Voter registration information is important to know before you head to the polls to cast your ballot.

1. Check your voter registration status!

In all states (with the exception of Maine and Wyoming) voters can check their voter registration status online.

2. Register to vote!

Most states (with the exception of Texas, Maine, South Dakota, Wyoming, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Arkansas and Montana) allow online voter registration.

Visit vote.gov to register and to find additional information if your state does not allow online registration.

PS: Don’t leave it to the last minute! Many states require registration to be completed 30 days prior to election day.

3. Learn about early and absentee voting

Many states allow voting early in person or by mail-in absentee ballot. Some states allow any voter to vote early or absentee while other states have specific requirements.

Check out your state’s laws about early in-person and absentee voting.

Throughout her career, Vice President Harris has worked to combat the influx of corporate money into politics and to protect and expand voting rights. As Senator, she was a co-sponsor of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. She received an A+ from End Citizens United // Let America Vote Action Fund for her work fighting for our democracy.

Vice President Harris has led the Administration’s voting rights agenda, a role she herself requested. One of the Biden-Harris Administration’s first actions was an Executive Order that sought to provide access to voter registration and election information. It acknowledged the particular barriers faced by Black Americans and other people of color. The Executive Order directed federal agencies to:

• Find new ways to promote voter registration and participation, including by transitioning visitors from agencies’ websites to online voter registration systems and expanding multilingual voter registration information;
• Modernize Vote.gov, the government’s voter registration website;
• Ensure equal access for voters with disabilities;
• Improve access to voting for active duty military and Americans living overseas;
• Ensure access to voter registration for eligible individuals in federal custody and;
• Increase voter outreach, education, registration, and turnout in Native American communities.

VP Harris’ voting rights strategy also focuses on increasing student voter participation, establishing the Elections Threats Taskforce to protect election workers in the face of rising threats and fighting voter suppression laws through the Department of Justice’s challenges to anti-voter laws.

As Vice President, Harris repeatedly convened voting rights leaders and spoke at the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday here in Selma, once again urging Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” and “stolen” have destabilized the electoral system and sown mistrust among voters. Throughout his current presidential campaign, he has refused to state that he will respect the outcome of the election, regardless of who emerges as the winner. This month, the ACLU released a report predicting that a second Trump presidency would further erode faith in the fairness of our electoral system and disenfranchise millions.

Project 2025 and Anti-Voting Policies

You may have heard about Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project, a 920-page roadmap for a second Trump presidency, developed by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, together with some of Trump’s closest advisors and appointees.

Project 2025 is an authoritarian plan to concentrate power in the hands of the president and vastly curtail the rights of individuals, including by dismantling reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, environmental protections and protections for child laborers. Project 2025 also outlines a plan to weaken the independence of federal agencies, including the FBI, by firing nonpartisan career civil servants, such as scientists, engineers and attorneys, and replacing them with political allies loyal to the president. Here are some of the ways Project 2025 plans to directly curtail voting rights:

• The Department of Justice would be stripped of its Civil Rights Division, which is responsible for enforcing parts of the federal laws that protect the right to vote, including the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
• The US Census would include a citizenship question. The Census is a constitutional requirement conducted every ten years to to count the number of residents in the United States. The (intended) result of adding a citizenship question would be the intimidation and drastic undercounting of undocumented residents. Census data is used to allocate congressional representation, meaning that communities with large immigrant populations could lose representation in Congress. The Census also plays a central role in determining the allocation of funding and resources, which could dramatically impact the everyday lives and wellbeing of communities.

Finally, the New York Times has reported on covert efforts by right wing activists, allied with Donald Trump and calling themselves “election investigators,” to remove voters from the voting rolls in critical battleground states.

For the next four months, Foot Soldiers Park will continue its efforts to inform eligible voters of their rights, register new voters and encourage participation in the 2024 election. Our organization was founded to honor and continue the work of the Foot Soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement whose bravery and determination ensured the right to vote for all Americans. Once again, our civil rights are under threat. We urge every eligible American to register to vote, encourage their friends and families to do the same and get to the polls on Election Day or during the early voting period.

It’s been a month to remember for Ms. Bland!

On May 17th, Ms. Bland served as the keynote speaker at an event in Youngstown, OH, commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. Much like numerous cities nationwide, Youngstown grapples with the threats of academic segregation within integrated schools. During her speech, Ms. Bland drew from her early activism experiences to motivate attendees to leverage their power, positions, and influence to create “good trouble” and drive positive change. Co-hosted by the NAACP Youngstown and Mahoning County, the event was highly successful.

