This is part of WTOP’s continuing coverage of people making a difference from our community authored by Stephanie Gaines-Bryant. Read more of that coverage.
Youth voter turnout, which has traditionally been low, was higher than usual during the last election cycle despite a global pandemic and voter challenges. But, what will it look like this time around?
In D.C., Howard University junior Kyra Patterson, a fellow with the Next Generation Leadership Institute, says they’ve been working hard to inform students, especially African American students, about the importance of getting out to vote.
“We would be doing our ancestors a disservice if we didn’t vote,” she said. “People have died. Blood was shed for this.”
The Institute is part of a group called “In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda.” That initiative focuses on lifting up the voices of black women nationally and regionally through partnerships.
Patterson, a political science major from Indianapolis, Indiana, says the two most important issues to her are reproductive justice and environmental injustice. She says she believes her right to bodily autonomy is being stripped away from her due to the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade last summer.
She says environmental injustice is also a major concern.
“Communities of color, particularly black communities, are more susceptible to getting chronic illnesses as a result of being exposed to pollution and toxic waste,” Patterson said.
Patterson, who is hoping to become an attorney, then venture into politics, says the students she talks to express similar concerns. She says students are also concerned about reproductive justice and with LGBTQ Rights. She says although the school has opened up an LGBTQIA Resource Center, that community still faces many challenges.
What’s her message to students who are apathetic about voting?
“Even though it seems like it doesn’t matter, it does matter,” she said. “It matters locally, it matters statewide and it matters nationally.”
Check out more about “In Our Own Voice.”
