This is a transcript of an interview with Sister District Organizing and Political Director Jarvis Houston that originally appeared on Instagram Live. Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity. To watch the full video, view it on Sister District Instagram.
Ariana Rodriguez:
Today we’re talking to Jarvis Houston, Sister District’s new organizing and political director. Jarvis has a pretty impressive background. He is a longtime organizer, and most recently worked in the Democratic presidential primary and then helped elect President Biden. He ran the nation’s first black business “get out the vote” operation, with an organization called I Love Black People.
So Jarvis, can you tell us about how you helped elect President Biden?
Jarvis Houston:
Most recently I served as the South Carolina State Director for former South Bend mayor and our current Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.
South Carolina was one of the best opportunities I’ve ever had. South Carolina has a lot of issues, but one of the main issues that we focused on is broadband access. Unfortunately, today, thousands of kids in South Carolina do not have broadband access. That means those kids are not e-learning right now – they don’t have broadband or the opportunity to own a laptop, and because of COVID, libraries are closed.
After the campaign, I started working with an organization called I Love Black People. It’s a black tech startup that uses technology to protect black people from racism. It’s about providing safe places – black-friendly, black owned businesses.
The idea is similar to during the civil rights movement, when my great-grandparents and my grandparents used the Green Book. The Green Book was a booklet that African-American used to travel throughout the country in safe spaces. 40, 45 years later, still because of systemic racism, we have to have a digital “Green Book” to protect black people from racism.
For example, our dear brothers George Floyd and Michael Brown each went into businesses that they thought were friendly. Those businesses called the police on them and they lost their lives.
At I Love Black People, we ran the first ever black business get-out-the-vote drive in battleground areas like Milwaukee, Flint, Miami, Cleveland, and Cincinnati. We helped black business owners speak to their customers about voting, including providing information about provisional ballots and about polling locations.
We helped register voters, and we helped mobilize 500,000 new African-American voters in all the battleground states that helped push President Biden over the finish line with our dear sister Vice President Kamala Harris. We also worked in Georgia to elect Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.
Ariana Rodriguez:
That is incredible. It’s so important to uplift how black and brown voters made the 2020 election for the Democrats. But we are still fighting in the states as we are seeing terrible anti-voting bills, anti-abortion bills, and so on.
What would you say about why it’s so important to stay involved year-round, even though Trump is out of office?
Jarvis Houston:
We have to do this for our ancestors, and we have to do it for our great-grandparents. But we also have to do it for our great, great, great, grand-children that aren’t even here today.
We have to look at the past, at the future, but also at the now. We must continue to educate voters, because before you register people to vote and before you get out the vote, you have to educate people about why they’re voting. If you have a “why,” the “how” to always takes care of itself.
For 400 years, systemic racism has been a really black eye on this country. It’s only been a hundred years since white women were allowed to vote. That’s a very short time. States like Georgia are creating new Jim Crow laws to make sure that African-Americans and people of color are not allowed to vote – laws which are being passed just this year in 2021.
As P-Diddy said, “We can’t stop, we won’t stop.”
Ariana Rodriguez:
That made me emotional. You said we have to remember our past, but also our future. I remember my grandma, barely able to speak English, but telling me, “Mija, you have to go vote.”
Even though sometimes she didn’t vote because she couldn’t, she always reminded me of my responsibility.
It isn’t just us when we go into that ballot box. It’s all the brown and black bodies who worked really hard to get us there, and all of our future generations who need us to be there.
Jarvis Houston:
Correct. My great-grandfather was in the military. My grandfather was a Marine and my father was in the Army. Not only did they serve their country, they also voted. Unfortunately, my great-grandfather went to war and he came back to racism in this country, even though he fought for his country.
So until I can walk down the street and see a police officer without feeling like I might die, we still have to get out to vote.
Our city councilmen and our state legislators decide budgets, including police budgets. We vote for them. We vote for the controllers that decide about our tax bills. In some cases we vote for our prosecutors and judges. So we have to stay local and vote on the right people because our local elections decide our lives, and our lives should not be decided by our zip codes.
Ariana Rodriguez:
Yes, absolutely. People are often are more focused on Congress. But we need to stop bad legislators at the local and state level, before they can make it to Congress and before they can make it to the presidency.
Jarvis Houston:
All politics start local. It all starts local.
Ariana Rodriguez:
So you’re talking about the power of voting, but what would you tell people that want to go a little farther than just voting? What do we at Sister District have going on right now in Virginia? How can they get more involved?
Jarvis Houston:
Everyone knows Virginia’s past. Virginia was a proud member of the Confederacy. Finally, two years ago, the Democrats took back the majority in the Assembly. We have a Democratic governor. We have Democratic state reps, and they’ve voted in laws including increasing the minimum wage, legalizing marijuana, and starting to take down these Confederate statues that never should have been built in the first place. And that’s because we got the majority in Virginia two years ago, but easily as we won the majority, we can lose the majority in Virginia in 2021.