Following the trip to Ohio, it was on to Marion, IL where, on Tuesday, May 21st, Ms. Bland was the guest of honor at “A Conversation with Jo Ann Bland”. The evening, sponsored by the Healing Illinois Initiative and the nonprofit Connect 360, showcased Ms. Bland’s lifelong dedication to fighting for rights. Through an engaging Q&A session held at The Pavilion in Marion, approximately 200 guests gained deeper insights into Ms. Bland’s remarkable journey.

At the end of the event, Ms. Bland received two proclamations. The first was from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who declared May 21, 2024, as Jo Ann Bland Day in the State of Illinois. The second was from the City of Marion. A heartfelt thanks to the Healing Illinois initiative and Connect 360 for providing this invaluable platform to shed light on the need to preserve our precious past and build our future.

No one tells the story like Ms. Bland and the foot soldiers who lived through the movement. As always, we invite all of our readers to visit Selma and see for yourself on one of our Journeys for the Soul tours. The three-hour tours, personally conducted by Ms. Bland and other foot soldiers, can cater to any group size, from private tours to larger bus groups. Participants frequently report how quickly time flies, a testament to the engaging storytelling and passion. Additionally, Ms. Bland and her sister, Mrs. Lynda Lowery, offer lectures. For more information on booking and pricing, prospective visitors can visit the Journeys for the Soul website here.

The United States incarcerates more people than any other nation in the world. More than 2.3 million Americans are now incarcerated – and 37% of them are Black. In total, 13% of all Black Americans are incarcerated and 1 in 3 Black boys born today will spend time in prison, compared to 1 in every 17 white boys. The United States has long disenfranchised individuals convicted of crimes and in 2022, 4.6 million Americans were barred from voting.

All states deny the right to vote during incarceration and state policies on the enfranchisement of the formerly incarcerated vary widely: Some automatically reinstate voting rights following release while other deny the right to vote until the parole or probation period is complete or require a Governor’s pardon or additional action before voting rights are restored. (It should be noted that in the District of Columbia, those convicted of a felony never lose their right to vote.)

But advocates for the rights of felons and the formerly incarcerated have made substantial inroads and since 1997, over 2 million Americans have had their voting rights restored. Foot Soldiers Park supports the right of all justice-impacted individuals to cast their ballot. We are committed to working in Alabama and across the country to inform those convicted of a felony about their voting rights and to advocate for reforms that expand voting rights for those who have experienced incarceration.

Further Reading on Mass Incarceration:

• American Civil Liberties Unions: Mass Incarceration: An Animated Series

Further Reading on Felon Disenfranchisement:

• National Conference of State Legislatures: Felon Voting Rights
• The Sentencing Project: Expanding the Vote: State Felony Disenfranchisement Reform, 1997-2023

In 2023, three federal judges determined that South Carolina’s gerrymandered First Congressional District voting map was racially motivated and constituted a “bleaching of African American voters” from the district.

The revised map moved more than two-thirds of Black Charlestonians out of the county. Now, the conservative-leaning Supreme Court has decided that the voting map can remain in place. This decision will help normalize racial gerrymandering and make it harder for voting maps to be challenged in the court of law.

Since 2010, the Supreme Court’s decisions have steadily eroded free and fair elections in this country:

• In 2010 the court presided over Citizens United, which enabled corporations to boost their interests at the expense of the interests of everyday Americans. By pouring billions of dollars into candidate elections, corporations gained the ability to influence the policy decisions of lawmakers
• In 2013, the court ripped the heart out of the Voting Rights Act, dismantling Section 5, which required nine mostly Southern states with a history of racially discriminatory voting policies to obtain federal approval before making changes to their voting laws and processes. (The Brennan Center for Justice has shown that the gap between white and nonwhite voter turnout has grown steadily since)
• And in 2019, it ruled that federal courts are barred from hearing partisan gerrymandering cases, allowing ever more flagrantly partisan voting maps

It’s easy to feel helpless in the face of these assaults on our electoral system. But every opportunity we have to cast our vote is an opportunity to elect justices and other officials who are committed to upholding our democracy.

