A Conversation with Stacey Abrams at The Pabst in Milwaukee

In Milwaukee, Stacey Abrams asked people to call Senator Ron Johnson and Senator Tammy Baldwin to voice support for the Freedom to Vote Act, and, in a candid conversation with Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and an audience at The Pabst Wednesday, she said that zip codes, race and status should not determine the quality of democracy that people experienced.

“A lot of people look at Stacey Abrams as a force of nature in politics,” said Barnes. “I like to venture a bit further and think of her as a force of nature in American culture.”

Abrams is credited with increasing voter turnout for Democrats to a historical high in Georgia during the 2020 presidential election, and her visit to Milwaukee was part of her national tour to raise awareness for voter rights and political equality.

The New Georgia Project is an organization Abrams created originally as a non-profit project in law school to improve literacy about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in under-represented Georgian communities, but it quickly evolved into a nonpartisan effort to register voters.

“We existed to get people signed up for healthcare,” Abrams said. “But what we learned in the process, is that there were tens of thousands, nearly a million Georgians, mostly African American, who had never been registered to vote.”

Abrams’s efforts in the South faced the suppression and challenges that many people no longer recognized as problematic.

“People like to think that those challenges don’t exist in the South anymore,” said Barnes. “I think that it is safe to say Stacey Abrams has transformed the South forever.”

Barnes and Abrams discussed civic engagement and the importance of getting individuals to speak up and get involved in politics in a time when Republicans ramped up voter suppression.

“Silence in a democracy is seen as consent, and when it is seen as consent, the worst actors are the ones who amplify your silence,” Abrams said. “Civic engagement is the only antidote to that abuse of your voice.”

Abrams ran in the Georgia Gubernatorial election in 2018 and lost, but loss did not take control of her goals or humanity, she instead recognized the positive results of hard work and the importance to keep going.

“I was raised to believe that in your job, if you see a problem, you fix that problem,” Abrams said. “Complaining is fine, but you better be complaining while you are doing something.”

Abrams is a published author, entrepreneur, she started multiple social justice organizations and is a political leader who served 11 years in the Georgia House of Representatives. She described her work-life balance as work-life Jenga.

“You have all these things you want to do, and you stack them up, and it looks great once you’re done with your stack, and then every day is about pulling out the piece you need,” Abrams said. “But the reality is, it’s going to fall, and if you’ve done your job well, when it collapses, you don’t collapse with it.”

Barnes read pre-submitted audience questions about early childhood education, civic engagement, media literacy, politics, voter suppression, Critical Race Theory and Black Lives Matter.

There is waning support of Black Lives Matter from white people now that neighboring suburban communities oppose Critical Race Theory (CRT) and anti-racist work presented by educators in schools.

“As an educator, don’t argue CRT, talk about what you are trying to teach, which is that you want children to understand our history,” Abrams said. “You should be fighting for the right to educate children who are capable of functioning in a multi-cultural society with a firm grasp of our history, if we do not know our history, we are doomed to repeat it.”

Voter suppression is easily recognized and should be identified when noticed.

“Can you register and stay on the rolls? Can you cast the ballot? Does your ballot get counted? Anything that impedes one or all of them is voter suppression,” Abrams said. “If they put in place laws that say you cannot register, or question how you got registered, or purge you from the rolls because you didn’t vote, that is voter suppression.”

In Milwaukee, white people look to be politically mobilized and help People of Color, but they must use care to act as an ally and not to come off as White Saviors, which is a complex that comes out when people believe they have all the answers.

“Allies ask questions, and the first question is, how can I help? Find the issue that matters to you the most and find the place where you think you can be of service,” Abrams Said. “Offer help knowing that someone may not take it, but you are a better person for making the offer.”

Ginny Justice, 49, from St. Paul, Minn. said her take away from the evening was when Abrams expressed her humility from political losses.

“For me, that seems like a basic skill that kindergarteners should be taught,” Justice said. “How to lose with grace and how you can learn from that to make you a better person.”

Heidi Sundquist, 38, from Minneapolis, remembered comments Abrams made about how community-based work can be done whether you hold a position or not and said she really enjoyed listening to Abrams speak.

“She is such an amazing speaker,” said Sundquist. “It was really just inspiring to hear her talk on so many fronts.”

Bianca Shaw, 40, from Milwaukee enjoyed hearing Abrams candidly talk about family ties, the importance of school, church and caring for each other, and Shaw emphasized her commitment to making sure her neighbors are healthy and registered to vote.

“In Milwaukee specifically, but throughout the state, we do not take care of each other at an impactful rate,” Shaw said. “There is this thing called Safe and Sound, you should know the neighbor in front of you, on back of you and on both sides of you, and that is really where we can start.”

Brittany Vulich, 31, from Mequon, Wis. said Abrams’s comments about how civic engagement is the antidote to a lot of the challenges we face was a great lesson from the event, and that fighting for voting rights is part of civic engagement.

“Last year we saw an unprecedented attack on voting rights here in Wisconsin,” Vulich said. “The GOP is trying to make early voting and vote by mail very difficult, and even making it difficult for folks to receive comfort items while waiting in line for three or four hours at a time.”

A Conversation with Stacey Abrams started crossing the nation and made Milwaukee the second of 12 cities in 10 states that Abrams announced for the tour Aug. 3, on Twitter.

I’m looking forward to hitting the road for a series of exciting conversations on politics, leadership, and social justice.

Join me this fall ➡️ https://t.co/1IpEgsVWuO pic.twitter.com/VyNs2mi6ST

— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) August 3, 2021