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Why Should We Care About Election Protection?
1 Playsin 17 hours
Troy Jackson is joined by Rev. Traci Blackmon to discuss election protection, what it is and why it matters. They reflect on the importance of voting access and what a healthy, faithful culture of civic participation would look like in our communities.
Each August, we focus on civic engagement as a CCDA Family. Learn more about engaging with your local government at ccda.org/civic.
Learn more about The Faithful Witness Campaign at faithfulwitness.us.
The Rev. Traci Blackmon is the former associate general minister of justice and local church ministries for the United Church of Christ, a position she held for eight years. She earned a bachelor of science in nursing from Birmingham-Southern College and a master of divinity degree from Eden Theological Seminary.
Blackmon’s work focuses on communal resistance to systemic injustice through the redemptive power of love. Her response in Ferguson, Missouri, to the killing of Michael Brown resulted in national and international recognition.
She was appointed to the Ferguson Commission by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships by President Barack Obama. She currently serves on the board of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference and was named among 15 “Faith Leaders to Watch” in 2020 by the Center for American Progress.
Learn more about Rev. Blackmon and her work at faithoutloud.org.
Community organizer, pastor, leader and writer, Troy Jackson, has been with UNDIVIDED since its founding. He is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and earned his PH.D in U.S. history from the University of Kentucky.
Troy’s book Becoming King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Making of a National Leader (The University Press of Kentucky, 2008) explores the critical role the grassroots Montgomery Movement played in the development of Dr. King. His other publications include his work as an editor on The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Volume VI: Advocate of the Social Gospel (September 1948-March 1963) (University of California Press, 2007). With their children grown, Troy and his wife moved to a cabin outside of Cincinnati, OH, with their two dogs, Pip and Pico.
Learn more about Troy and UNDIVIDED at undivided.us.
Learn more about CCDA and how you can get involved at ccda.org. Connect with CCDA on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Follow CCDA on YouTube.
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Their Roles
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the CCDA Podcast. I'm Troy Jackson. I am the Executive Director of Undivided and have been part of CCDA. I think my first conference was 1996 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So I've been around for almost three decades and I'm delighted to host today with my friend Reverend Tracy Blackman.
00:00:32
Speaker
Reverend Tracy is a pastor, ah leader, an organizer, is leading an effort called Faith Out Loud. And there is no better preacher in the United States of America than Reverend Tracy Blackman.
00:00:45
Speaker
It is great to have you here,
Faith, Justice, and Public Life
00:00:47
Speaker
Reverend Tracy. I wonder if you could give us a little bit of your background. Wow. Well, thank you, Troy. It's always a joy to be in space with you.
00:00:56
Speaker
A little bit about my background. I often say that I don't just work in communities. I belong to them. I'm a pastor by calling, an organizer by necessity, and a public theologian by conviction. So for much of my ministry, I've served at the intersection of faith and justice and public life because I've come to believe those things are never meant to be separated.
00:01:19
Speaker
Whether I was serving in Ferguson, working alongside congregations across the country, or now helping lead Faith Out Loud, my work has always begun with one question, what does love require of us in this moment?
00:01:33
Speaker
I don't believe transformation happens because someone flies in with answers. It happens because neighbors organize and institutions become trustworthy and churches find their prophetic voice. So that's the community I'm trying to help build.
00:01:49
Speaker
That's great, Reverend
Journey into Election Protection
00:01:50
Speaker
Tracy. And today we're talking about election protection, democracy. I know you've been in the work of justice and leading in local committees for a long time. I first heard your name and started hearing you on regularity and around Ferguson, where you were pastoring at the time. But is that how you got involved into the work, or is there a broader story you'd want to share of You know, I didn't choose election protection. I feel like election protection chose me.
00:02:19
Speaker
I came into this work because I kept encountering people whose lives were shaped by decisions that they had little voice in making. And as a pastor, I could preach hope on Sunday. But by Monday, I was standing with families affected by failing schools and inaccessible health care and environmental justice and predatory lending. The list goes on and on.
00:02:42
Speaker
And eventually you begin to ask yourself some deeper questions. So who decides these policies? Who gets heard and who does not? Who gets left out and who gets put in? And you quickly discover that voting is not the solution to every problem. But when communities lose meaningful access to the ballot, they lose one of the primary ways they can shape the conditions that they live in So for me, election protection is simply another form of pastoral care.
00:03:13
Speaker
boom That's good. And that term election protection, could you could you define that? When you hear that term, what do you think it? Yeah. ah You know, sometimes when people hear election protection, they assume
Nonpartisanship and Voter Rights
00:03:26
Speaker
we're talking about partisan politics.
00:03:28
Speaker
And perhaps sometimes we are, but I'm not. You know, election protection is making sure every eligible voter can cast a ballot should they choose to and have that ballot counted accurately and participate without intimidation and unnecessary barriers or confusion.
