Left-Right: Theodore R. Johnson, PhD and Stacey Abrams during UNE's MLK Jr. Celebration
Do You Hear What I Hear?
Service can also take on a more national implication. Every January, the University observes Martin Luther King Jr. Day and celebrates his legacy through service work. In the past, COM students have championed his message by offering free blood pressure screenings, and OMM to local community members. The highlight of this year’s efforts included the talk, “A Conversation with Stacey Abrams & Theodore R. Johnson, PhD” on January 22nd. The Office of Intercultural Student Engagement brought former Georgia House Democratic leader and former Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia, Stacey Abrams, as the keynote speaker for UNE’s MLK Jr. Day Celebration.
In her introduction, Erica Rousseau, MA, Director of Intercultural Student Engagement, recognized that the land UNE inhabits once belonged to the Wabanaki people. She then addressed how Dr. King himself was a controversial figure, a “radical revolutionary” as indicated by the words he preached: “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” For King, his protest was his duty; he gave himself to the service of others, to advocate that all people deserve respect and dignity. Stacey Abrams’ fight for voting rights addresses the importance of service on both the local and national level. It parallels King’s philosophy; we can continue to do his work by putting his words into action, to aid those marginalized by unjust voting structures, literally discounted and forgotten in today’s society.
Between all three UNE campuses (Biddeford, Portland and Tangier), over 1,230 people attended the talk, including Maine Governor Janet Mills, and former state legislator, Gerald Talbot, the first person of color in the Maine State Legislature. In typical Maine fashion, it was a bitterly cold day, and Abrams had come prepared to brave the cold, packing both a coat, jacket, shawl and hand-warmers. Dr. Johnson, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice and author of the forthcoming book, When the Stars Begin to Fall, had forgotten a coat altogether.
Abrams is the founder and chair of Fair Fight 2020, a non-profit organization whose mission is to admonish voter suppression in the US. Fair Fight, “brings awareness to the public on election reform, advocates for election reform at all levels, and engages in targeted voter registration and other voter outreach programs and communications.”2 The necessity of Fair Fight reared its ugly head during the 2018 state election in Georgia. Abrams became the first black woman to earn a gubernatorial nomination for any major party, and was defeated by just 50,000 votes. During that time, Abrams’ team took over 80,000 calls pertaining to voter suppression. According to Abrams, there are three
Let ‘Em Vote, Let ‘Em Vote, Let ‘Em Vote