Protecting the Right of Every American to Vote

The freedom to choose our leaders is the foundation of our society in the U.S. and we’re proud of it. Polling shows that Americans believe our system is a great system. Voting should be free, fair, and accessible.

While the initial vote was limited, the historic trend has been to expand voting to non-landowners, to women, to people of color, to those 18 and over until last year, that is. The 2011-2012 state legislative sessions saw an unprecedented attack on voting rights through rules and regulations that throw up barriers to voting, such as “proof-of-citizenship” to register to vote and strict photo voter ID to cast a ballot. Iowa struck the first blow by reversing a law that returned voting rights to those Americans with criminal convictions once they had completed their sentences.

Last year, Sarah Massey joined the voting rights team at Project Vote as Media Director to fight for democracy during another historic election. The role included protecting the right to vote and advocating expanded rights through the press. Sarah was quoted widely:

On felon disenfranchisement, Sarah Massey, a spokeswoman with Project Vote, said that a clear message is being sent by the engineering of voting laws that specifically target certain demographic groups.
“One out of four black men go to jail in this country, and we [America] have the worst incarceration rate in the Western world. Then taking away people’s rights to vote, it all paints a picture to me that one population doesn’t deserve to have the same rights as the others,” Massey said. “It’s all in the numbers of people in jail, and let’s be real, it’s also about the races of the people in jail.” (Huffington Post)

On Election Day Registration, Sarah Massey, media director at Project Vote, a voting rights advocacy organization in Washington, D.C., lauded EDR as an effective tool for voting rights advocates. “It’s a common-sense approach for encouraging more Americans to vote,” Massey told Salon. “If you are in favor of more Americans participating in democracy, then you are for reforms like Election Day Registration, a popular and proven practice that has boosted voter turnout.” (Salon.com)

Sarah continues to consult for Project Vote as the organization protects voting rights and seeks to include more Americans in voting.

Image: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 while Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others look on.

If You are an Absolutely Fabulous Woman and You Own a Business in DC, We Want to Hear From You!

If you self-identify as absolutely fabulous, own your business, want to grow your customer base and help others, we have the women’s group for you. In June of 2009, Massey Media Owner Sarah Massey started a new meet up for women business owners in DC. Four friends got together to talk about how they launched their enterprises, kicking off the Fabulous Women Biz Owners DC group. As a woman business owner and a boss, Sarah wanted to learn more about how other women approached business issues and problems. Also, as a long time worker activist, Sarah knows that women are still not earning the same as their male counterparts, and she believes that empowerment can make the difference.

Massey Media is all about empowerment. “Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, or economic strength of individuals and communities. It often involves the empowered developing confidence in their own capacities,” says Wikipedia. By coming together as a group, we can share more and learn more. Every month, Fabulous Women Biz Owners DC Group offer workshops on business topics, like how to set your financial goals and how to eat for health and wellness. Each meeting has a workshop component and time for networking. Says Sarah, “This is a group that gets work done and does business together.”

Today, the Fabulous Women Biz Owners DC group has grown to over 200 on email and on a Facebook group. Monthly meetings have an average of 30 participants, and an online directory of regular attendees has 45 members. Members come from all types of businesses, including doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, make-up artists and photographers. The Fabulous Women Biz Owners DC group has grown through word of mouth. “We ask members to invite their friends and colleagues who will benefit from the organization. We ask women to self identify as absolutely fabulous. This approach works to bring members who truly want to contribute to each others’ success,” says Sarah. Two group members launched their businesses over the past year and gained clients and support for success. Women are encouraged to come to the network first when looking to make business purchases.

In December, the Fabulous Women Biz Owners DC group launched its mentoring program. Members can offer their talents and get help with areas of growth. For example, Sarah is helping a member with self-efficacy. According to guest speaker, Kathy Korman Frey, women who have mentors are more successful. We know this to be true. In 2011, workshop topics will be on style and fashion for the workplace, setting and maintaining a budget, and much more.

I Wanna Rock: The Power of the Press in the Entertainment Industry

Are you thirsty for good news? Here is an inspiring story: two years ago, three DC teenagers get together to form a rock band, they teach themselves how to write lyrics, how to build a recording studio in the basement, how to build a website and perform in DC’s hottest rock clubs, like DC9 and Black Cat. Then, in the summer of 2009, they approach Massey Media to help them build new audiences and take the band to the press. With the help of Massey Media’s team and golden rolodex of contacts, Power Pirate landed a live spot NBC 4 news, promoting their place as DC’s youngest (and best!) electronic rock band.

Power Pirate’s Annika, Michael, and Emily truly are inspiring, which is why Massey Media was ready to jump in and serve these amazing clients. Today’s media is filled with negative messages for youth, and Power Pirate is the exception to the rule. Young people can succeed, but they need to see positive messages and examples in the press.

Massey Media’s outreach worked to create new attention for the band and propelled them to winning the semi-finalist round of a national battle of the bands. Power Pirate is off to Los Angeles in January to compete live. We look forward to helping Power Pirate show other teenagers that they can achieve their dreams.

Starting a New Movement: People Not Profits

It all started in mid-September with a few committed organizers who saw the national conversation on health care reform was blind to the big picture: the core problem in today’s health delivery system is that health decisions are being made for profits. Treatment options are limited by types of coverage individuals carry vs. the treatment they need. Private companies are making the life and death decisions around patient care that should be in the hands of doctors. “People Not Profits” became the lead message for a new campaign called the Mobilization for Health Care for All.