00:03:48
Speaker
And I remember back in maybe 2012 or so, i was helping organize Souls to the Poles in Missouri, in St. Louis area in particular. And we had all these trainings with people about how to engage this work in a nonpartisan way. And one of the testimonies I carry with me from that moment is a young man who we trained, we had a whole phone bank, and he'd come in from taking a client who had vision impairment.
00:04:20
Speaker
And he said, Pastor Tracy, I had to put it to the test today. I had to put it to the test today. And he had tears in his eyes, actually. And he said this person asked him to go into the polling booth with him because he couldn't read the ballot.
00:04:36
Speaker
And he told he would read it, read the candidates, et cetera. And then the person he was driving would tell him who he wanted him to vote for. And he said, and this person didn't vote the way I wanted him to vote.
00:04:51
Speaker
And, you know, I knew he couldn't see the ballot, so I was really tempted. he said, but I didn't because it matters that everybody's voice is heard. And that just stayed with me, right? And so it's not about partisanship for me. It's about helping people navigate all the changing rules that are happening. It's about helping train poll chaplains and volunteers. So any kind of threats, real or imagined, are mitigated at the polls. It's about making sure elders can get there. It's about helping voters understand their rights and
00:05:27
Speaker
And it means supporting election workers who I believe faithfully administer elections. And at its heart, election protection is just about protecting public trust because democracy doesn't survive simply because people can vote.
00:05:43
Speaker
It survives when people believe their participation matters. Yeah, it reminds me of James Weldon Johnson's poem, Lift Every Voice and Sing. yeah Democracy should be lift every voice and let's sing together to make this better community and better nation. I love that. i love that story.
00:06:01
Speaker
Yeah.
Community Development and Voting Access
00:06:02
Speaker
At CCDA, we're talking to people who do community development, a lot of asset-based community development, it doing amazing work in preschool and housing and transitions for folks coming out of prison and folks needing addiction and employment ah creativity and all sorts of things happening at the grassroots level.
00:06:21
Speaker
Why should folks committed to community development care about voting access? Well, you know, first I want to say I am familiar with CCDA, and for a long time they've been not just a player in that field, but a model in that field. And I have always considered the work that CCDA does as ministry.
00:06:45
Speaker
Community development man has always been more than buildings. It's about human flourishing. And you can build affordable housing or create healthy food systems, improve schools, or reduce violence and strengthen neighborhoods.
00:07:00
Speaker
But if the people living there have no meaningful voice in the decisions affecting those neighborhoods, then the development remains incomplete. So throughout scripture, God continuously asks, how are the people?
00:07:14
Speaker
In all kinds of stories, God is concerned with how the people are. Not simply how's the economy, not simply how are the institutions, but how are the people. I was preaching about that yesterday. And voting is one of the ways neighbors help answer that question together.
00:07:31
Speaker
For Christians, civic participation is not about winning elections. It's about loving neighbors enough to help shape communities where everyone feels seen and can flourish.
00:07:43
Speaker
I love that contrast. Voting is not about winning elections, but loving neighbor. well Right. I love that. And I've heard you talk a little bit, Reverend Tracy, about often we talk about civic participation. We think just about elections.
00:07:59
Speaker
How is protecting the right to vote and the ability to vote, how is that connected to the long-term flourishing coll lives, of families, of neighborhoods, and even our nation?
Sustainable Civic Engagement
00:08:10
Speaker
Well, and this is where I live, right? I long for us not to do episodic work, but for us to do long arc transformative work. Healthy neighborhoods don't happen accidentally, and they don't happen with one election.
00:08:27
Speaker
They're built through sustained participation, and every decision we make about schools or transportation or parks or health care or even clean water is influenced by people who are chosen through elections. So when entire communities are underrepresented or discouraged from participating, then their needs become easier to overlook.
00:08:51
Speaker
And, you know, I want to say that that overlook is not always intentional. It's that you are more familiar with the environment that you live in, which is why we need diverse representation, because we all have our own stories. So protecting voting rights isn't just about Election Day for me. It's about whether neighborhoods have lasting influence over the future they're trying to create, you know?
00:09:17
Speaker
I often say democracy isn't something that we inherit. It's something we steward, right? And it's our responsibility as people of faith to steward well.
00:09:30
Speaker
And that means making room for everyone. Love that. Making room for everyone in our democracy.
Faith's Role in Democracy
00:09:38
Speaker
What concerns you as you look at the world as it is in 2026 about our current landscape when it comes to election protection of voter rights?
00:09:49
Speaker
Well, you know, there's the obvious answer that you hear everywhere, but my greatest concern isn't simply changes in election law. It's really the erosion of trust, of civic trust.
