Greene County Democrat

Tag: Barbara Arnwine

  • Newswire : 1700 ‘Good Trouble Lives On’ events held across the nation on July 17

    Barbara Arnwine, president/CEO of the Transformative Justice Coalition, at a ‘Good Trouble Still Lives On’ Rally in Chicago.

    By Hamil Harris
     

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – When U. S. Rep. John Lewis died on July 17, 2020, instead of somber memorial services, his family and civil rights leaders and activists held rallies and marches and got into what he had described as “good trouble,” meaning pushing for truth and justice even when it means taking a risk.
    Five years later, in his memory and honor, “Good Trouble Lives On,” a string of protest events took place in more than 1,700 communities across the country July 17. A growing coalition of leaders says their ranks are growing to challenge President Trump’s agenda and hopefully restore crucial public policies that he and his administration have destroyed.
    “We had more than 1700 events across the country Thursday night, and it was beautiful,” said Barbara Arnwine, president/CEO of the Transformative Justice Coalition, and a co-leader of Good Trouble Lives On.
    The flagship event for Good Trouble Lives On was held in Chicago with other rallies in major cities like Atlanta, St. Louis and Washington, DC, but also in many smaller venues like Annapolis, Md.; Portland, Ore.; and San Diego, Calif.
    “People said that it couldn’t be done because they are too angry and were skeptical,” Arnwine said. “But we started to organize and people, Black and White, took to the streets.”
    “This is what Democracy looks like,” said Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, during the Chicago rally. “Congressman John Lewis, a man who put his body on the line for Justice. There are times when we must defy the status quo and push back against unjust laws and that time is now.”
    One of the common themes about the Good Trouble Lives On events is that they are positive, diverse, and upbeat. In Washington, DC Rep. Al Green said in a TV interview that the march that Rep. Lewis led across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 was the “crown jewel of the City Rights Movement.”
    In New York City, protesters marched and chanted, “We want justice, we want peace, we want ICE off our streets!”
    In Deland, Fla., protesters yelled “This is what Democracy looks like!” and in St. Louis, Denise Lieberman, director of the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition, said, “We are standing up for the freedom of all people.”
    While many events are held in Washington DC, Arnwine said she planned for a “flagship,” event to be held in Chicago because she had strong support from city officials as well as labor and Civil Rights leaders.
    The Mayor of Chicago spoke and even the Rev. Jackson came in his wheelchair alongside labor and civil rights leaders,” said Arnwine, noting that there were major turnouts in other cities.
    “Chicago as chosen as the national flagship because of its bold and defiant Mayor Brandon Johnson, because it is the headquarters of Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and it’s a union town,” Arnwine said. “It also has great voting rights organizations and a wonderful chapter of Indivisible,” a progressive movement and organization that has vowed to fight against infringements upon civil rights gains.
    In Alabama, there were rallies in the cities of Dothan, Mobile, Tuscaloosa, Montgomery, Birmingham and Huntsville. In Selma, there was a rally at the National Voting Rights Museum on Highway 80, near the spot where John Lewis was beaten on Bloody Sunday in 1965. This was a prelude to a larger statewide demonstration on August 6, 2025 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the signing of the 1965 Voting Rights Acts and to continue the struggle to update and extend the provisions of the VRA which have been invalidated in recent years by Supreme Court decisions and state legislative acts.
    Arnwine says she is expecting the events to continue and grow, including additional rallies later this summer. In August a rally for voting rights, a labor rally in September as well as a rally in support of the Constitution.
    “Transformative Justice Coalition is pleased that more than 1,700 activations took place on July 17th through rallies, teach-ins and marches now planned across America’s communities and neighborhoods in the spirit of getting in ‘good trouble’. This has been created in honor of the late Congressman John Lewis, who coined the phrase ‘Good Trouble.’” Arnwine said. “John Lewis once famously quipped, ‘If not now, when. If not us, then who?’”
    We are determined to reach and activate every American impacted by the poorly thought-out, poorly calculated, and callous budget bill passed on our country’s 249th birthday.
    While the majority of people impacted by these cuts are White, it will also have a significant impact on Black, Brown, and other communities of color.
    “The nature of the struggle has changed. It’s a different era that requires a different response ,”  Arnwine said. “The beautiful thing is that we are under attack, but we have each other’s backs and there is more good trouble to come.”
     

  • Newswire: At least 10 million new Black voters likely headed to polls Nov. 8

    Barbara Arnwine, president/founder of the Transformative Justice Coalition,
    helps a student register to vote during the Arc of Justice Votercade.

