Canvassers Take Passion to the Streets, Urging Black Residents to Vote

Along Walnut Street in Milwaukee’s Walnut Hill neighborhood, some homes are decorated with trick-or-treat signs and pumpkins, some have wire grates over the windows, and one has bullet holes in the siding.

At each one, canvassers with Power to the Polls, a Milwaukee-based get-out-the-vote organization left a flyer that said “Black Voters Matter” across the top.

Canvassers were going door to door in this neighborhood in mid-October urging residents to vote in the November general election. Many are not frequent voters and say their neighborhoods have been forgotten by elected officials. 

“People are paying attention to what’s going on in their neighborhood and they are concerned,” said Lawrence Harris, a canvasser with Power to the Polls. “They just haven’t felt like they have the power to make a change.”

With 20 days before the Nov. 8 election, Power to the Polls hopes to get just 2-3% more of Milwaukee’s Black community to vote, a percentage that leaders of the organization say could tip Wisconsin’s statewide races toward Democrats.

In 2020, voter turnout at the state level reached 75.3%, the fourth highest turnout in the country, according to the U.S. Elections Project, but in some of Milwaukee’s predominately Black neighborhoods turnout was down, an analysis from Wisconsin Watch found.

Leaders with Power to the Polls said that this is partly because access to voting isn’t easy or equal, and because those in positions of power count on minorities becoming frustrated and giving up on voting. This is what Power to the Polls hopes to change by reminding Black Milwaukeeans that there still is power in their vote.

“You see, the game is tight. This isn’t checkers, it’s chess,” said Rev. Greg Lewis, a leader of Power to the Polls and co-founder of Souls to the Polls. “They know these people are going to be frustrated.”

Power to the Polls, formed this year, is a group working to engage voters made up of Souls to the Polls, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Voces de la Frontera. This election season, the group has held marches, rallies and other community events to encourage voting, in addition to door-to-door canvassing where they have knocked on 60,000 doors, plus 60,000 as Souls to the Polls.

“I never really thought I would have this type of impact on people,” said canvasser Deloren Sellers, who began working with Power to the Polls this year. “You’d be surprised that a lot of these people will vote, a lot of these people are registered already, they just haven’t followed through on it. What we’re doing now, we’re just reminding them, you know, the importance of voting, and just get out here and make a difference.”

Lewis cites the Voting Rights Alliance’s 61 forms of voter suppression, which include things like excessive voter purging, restrictions on early voting and language discrimination, among other things, as a primary reason voter turnout in Milwaukee’s Black neighborhoods isn’t higher.

But it’s not getting easier to vote in Wisconsin. Since 2020, Wisconsin fell from the 38th hardest place to vote to the 47th hardest, according to a study from the Election Law Journal, moving farther down the list than any other state.

Lewis said that as an organization it’s not just about helping people overcome the physical impediments to voting, but also engaging them with a system that has left them behind.

“From knocking on doors, a lot of times we are not talking to the consistent voter. We are targeting people who don’t vote,” said Stephanie Johnson, a canvassing leader with Souls to the Polls. “A lot of times their attitude is ‘why should I vote? It doesn’t matter anyways,’ but it’s up to us to let them know why their vote is important, to let them know what power their vote holds, especially if we all go together.”

On the ground in Walnut Hill, some residents said they had already sent in an absentee ballot, some hesitantly said they planned on voting, and others said they had no intention of voting.

“I’ve been getting a lot of no’s today: ‘We’re not voting at all, we’re not voting at all,'” canvasser Dorian Burns said. 

Burns started doing political work during Barack Obama’s first campaign, but he wasn’t always politically involved.

“I did get into some trouble as a kid, I was a felon, and I wasn’t able to vote for quite some time,” he said. “Once I got my voting rights back, I was eager to use them.”

At each door, Burns and the other canvassers asked which issues residents were most concerned about. Violence was a common concern, as was prison reform, minority rights and education. 

“The only time we get the funding we need is when it’s time to build another prison, and they know that,” Sellers said.

Canvassers also asked which question residents would ask their elected officials. 

“Has your mom ever been raped?” Shameka Johnson replied.

Johnson said that as a victim of sexual assault herself, abortion rights were the deciding issue in casting her absentee ballot for Democrats this year; however, she is also concerned about the economy and, while she has reservations about Donald Trump, she said she felt more economic security during his presidency. 

Power to the Polls canvassers were primarily urging people to vote, but the organization supports electing Mandela Barnes to the U.S. Senate and re-electing Gov. Tony Evers, candidates that Lewis says will advocate for Black Milwaukeeans.

“If you never play the game, you can’t win. And that’s what we’re doing, we’re in the game, trying to get at the table,” Lewis said with tears in his eyes. “But money and power will always keep you away from the table, and you know if you ain’t at the table, you’re on the menu. And that’s who we are. We’re always on the menu. It breaks your heart. To always be on the menu, never having what you need. That’s our community, man. That’s why we have to fight and never give up. Never.”

In the summer of 1967, there was a civil disturbance, what some call a riot, in Milwaukee that killed four people, one of whom was Clifford McKissick, an 18-year-old college student, and Lewis’s neighbor.

“He was the first guy to go to college off our block. We didn’t really believe that we could go to college in my neighborhood,” said Lewis, who grew up at 15th and Center streets. “And this guy went to college, and we said ‘wow, we can do it.’”

McKissick was home that summer from UW-Whitewater and refused to join his brothers and friends when they participated in riots and throwing Molotov cocktails, according to Lewis.

“He was pacing back and forth in front of his house worried about his brothers, and I was on my front porch, upstairs looking down on it,” Lewis said. “And he finally, you know, got tired and he walked in his house. He walked around the side of the house. He went in his back door and when the back door slammed, all we heard was gunshots. You could hear his mother scream for, like, blocks, ‘They shot my baby.’”

Police in the alley shot into McKissick’s home, as well as the two houses next door. They claimed that McKissick was throwing Molotov cocktails and was shot while he was running from them, but numerous witness accounts refute this. 

Lewis, who has been organizing since he was 17, said that this stuck with him and prompted him to start building a voting bloc, primarily through the church.

“That’s when I became so uncomfortable with our race relations, and it has never left,” Lewis said. “And one day I was leaving out of one of my friend’s store and he said ‘where are you going?’ I said, ‘Man I’m going to vote.’”

Leaders and canvassers are optimistic that the candidates they support have a real chance at winning their respective races, but winning the election is only part of their mission. After Nov. 8, work begins to make sure those elected change what needs to be changed in their communities, the canvassers say.

“There is no easy way. You got to work hard and can’t let the folks against you work harder than you, ” Lewis said. “—But guess what? We keep swinging, just might knock someone out.”