Hip-hop artist T-Dubb-O stood on the frontlines of Ferguson fighting for equity. After Ferguson erupted, he was among a group of St. Louis millennials invited to the White House by President Obama to advise him and his staff on how to address the issue.
Now his issue is the upcoming November 8 general election. The deadline to register to vote is October 12.
As a founding member of Hands Up United, he recently worked with other organizations to train millennials from around the country on how to register voters, talk to the media and understand complex voter ID laws in their states.
“It’s extremely important for us to provide our voices, because the older generations are not going through what we’re going through,” said T-Dubb-O, a freshman at Harris-Stowe State University majoring in political science. “They don’t know how to properly ask for what we want, because there’s a disconnect there. That’s why you’ve seen what you’ve seen in Ferguson.”
Hands Up United has a motto: “It’s not your mama’s civil rights movement.”
T-Dubb-O is in the same political science class at Harris-Stowe as Kia Brooks, who will cast her vote for the first time on Tuesday, November 8.
“I’m voting because we need to vote,” said Brooks, 20, a junior. “It’s not a want. It’s not something that you should take as an option. It’s an obligation, by all means. A lot of people died for us to be able to vote. I’m going to exercise that right to the best of my ability.”
Who Brooks will vote for is “nobody else’s business,” she said. However, the class – led by Charlene Lofton Jones, assistant dean of the College of Arts and Sciences – has inspired and informed her decision, she said. She’s been amazed at how involved and passionate her fellow classmates are.
“Growing up, I didn’t have too many people telling me how important it was,” Brooks said regarding voting. “So getting that information in that classroom, the teacher is a teacher, the student is a teacher, and you’re just learning everything about everything.”
Antoin Johnson, president of the LGBT community at Harris-Stowe, is also in the class. Unlike Brooks, Johnson is quite vocal about who she’s voting for – Hillary.
“Trump says, ‘What do you have to lose, African Americans?’” Johnson said. “We have a lot to lose. We have our freedom to lose. Trump says, ‘I want to make American great again.’ To me, he is saying, ‘I want to make America white again.’”
Johnson, who is majoring in urban administration, works fulltime as a postal worker, driving semis. She intends to become a civil-rights attorney, and she doesn’t plan on stopping there.
“I want to be that speaker of the House and change the laws,” she said.
While Johnson is passionate about national politics, T-Dubb-O is laser-focused on local politics.
“If you can control your local community, then the federal doesn’t have as much impact on your city,” he said.
However, he’s under no illusion that voting is the end-all to black liberation, he said.
“But it gets some ground for our negotiations,” T-Dubb-O said. “When we do turn out and vote, when we do get behind a candidate that actually represents the people and has our interests at hand, if we put them in office we can hold them accountable.”
In the Democratic primary on August 2, Hands Up United supported Kimberly Gardner for St. Louis circuit attorney and Bruce Franks Jr. for state representative of the 78th House District.
T-Dubb-O understands that some millennials have completely lost faith in the system, and he can definitely see that side. However, he and his comrades think strategically.
“It’s all a strategy to get where you want to go,” T-Dubb-O said. “What we try to do is build that political education into every aspect of our programs – whether it be a concert, a men and women circle – to get some of those people off the fence and say, ‘We have to do this in order to get this.’ And it’s starting to work.”