00:10:02
Speaker
ah History teaches us that before rights are restricted, confidence has to be undermined. You know, the the disruption of trust precedes the policy change.
00:10:15
Speaker
People begin hearing that elections can't be trusted and institutions can't be trusted and neighbors can't be trusted. And once distrust becomes our default, then democracy becomes easier to weaken.
00:10:29
Speaker
At the same time, we are seeing increasing complexity with new rules and shifting procedures and misinformation spreading faster than truth. And sometimes these rules are not coming because there is evidence that the rules are needed, but they are based in the fear that is being fueled with this mistrust.
00:10:49
Speaker
I have been thinking a lot, Troy, as a matter of fact, it might be something we could partner on. I've been thinking a lot about putting out a message thanking our election workers and our poll workers and reminding them that they are facing extraordinary pressure, but that we trust them.
00:11:10
Speaker
That we believe them, that we believe that people do this work because they care. And I mean, they're not doing it to get rich. And some of them have been doing it election after election after election, right?
00:11:23
Speaker
So these realities require more engagement from communities of faith and not less. More engagement that looks like faith. that looks like us reminding people that we trust the poll chaplains to accompany people safely. We trust the election workers to administer elections fairly. We trust the system to work the way the system is supposed to work. And most of all, we trust the people to care enough about democracy that they're not going to violate it. The church has always been called to be a source of truth and courage and steady presence. And this is one more moment to live into that calling.
00:12:04
Speaker
It's a great reminder, Reverend Tracy, when I go to vote a few miles from my house, the folks that are working in that polling location are my neighbors. Yes. So what does it mean to love our neighbors well?
00:12:17
Speaker
I love this vision of how do we let all workers and everyone who works in the elections coming up this fall and and frankly every year primary in general we see them they're our neighbors and we're called to love our neighbors and thank them for what they do i love that vision i know uh earlier this summer you were part of a very large quick mobilization in alabama following a decision on
Multiracial and Interfaith Voting Rights Gathering
00:12:43
Speaker
voting rights. And I wonder if you could just describe what led you to go to, I believe it was Montgomery and maybe Selma as well. and And how people responded and what was the message of that gathering? And it again, it was a rapid response gathering around voting and elections.
00:13:00
Speaker
Well, there were many responses, and most of them were that we are not going to take a disruption in the voting process laying down, that we are going to fight for the protection of our elections. But the most impactful piece of that for me, ah Troy, was that we convened clergy to begin in Selma and not Montgomery. So Montgomery started three hours later, but at eight o'clock in the morning, We convened in Selma to pray together, and we prayed multiracially, we played prayed interfaith, we prayed multigenerationally, and it was true that there were no campaign speeches.
00:13:47
Speaker
It was just one person after another praying for this moment, praying for this nation. It was incredibly powerful. And I was surprised that even Congress people showed up at eight in the morning to pray with us. They didn't have anything to say. They weren't on program just to pray, right? So many denominations were were represented. And even though that was on a Friday,
00:14:13
Speaker
We had representation from from our Jewish neighbors as well. We had representation from our Muslim neighbors. And we had about eight people join us for prayer who had done the original Bloody Sunday march that were still alive.
00:14:30
Speaker
I was so moved in that, you know, I don't exercise, Troy. You're always on a walking machine. You convict me. I'm working on it. I'm trying to get me a Peloton now.
00:14:41
Speaker
But and I'm not in the best of physical shape like that. And I was so moved by that hour of prayer that when they said we were going to walk to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which was about a mile and a half from the church,
00:14:54
Speaker
I started out that walk just purely fueled by spirit. And then halfway through, the spirit ran out, and I was then fueled by shame of these older people who were still walking, and I was huffing and puffing.
00:15:08
Speaker
So I think that the message of that march for those who only went to Montgomery and certainly for the for the faith leaders who came to Selma is that we're in this together.
00:15:19
Speaker
It wasn't a Black march. It wasn't a white march. It was just people who care about democracy. And it was so successful that we got calls to do the same kind of prayer visual revivals all over. And that's one of the tasks that Faith Out Loud is taking on. So we're having replications of those prayer meetings in all the cities that we are serving in this moment.
00:15:46
Speaker
That's beautiful. And yeah for those listening, if you've never been to Selma Montgomery, my friend and co-founder of Undivided, Chuck Mingo, talks about it as the holy land and the United States, where just that the saints and the blood they've shed and the witness and example of leadership is so poignant there. And Edmund Pettus Bridge, where blood was shed for the right to vote, that is a powerful, not just image, but reminder for us.
Vision for Politics with Integrity
00:16:15
Speaker
So, Reverend Tracy, a last question. What would a healthy, faithful culture of civic participation look like in our communities today?