We’ve endorsed nine candidates, mostly candidates of color. I ask everyone seeing this to make a phone call, canvass, send a text message, send a telegram. Do something to help these nine candidates. We plan to endorse about three more candidates after the Democratic primary on June 8. We have already started fundraising. We have raised over $50,000 and we have some of the best volunteers and teams all over, including Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, the Bay Area, all over the country.
Our main goal is to make sure we elect progressive people that have progressive values that can actually change lives.
Ariana Rodriguez:
In Virginia, our Democratic trifecta passed a historic voting rights act. That is the complete opposite of what is going on in Georgia. We can’t emphasize enough how important it is to donate to our Virginia candidates and to get on the phones. We have staff who will guide you through it, who make it so easy for you to help our Virginia candidates get elected.
Jarvis Houston:
I’m glad you mentioned the voting rights laws that were passed in Virginia. We have two parallels. We have Georgia being with a Republican majority, which passed laws that took us a step back. I call them the new Jim Crow laws, because that’s what it is. And then we have Virginia, which two years ago achieved a Democratic majority, and they are able to expand voting rights to make sure that everyone has the right to vote.
One of our candidates is Nancy Guy. She won by 41 votes two years ago. That means 41 people getting up in the morning and saying, “You know what? I’m going to vote today because it’s important.” Just 41 people.
41 people are the reason Nancy Guy is our state delegate in Virginia. 41 people are the reason why Virginia has the majority. 41 people are the reason why minimum wage has increased in Virginia. So think of that number and know that your vote is going to count.
Ariana Rodriguez:
I did not know it was that small of a margin! I’m thinking I need to go get on the phone for her right now.
Jarvis Houston:
Most people have 41 Facebook friends or more.
Ariana Rodriguez:
Exactly. And I think this speaks to how campaigns for Congress or the presidency have so much more going into them, and much larger budgets. But when you’re working at the state level, campaigns have way fewer staff, and your $5 donation goes so much further in the states than it would in like a federal race.
Jarvis Houston:
I once worked on a state senate race in New York. We had very limited funding – I had a staff of three people and I did all the other jobs. I was the comms person, I did fundraising. I did a little of everything, and eventually we won. That state senator helped pass a bill so that 16 and 17 year olds are not incarcerated with adults anymore in New York state.
I often tell this story – it was one of the first times I met a constituent and cried. His name was Lamar Reed. He spoke about being incarcerated at the age of 16. He was in Greenford correctional facility in New York state, where he was chained to the bed in solitary confinement, and at the age of 19, he was let out.
He said, “Jarvis, I’m here because I want us to pass a bill. I don’t want any 16 or 17 year old to feel what I felt.”
He went to the New York State Senate and spoke to the whole senate chamber about his experience. We saw senators with tears in their eyes because they had sons his age and they couldn’t imagine their son at the age of 16 being chained to a bed incarcerated.
Ariana Rodriguez:
A 16-year-old should be at prom, they should be enjoying life. They should be worried about their ACT or SAT scores. They should never be chained to a bed. Your small staff was a part of ending that practice and made a huge difference.
Going back to Virginia, can you tease some of the things that you want to do with our Virginia candidates?
Jarvis Houston:
In terms of social media, we’re going to be coming back to IG Live. We’re going to do a barbershop “hot topics” talk with brothers Alex Askew and Josh Cole. We’re going to be using social media to really engage with the crowd.
I’m not going to tease everything, but we’re going to be doing fun, exciting stuff throughout this whole summer to really educate the voters in Virginia. And we’re a national organization, so even if you’re in Alaska, you can make calls for our candidates.
It doesn’t matter where you’re at in the country, you can make a phone call for a candidate. You can send a postcard. You might have a friend in Virginia – someone from college, somebody from high school or your relative. Make a call, tell them to go out and vote. If they’re not registered to vote, tell them to register to vote. It’s very easy to vote it in Virginia, it has one of the longest early voting periods in the country.
Ariana Rodriguez:
Laws that are passed in one state travel to other states. Anti-voting laws like the ones passed in Georgia are now popping up in Florida and in Texas. But the flip side is also true – we could have good laws like those passed in Virginia go to other states. That is one of the big reasons to care about Virginia.
Jarvis Houston:
Call someone in Virginia. Go to canvass if you can this fall. Go to our website and learn more about the great work that we’re doing.
Ariana Rodriguez:
Yep. We are not going to stop. We are not going to take a break. This is year-round work. And I hope this amazing conversation with Jarvis that reminds you how important it is to keep working every year, every day.
Jarvis Houston:
Let’s move forward. Thank you.
