As a community organizer, I’m excited about the possibilities. Regular people across Ohio are fighting long-term to make our electorate match our values.
I grew up in Dayton, a city that has known its fair share of economic decline. My family was poor and working-class, but my parents were entrepreneurs. My dad owned his own landscaping business, and my mom was a beautician and a care worker. Seeing my parents find ways to thrive despite our circumstances showed me I have the agency to craft the world that I want for myself. That sacred piece of agency I grew up with as a child is the kind of agency I help craft in other people as an organizer.
Too often, people are stripped of agency in their workplaces, homes, and communities. They encounter oppressive systems that stifle their agency. When your agency is stripped away, it becomes hard to believe that voting will make a difference.
Recent national research shows that Black Ohioans perceive their sense of political power to be 20% lower than compared to a 2022 preliminary sample of Black voters nationwide. It’s heartbreaking. But this is also where our organizing work at the Ohio Organizing Collaborative (OOC) comes in.
This election, we targeted two clusters of high-opportunity Black voters based on this national research: the “NextGen Optimists” and the “Rightfully Cynical” voters. For example, Brigette Evans – the mom of a formerly incarcerated juvenile – canvassed for a local participatory budgeting initiative in Cleveland. Brigette is a rightfully cynical voter who is traditionally overlooked by political campaigns, but she eagerly served as a precinct captain who knocked doors in her ward and talked about how participatory budgeting would empower her community.
Indeed, Black voters whom we engaged in Cleveland turned out at a higher rate than voters our organization did not reach. Of those found to have voted early in the Cleveland wards we canvassed, there was a 9% increase of early voters in 2023 compared to 2022. When elections are decided on the margins, it’s people living on the margins who make the difference.
For the first time, Black Ohioans get to see themselves reflected in something they believe in. Once you have more Black people voting and practicing democracy in Ohio, the more they’re building political power, and the more they’re able to deliver long-term changes for their community.
We need community organizing and multiracial solidarity to fight back against the myth of individualism in America. Wealthy corporations and billionaires perpetuate this myth because they want to extract more from our communities and prevent us from joining together and demanding better.
Over the next decade, we will see an Ohio that is increasingly diverse, connected, and able to build multiracial solidarity. Everyday Ohioans who participated in the fight for our reproductive freedoms and our democracy this year will be leading the fight for Ohio’s future. It will be a real fight for our agency. These wins are just the beginning.
Prentiss Haney is a Dayton native. He serves as co-executive director of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a statewide community organizing group.
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