00:16:27
Speaker
Oh, Troy. a healthy, faithful culture of civic community for me would look like rich and thoughtful and accurate discussion and debate about issues.
00:16:45
Speaker
without personal attacks, without character assassinations. It would look like less lobby money coming in to throw off balance the voice of people.
00:16:59
Speaker
It would look like ah politicians being public servants called to answer in community for the decisions that they make.
00:17:11
Speaker
It would look like ah people running from inside of communities and not outside of communities. It would look like integrity.
00:17:22
Speaker
It would look like I am a person of faith. Faith matters to me. i don't want to be governed by someone else's relationship with God. But I do want to know that people are governed by a moral compass that includes a command for dignity for all people. And that's what it would look like to me. I don't do election protection because I worship democracy. I don't. I do election protection because I worship a God who insists that every person bears divine divinity.
00:18:01
Speaker
And any society that takes dignity seriously must also take participation and engagement seriously. so that's what I wish for. I wish for more freedom to vote and you know less obstacles to voting.
Historical Context of Voting Rights
00:18:18
Speaker
I preached at Ebenezer Baptist Church yesterday. Just for clarity, that's where Dr. King grew up. Where Dr. King grew up and where Senator Warnock is now pastor, though he's on sabbatical. And yesterday seemed to be family reunion day, Troy.
00:18:34
Speaker
And one of the families that was present was the family of Emmett Till. Oh, my goodness. And the one surviving member of that family who witnessed Emmett Till being kidnapped was in worship yesterday. He's 85 years old.
00:18:52
Speaker
ah He doesn't live in Atlanta. They just came there because they were ah having their family reunion. They came as a family. And I've been sitting with that all morning that because we live these rapid lives with news news alerts coming every day, history looks far away.
00:19:16
Speaker
But history was just yesterday, right? And so... It just did something to me. and And I don't know why it's it's causing me to remember it in this moment that, you know, a time when voting restrictions were used to quell of fear was just yesterday.
00:19:41
Speaker
Was just yesterday. And there are still people alive today who have already counted jelly beans. and who've already read and read and read, and who've already had to recite the preamble to the Constitution, and who've already had to prove with many documents that they deserved a voice in this country.
00:20:08
Speaker
It was just yesterday. Yeah, I read a book earlier this year called The Invention of Yesterday, that has this line that the present does not deserve the authority it enjoys.
00:20:22
Speaker
Oh, that's a powerful line. Who said that? His last name is Ansari, A-N-S-A-R-Y, historian. But he basically says, we always think today is the worst it's been or we're going off a cliff.
00:20:36
Speaker
But we have to remember, and i that story of Emmett Till's family member, probably his cousin being there to worship yesterday, is just a powerful reminder that we are standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before.
Faith Out Loud and Civil Dialogue
00:20:51
Speaker
i'm Reverend Tracy, if someone wants to follow you, follow the work of Faith Out Loud, how can they do Sure. Well, Faith Out Loud has a web website, www.faithoutloud.org.
00:21:03
Speaker
ah Very simple to remember. I'm on Facebook. I'm on Threads. I'm on Instagram. And it's always by my name. And I welcome conversation with anyone who wants to have conversation. We also have a podcast on Faith Out Loud that CC Jones Davis runs calls just people talking on a podcast.
00:21:27
Speaker
And that's about reaching across the aisle with people who may have different ideologies, but who claim the same God. And so having conversations in ah in a way that is civil and respectful to hear one another's side and so that we don't forget to be human in the process.
00:21:48
Speaker
Now, Troy, when this podcast is over, you have to text me the name of that book because now I have to read it. Oh, yeah. and Well, our mutual friend Rami suggested it to me. It's called The Invention of Yesterday.
00:22:00
Speaker
And it is long. It is long. It is a 50,000-year history of the world. wow So, be ready. It'll be good maybe yeah for for some late summer
Conclusion and Acknowledgments
00:22:12
Speaker
readings.
00:22:12
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for listening to the CCDA podcast. Thank you, Reverend Tracy, for joining us today. If you want to learn more about CCDA or the Faithful Witness campaign that Undivided is partnering with CCDA on, you can get involved. You can check out the show notes in this episode.
00:22:32
Speaker
It's faithfulwitness.us to find out more. Don't forget to to subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:22:43
Speaker
The episode is produced by Sarah Collin in association with Christina Fore. And we'll be back soon with another episode featuring CCD practitioners who are committed to seeing people in communities experience God's Shalom.
00:22:57
Speaker
And just so you know, this is Troy Jackson. I am not running for Senate in Maine. I'm not a partisan effort in any Same name, different people. I'm coming to you from Ohio.
00:23:10
Speaker
It's great to be here. Thanks, Reverend Tracy. Thanks, Cece. Thank you, Troy. Have good evening, everyone.