(Via AJC) The racial unrest caused by tensions over the shooting of black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., could be a rallying cry for Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts, according to the voter education committee chair for the Democratic Southern caucus.
“There is a story beneath the story in Ferguson,” chairwoman Janet May said at the Southern Caucus meeting during the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta on Friday.
May ran through the stats of the 21,000-person Missouri town: 13,000 black citizens, about 7,000 white. Five city council members– one of whom was black. Fifty-three policemen – 50 of whom were white. A white mayor.
“Do you see the picture here?” May said. “These folk don’t vote in local or midterm elections.”
She added: “Now if we can’t take that scenario and roll it into a message for our party, we just need to pack it up and go home. Because we have been grasping for a message.”
That message is particularly important in Georgia, where Democrats are relying on African American voters making up at least 30 percent of the electorate to give them a chance. Democratic prognosticators have also targeted about 800,000 likely minority voters who sat out past midterm elections. (read more)
Spike Lee, Martin Luther King III, Tom Joyner: all rousing applause. But was that appropriate at Brown funeral? http://t.co/53XKs2luvQ
— Byron York (@ByronYork) August 26, 2014