Civil Rights Movement foot soldiers will join Birmingham-area high school students Saturday in an intergenerational effort to defend voting rights and encourage civic participation.
The effort will take place Saturday, June 27, beginning at 9 a.m., with phone banking at Foot Soldiers HQ, 1707 Fourth Avenue North, in Birmingham’s historic Fourth Avenue Business District. Participants will call residents to discuss the importance of voting and build support for renewed voting rights advocacy. Organizers are encouraging volunteers to bring a tablet or laptop.
At the same time, about 30 Birmingham-area high school members of Phi Kappa Sigma High School Fraternity will gather at the Collegeville Community Center, 3029 29th Avenue West, for a community canvassing event. Students from Ramsay, Pleasant Grove, Minor, McAdory, Bessemer City, Clay-Chalkville, Hueytown and Parker high schools are expected to take part.
The students will knock on doors and speak with residents about civic engagement, connecting a new generation of young Black leaders with veterans of the movement that helped change the nation.
Organizers said the event is a response to ongoing efforts to restrict voting access and to the lasting effects of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, which weakened key protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The decision struck at the heart of the federal preclearance system, which had long required certain states and localities with histories of racial discrimination in voting to receive federal approval before changing election laws. For many voting rights advocates, the ruling marked a turning point in the modern fight over ballot access.
Saturday’s effort is designed to show that the struggle for voting rights is an unfinished obligation.
“There’s something powerful about seeing a foot soldier in their 70s and a 17-year-old student fighting for the same thing,” said Bryan Jenkins, fraternity adviser. “This isn’t history, this is now. Our foot soldiers fought too hard for the right to vote, and we can’t sit back and watch it being dismantled. We’re passing the torch to the next generation, and they’re ready to carry it.”
The event is powered by The People’s Project, a collaborative community initiative led by neighborhood association presidents, activists, faith leaders and civil rights organizations. The group’s mission is to spur civic engagement and bring residents into the public life of their communities.
For Birmingham, the symbolism is hard to miss.
The city’s young people helped force America to confront the brutality of segregation during the Civil Rights Movement. Now, another generation of students is being asked to understand that the right to vote, once won, must still be protected.
Saturday’s events will place those generations side by side: movement veterans who carried the fight before them and students being called to carry it forward.
