News
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By Sojourner Ahebee | Votebeat This story originally appeared on Poynter.org With vote counting and certification for the 2020 presidential election behind us, national and local news outlets have largely framed public understanding of what the electorate looked like this year. Media organizations kept track of key facts like the proportion of votes cast by [...]
By Sojourner Ahebee | Votebeat State Representative Joanna McClinton made history this year when she was elected House minority leader by her colleagues in the Pennsylvania legislature on November 12, 2020. The 38-year-old became the first Black woman to ever hold a party leadership position in Harrisburg. A Southwest Philadelphia native, McClinton spent seven years [...]
By Sojourner Ahebee | Votebeat Jenna Flanagan says she has never felt the weight of impartiality heavier than while covering the 2020 general election. Flanagan, a Black journalist at MetroFocus, is a host on a current affairs show at the multi-platform New York-based magazine. “As journalists it is our job to inform people,” she said. [...]
By Sojourner Ahebee | Votebeat Rondell Jordan is a registered Pennsylvanian voter but he almost didn’t get to cast his ballot this year. Jordan, a 31-year-old Black man, works remotely in Washington D.C. and had planned to vote by mail in the 2020 General Election. But each time he tried to get a mail-in ballot, [...]
By Samaria Bailey | philadelphia.chalkbeat.org Language barriers, cultural differences and technological hurdles abound for student population In mid-March, some 200,000 Philadelphia students were sent home from their public schools due to the coronavirus, with hopes they would return two weeks later. That didn’t happen, and the buildings have been shuttered ever since. From Northeast to [...]
By Sojourner Ahebee | Votebeat Linda Hyden cast her first ballot shortly before the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The year was 1964, and she had recently moved to Philadelphia. She was 20 at the time and remembers voting for Lyndon B. Johnson in that presidential election. “I was 16-years-old when I left [...]
By Sojourner Ahebee | Votebeat Louise Grant takes extra steps to protect her son. She is the caretaker for the 41-year-old schizophrenic and worries that if she needs to call for assistance, the police may arrive unprepared. That’s why she wants everyone in her position to do what she did — register him within her [...]
By Sojourner Ahebee | Votebeat Earlier this week, WURD and Votebeat spoke to a dozen Black voters across the city of Philadelphia and asked them to reflect on the 2020 Presidential Election. Now, we’ve asked these same voters to talk about the promise of the new political administration and how they believe these commitments will [...]
By Sojourner Ahebee | Votebeat Activist and community organizer Walter Palmer remembers coming up in West Philadelphia’s Black Bottom in the 1950s and 60s during a period of pronounced political activity amongst the city’s Black residents and leaders. Palmer, 86, has spent the past 70 years teaching and training grassroot networks of Black community organizers [...]
