Georgia on My Mind: The New Fight for Voting Rights

During the 2020 presidential election, Georgia was the epicenter in the battle for voting rights.  While right-wing politicians, led by the former President, tried to suppress and challenge votes from African Americans and other communities of color, civil rights organizations mobilized voters in unprecedented numbers–leading to the election of Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, the first Black senator from the South.

Join us for a conversation with two Mesa Refuge alums—Dr. Robert Franklin, who has worked many decades for racial justice and voting rights in Georgia, and our interviewer, veteran Oakland Tribune columnist Brenda Payton Jones—about the vicious assault on voting rights in the South and the vital work to preserve democracy today.

Robert M. Franklin, PhD, is president-emeritus of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and a senior advisor and professor at Emory University. He is the author of four books, including his recently released Moral Leadership: Integrity, Courage, Imagination (2020), which he worked on at the Mesa Refuge. He has provided commentaries for National Public Radio’s, All Things Considered and televised commentary for Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasting.

Brenda Payton Jones has been a journalist for more than 40 years. She wrote a thrice-weekly column for the Oakland Tribune for 26 years, co-produced “Your Loan is Denied,” a documentary on lending discrimination that aired on PBS’s Frontline, taught reporting and newswriting at San Francisco State University and was coordinator of the Maynard Institute’s Oakland Voices program.

Register for the event, HERE.
This event is being offered at no charge; donations go to fund our spring Change Makers fundraising campaign.