There is no surviving without organizing around the pandemic

I’m always looking for an issue to organize my community around. What is the most pressing issue right now and what can I do to create solutions. Most importantly, who can I bring onboard to said issue to help bring about change? Last year, I felt that being involved in a presidential campaign was the best thing I could do at that moment to help bring about change. We need new ideas! New bold leadership to present those ideas. Presidential candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg's message of Freedom, Security, Democracy stuck with me! “I’m all onboard!” I said to myself. "I will go to vulnerable communities and discuss what those three words meant in their lives. How can we make sure everyone is free and secure in this democracy?" I stomped through rural and urban towns and cities. I drove across the state of South Carolina and sometimes flew to meet my candidate at events to represent the campaign and to help deliver and develop the campaign’s platform with black and brown communities. 

As soon as the primaries were over for my candidate, the pandemic was settling in in our country. People were still traveling. I was too. But then there was an abrupt stop to life as we knew it. Suddenly, the organizing stopped. The surviving campaigns didn’t know what to do. Every community organizer and political operative I knew was in a state of bewilderment. The question wasn’t how do we organize now. It was how do we survive now? I immediately thought, there is no surviving without organizing around the pandemic. 

My major concern was how the pandemic was raging through the black community. With pre-existing health conditions tied to systemic racism, I knew that Covid-19 would only make it worse. I also thought of the issues we face now such as elections and the census and how these democratic actions will be severely affected by Covid-19. I knew that tools vital to our democracy such as choice and representation would be altered if we didn’t find a way to organize during the pandemic. 

I was frustrated. I knew what I needed to do but I didn’t know where to start. Alas! I received a call from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC). They said that they needed community leaders to get this Covid-19 information to the black community and asked me to be a part of their Environmental Justice Covid-19 Committee. Emphatically, I said “Yes!”

I immediately started throwing ideas at them. Social distancing challenges. Religious messaging to the black church and none of those suggestions were acknowledged. I then realized that they just wanted me and others on the committee to send Covid-19 safety educational materials to our networks. I did just that. I emailed the flyers and distributed them at protests, as well as sharing it on social media. But nope. Though it was great work. I didn’t feel like it was enough for me. More needed to be done and I needed support. 

A friend of mine, Chris Richardson called me and connected me to his former colleague US Diplomat, Ben Lazarus. He was reaching out because he needed to connect with advocates on the ground. My friend referred him to me because I was on the DHEC Environmental Justice Covid-19 Committee. He offered End Coronavirus to me and it was exactly what I was looking for without me knowing what to look for. Having experts guiding our organizing efforts has helped us with partnerships with government entities, organizations, and community leaders. Organizing volunteers around an unknown situation was and continues to be a challenge. Participants have competing priorities which hinders consistent participation. However, being in a state where there's a huge vulnerable population, you must be patient. The progress has been slow but steady and we could not be here without the amazing work from my team in South Carolina who are all dedicated and committed to this project. I could not do this without them. 

Throughout the spring and summer, the advice that our team and the community has received is incomparable. Government agencies we usually rely on are inconsistent and not unforthcoming about Covid-19 data and information for various reasons. Organizations, elected officials and restaurant owners have all expressed their gratitude for having science-based information from ECV. I am glad that the campaigns, supporting organizations, and the community finally found a way to organize around elections digitally. While I am assisting them, I decided most of my efforts would be centered around organizing communities to fight against Covid-19. In doing so, I am in the fight for life, liberty and the pursuit of democracy.