    By Dr. Barbara A. Reynolds

    (TriceEdneyWire.com) – If pollsters believe African-Americans are too overwhelmed, distracted or disinterested to vote in the mid-term and 2024 national elections Nov. 8, they have neither heard nor seen the Arc of Justice 22 city votercade that started in Minneapolis on October 8 and recently finished in a celebration village in Jacksonville, Fla. with the goal of Ar registering 10 million more Black voters.
    Civil Rights advocate and lawyer, Barbara Arnwine, head of the Transformative Justice Coalition is the president, visionary and conductor of the tour—which featured king-sized colorful buses with photos of the patron saint of voting, Rep. John Lewis, and the logos of Operation Push, the National Newspaper Publishers Association, some of the sponsors, on its side. Following the bus were scores of cars, lights-flashing, horns blowing , and energetic voices calling all to “Get out to vote.”
    The buses showed up on crowded city streets, on Black college campuses and in rural villages where few thought about voting until the big buses showed up to make sure they knew that midterm votes matter. The votercade purposely chose routes that historically had low turnouts, but by the excitement the tour created that might be about to change.
    “Voting is a celebration, everyone wins, when Americans can honor their constitutional right to vote,” says Arnwine.
    In addition, at various stops, the Arnwine group gave books that in several White school districts were banned because they featured stories about people of color, slavery or civil rights that made White people uncomfortable. Arnwine and the tour have created so much national excitement about voting, the most powerful non-violence change agent Americans possess, that she was called to Los Angeles to tape the Dr. Phil show to remind the nation how crucial the midterm and national elections are in exercising the most fundamental right of an American citizen—and the dangers of losing it.
    What did the nationwide Arc of Justice tour accomplish?
    Arnwine pointed to Georgia, one of the most oppressive states in the nation for Black voters, where her coalition and the votercade made a major difference. “Just recently they had the largest voter turnout for a midterm election ever,” she said. “Blacks are defiant in Georgia, the heavy turnout for the midterm was equivalent to the first day of the presidential election. And that had never happened.”
    Pointing to another significant turnabout in Georgia, she pointed to Marcus Arbery, the father of
    Ahmaud Aubery, a 25-year-old Black man, who while jogging, was murdered by three White men, who have been convicted of the crime. She said that much of the family had not voted before Ahmaud’s death, but now they were with the motorcade, registering people to vote. “They have connected justice to voting, I am proud of that family.”
    In Milwaukee, one of the poorest cities in the nation, they had a polling place, where few usually showed up to vote she said. But they had more people turning out to vote in that one day that the tour bus was there in their entire voting season.
    College campuses provide a gold-mine for registering new voters, according to Arnwine. Morgan State, South Carolina State, and North Carolina Central are just a few college campuses the votercade rolled up on. “At one college we found that 40 percent of the college students were unregistered. We were able to register scores of them. If we had not been there, would they have registered?” Arnwine also said the group had trained scores of millennials –those between 18 and 35—on voter registration and they are already plying their skills. “We need to invest more in our young people. They are vital to get out the vote drives.”
    College campuses then, are places where more aggressive voter registration drives should be centered. This is because the vote will determine whether affirmative action which helps so many go to colleges and find employment will be stopped; whether police killing of unarmed Blacks will continue unabated, and where mobs of White supremacists terrorism will continue to rise.
    Other groups on the votercade also added perspective. Bishop Tavis Grant, acting executive director of the Rainbow Push Coalition, asked “Why are laws making it harder to vote than to get an assault weapon? Why is it so dangerous for Black people to vote? That is because voting shifts the power scale. If our vote was not important, racists wouldn’t be trying so hard to resist it.”
    Dr. Georgia Dunston, a nationally respected scientist, is voting rights committee chair of Black Women for Positive Change, which in collaboration with the Arc of Justice coalition sponsored a votercade in Norfolk, Va. and Richmond Va. Dunston says that democracy is on the ballot and if Trump and the Republican controlled Congress wins, it will be the end of our constitutional form of government, which will result in anarchy, a civil war. Trump has already indicated that if the GOP loses or if he is indicted, his people will rise, so that could mean blood in the streets. Well, Blacks are not going back to where White supremacists want to take us and neither are women, who would no longer have control over their own bodies if Trumpism wins. Civil war might be inevitable, although I am hopeful that won’t be the case.”
    Dr. Dunston, along with Dr. Stephanie Myers, co-chair of BWPC, have designed a voter pledge card that they believe will help with the overall goal of gaining millions of new voters. It is called the John Lewis Good Trouble Voters Right Pledge. To encourage people to vote, gift cards are to be given to those who can return the most signed pledge cards. For more information see: Blackwomenforpositivechange.org.”