In the May issue of Footprints, we introduced Y.O.U.R.S. (You Owning Up to your Responsibilities to the System), a new initiative designed to engage young people coming of voting age into the process yielded 72 newly registered voters. Since then, the initiative has taken off like wildfire!

During Ms. Bland’s recent trip to Ohio, the Y.O.U.R.S. initiative was adopted by Sojourn Ohio to be implemented in local high schools there in hopes of encouraging youth to vote. But, that’s not all…

The Sacred Commons Church of Ohio has committed to funding the Y.O.U.R.S. program for Foot Soldiers Park and for Sojourn Ohio! In fact, they made their first monthly payment this month. Talk about standing on business!

We are grateful that our call to ignite a fire for our youth in Selma and across the country to be civically engaged is being received and activated. Our next step is the launch of our Standing On Business Collective this July. Today’s youth are tomorrow’s leaders. We must keep the momentum going, but we need your help to do it.

Please make a financial donation today. Every $600 contributed ensures that 20 youth can participate in one of ten workshop sessions we are hosting this year. Thank you in advance for your support.

Ms. Bland has often expressed her dissatisfaction with the portrayal of historical events in textbooks, particularly when it involves a history she lived through. To share a more accurate narrative, she began leading tours in Selma in 1993 through a local nonprofit she cofounded. In 2007, Ms. Bland expanded her mission by launching Journeys for the Soul, an independent venture offering comprehensive tours that delve deeply into the pivotal moments of the Civil Rights Movement and the struggle for voting rights in Selma.

Journeys for the Soul tours offer insights only someone as intimately connected as Ms. Bland can provide. These tours include visits to significant landmarks such as Brown Chapel, the Dallas County Courthouse, the New Live Oak Cemetery, and the site for Foot Soldiers Park and Education Center. Her goal is to leave participants informed and inspired to be change agents for civil and human rights everywhere they go.

Alabama was the front line for both sides of a struggle that came to define post-war America. No visit to this historic state would be complete without due regard to the people who risked everything to overcome its institutionalized injustice.

Jo Ann Bland, Founder & Chief Operating Officer; Child Selma Marcher

April and May have been busy months for tours. Tour reservations have included groups from San Diego, CA, Atlanta, GA, Durham NC, and the Seattle Seahawks! Thanks to The Alabama Tourism Department, Journeys for the Souls also hosted the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The three-hour tours, personally conducted by Ms. Bland and other foot soldiers, can cater to any group size, from private tours to larger bus groups. Participants frequently report how quickly time flies, a testament to the engaging storytelling and passion.

Additionally, Ms. Bland and her sister, Mrs. Lynda Lowery, offer lectures. Funds raised via Journeys for the Soul support the work of Foot Soldiers Park and Education Center. For more information on booking and pricing, prospective visitors can visit the Journeys for the Soul website here.

I’m Carey Fountain, your new Director of Programs and Partnerships. With a deep-rooted passion for arts administration and community engagement, my journey has been richly shaped by my experiences in Selma, especially during my tenure as Programming Director Intern at ArtsRevive. My work at the Birmingham Museum of Art and initiatives like The Black Cherry Tree Project have honed my skills in creating impactful programs that resonate with community values and historical significance.

I’m thrilled to return to Selma and contribute to preserving its vital civil rights legacy while fostering economic and cultural revitalization. I’m eager to meet all of you and work together to continue the fight for social justice. Please feel free to reach out and say hello at carey@footsoldierspark.org.

Looking forward to making a meaningful difference together!

We were two rounds in on our Community Visioning Sessions when we gathered again in March. During the latest session, the design team presented their initial concept sketches, incorporating the FSP planning and ideas from residents who had participated in previous sessions.

To facilitate interactive discussion, the campus design was segmented into four distinct areas within the meeting space, allowing attendees to circulate, engage with the designers, and offer their feedback and modifications.

Many were pleased to see their proposals from prior sessions come to life in the plans, including ideas for a social media hub, green spaces with trees, casual hangout spots, study areas, a memorial space, a children’s playground, and accessibility for individuals with special needs.

FSP CEO, Kimberly Smitherman, expressed her gratitude towards the community members for their active involvement and contributions. The meeting was a thorough discussion of the visual and functional aspects of the design, including aesthetics, greenery, and the practicality of the layout.

By addressing questions about everything from furniture and texture to spacing and landscaping, the FSP team is committed to realizing a vision that encapsulates the best for Selma residents and visitors.