts to increase voter participation and election protection, please help:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/hopemobilization2024
You can follow that link for our mailing address, as well (for those who would rather send us a check). Thank you for your support! This work depends on you!