When we first settled on Citizen Joy as a name, we assumed that we were hardly the first group to emphasize the importance of joy in motivating people to participate in civic life.
I recently ran across a Seattle-based organization with a webpage promoting “The Joy of Voting.” The organization is Citizen University, co-founded by Eric P. Liu. This article touches on many of the points which we have been making at Citizen Joy.
On its home page, Citizen University says that the organization is “focused on equipping citizens around the country with the tools, ideas, and relationships needed to make civic culture change take root — all with a strong dose of civic spirit.”
Eric P. Liu is a co-founder of CU. Liu was Deputy Assistant to President Clinton for Domestic Policy at the White House between 1999 and 2000. He was also Speechwriter and Director of Legislative Affairs for the National Security Council at the White House from 1993 to 1994. Liu is the CEO of Citizen University and has lectured widely online and off on motivating people to become more active citizens.
Here’s the text from “The Joy of Voting,” which was posted on June 19, 2019:
“I have a radical proposition,” wrote Eric Liu in 2016. “Let’s bring back the joy of voting.”
I know what you’re thinking. Joy? In our political climate of stress and fear and anger?
“It helps to remember a time in American when voting was fun,” he continues. “When it meant much more than a grim burden. That time is called most of American history. From the Revolution through the civil rights era, the United States had a culture of voting that was robustly, raucously participatory. It was about festivals, street theater, open-air debates, toasting and fasting, parades and bonfires.”
Of course voting was initially restricted to white men. But with each painfully earned expansion of the franchise, a creative culture of voting took hold.
During the 19th century, immigrants and urban political machines fueled this spirit of communal campaign participation. During Reconstruction new black citizens celebrated in Jubilee Day parades that linked emancipation to the right to vote.
But now, decades of continued cultural oppression and mind- and body-numbing television and the Internet have killed much of that joyful culture of voting. The couch has replaced the commons, and the screen has made most citizens spectators.
Why bother voting? Because there’s no such thing as not voting, as Eric shares in his TED talk. In a democracy, not voting is voting—for all that you may detest and oppose in person in loud and passionate ways. That means instead of “eat your vegetables or “do your duty,” voting should feel more like “join the club.” Or better yet, “Join the celebration.”
Catalyzing joy
So, in 2016, our team here at Citizen University launched a project called the Joy of Voting with our friends at the Knight Foundation.
We invited artists, activists, designers and educators in Wichita, Akron, Miami, and Philadelphia to come up with projects that foster a local culture of voting.
In Miami that meant neighborhood block parties with DJs for people standing in line at early voting locations.
In Akron, it meant local actors performing political plays in the bed of a pickup truck that goes from neighborhood to neighborhood.
In Philadelphia, it was a festival of music and food from around the world to celebrate the first vote of newly naturalized citizens.
Remembering Joy in Voting
I still remember enjoying the first time I voted, in 1968 in a precinct in my hometown of Norfolk, Virginia. I thought Nixon was not worthy of the office, even though all the polls were showing that he was likely to win. But as a strong opponent of the Vietnam War, I didn’t want to vote for Vice President Humphrey either, given his role in supporting the war. But there was a candidate who was not only an outspoken opponent of the war, but also a leader in the civil rights movement, Dick Gregory. He ran as a write-in candidate of the Freedom and Peace Party.
So when I went to the polls, I wrote in Dick Gregory. I knew that he had no chance of winning, but I was smiling when I came out of the voting booth. It made me happy to think that there would be at least one vote on the record in my precinct that was clearly against the war.
When the state posted the election results, I saw that there were 2 votes for Gregory in the precinct. For many months, I wondered who the other Gregory supporter might be. I asked around, with no luck. Months later, in a casual conversation with Reuben, a neighbor and the father of my best friend from first grade, he mentioned that he had voted for Dick Gregory, solving the mystery. In an odd sort of way, there was something very comforting about learning that someone from my parent’s generation whom I had known since I was six had voted for Gregory too.
If you’ve got a story about a time when voting brought you joy, add a comment.
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