A little over a month later, the Mobilization for Health Care for All has taken off through the support of Americans who have experienced the pain of having a medical decision dictated by a bean-counting bureaucrat. Hundreds of patients have gone to private insurance agency offices to demand that all life-saving doctor-recommended treatments be approved. When they are not, a group of brave volunteers engage in civil disobedience, sitting down in the office until forcibly removed.

This tactic garners attention and offers a dramatic action for people who want to get involved. The news media has published dozens of stories in papers across the country and reached millions on TV news viewers. The Mobilization for Health Care for All Facebook page has 2,300 fans, 878 people have volunteered to risk arrest at private health insurance offices, and 78 Americans have been arrested since the beginning of the movement. On 10/15, the mobilization had nine actions across the country. On 10/28, there are 20 actions. All of this growth is due to individuals’ contributions and determination to put the spotlight on greed.

Doctors and nurses have joined the campaign because their hands are tied by private health insurance companies that limit payments for life-saving treatment. Can you imagine what it would feel like to be a doctor and know you could save your patient’s life only to be told by an insurance company that it’s not cost-effective to treat the patient? “This is a moral issue, and I’m outraged at the thought that 45,000 people die every year due to the lack of quality health care,” said Ken Weinberg, MD, who stated he will be risking arrest at a health insurance office in New York City in the coming weeks. “What kind of country are we when we are not providing health care to everyone we can?”

Everyone of us has a family member or friend who is denied the care they need. At the same time that I started my PR firm, my best friend started a graphic design business. When her COBRA ran out, she started shopping for health insurance and couldn’t find any due to her “pre-existing condition,” which is diabetes. Her dreams of self-employment were put on hold. But my friend is lucky, in a way, because she found a job with benefits that covered her. What if she had not found a good job? We all know someone who is out in the cold without health insurance, and the U.S. system slams the door on them.

This campaign will continue until our country puts an end to corporate health insurance, which currently places a higher value on profits than on the health of our nation. Join the campaign here: http://mobilizeforhealthcare.org.

Sunday Washington Post: Front Page Story on Public Art

We always knew that public art deserved to be on the front page. The Aug 23, Sunday Washington Post covers the new DC mural, “From Edgewood to the Edge of the World,” created by public art non-profit Albus Cavus and supported by the DC Commission on Arts and Humanities.

Let Us Spray, Five artists have just painted the District’s largest-ever mural, by Reporter Dan Zak and Photographer Megan Rossman, tells the story of the art from the artists’ perspective. Click on the online version of the story to listen to Artists Pose 2 and Joshua Mays discuss how people will view the mural and how they approached their creative process.

“The artwork is just amazing,” says Wayne Sumpter, 52, who lives on nearby Channing Street and cuts behind the Rhode Island Avenue Shopping Center nearly every day. “It definitely gets your attention. It wakes you up. When I come through here I’m not thinking about a lot, but the wall stopped me. It pulls you to it.”

The mural, titled “From Edgewood to the Edge of the World,” will pull focus from many directions, from many kinds of people. People will see it from the Metro, the parking lot, the train tracks, as they return home to the Edgewood Terrace public housing complex, as they use the Metropolitan Branch Trail, a planned bike-and-walking path that will skirt the mural on its way from Silver Spring to Union Station. People will see it in spite of nearby trash-strewn ditches, in spite of parked cars with smashed windows, in spite of the fact that they may only ever see it at a distance, from behind Metro plexiglass.

Massey Media worked over the summer to assist Albus Cavus tell its story of how the group created the capital’s largest mural. Albus Cavus worked with 40 young people from the Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program and guided them to develop plans, engage community members, and build the skills necessary to tackle a huge public art program. Massey Media pitched in to offer spokesperson skills and “press pitch call” training to the group, giving them phone call lists and scripts. We issued eight press releases and treated the mural project as though it were a campaign to bring more public art to the city, and it worked. The Edgewood mural project was covered by all four local TV station, WAMU (twice), WPFW (twice), the Washington Post (three times), the Current Newspapers, El Pregonero, Associated Press, Washington Examiner, Cox broadcasting, Washington Hispanic, and the District Chronicles.

Own The Press

Have you checked out the Massey Media blog at Ownthepress.com?

Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one,

A.J. Liebling

Ownthepress.com is the “corporate culture” blog of Massey Media, the communications strategy firm based in DC, serving social justice movements, arts, and businesses. We put “corporate culture” in quotes because we’re inventing what it means to run a business with a vision of justice. We usually try to turn these things on their heads.

Own the press comes from A.J. Leibling’s famous media criticism, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” As media activists, we live this everyday. We have the inside view of how the press can distort as it reports and the vital role of news and information is to freedom. So, please come along with us on our journey to understand the media and make headlines for social change.

Project Brings Graffiti Art Out of the Dark

In the Aug 20 Washington Post, Reporter Martin Ricard examines the confluence of public art and spray-painting graffiti. Our friends and clients, Albus Cavus, have a vision of harnessing the creative power of graffiti to transform public spaces with art. From the story:

But on this day, spray-painting graffiti on public property, an act that would have been against the law any other time, was all good. It was part of a “mural jam,” a city-sponsored project that drew dozens of graffiti artists to contribute their flair to a nearly 1,000-foot-long wall turned canvas in Northeast’s Edgewood community.

The goal of the project is to beautify the city and dissuade youths from engaging in illegal graffiti. But it represents a broader shift in thinking among the city’s political and art establishments, which are beginning to learn how to coexist with a graffiti culture that has thrived for years.

“We decided that just painting over [graffiti] with one color was not the answer,” said Gloria Nauden, executive director of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, which authorized the murals. “You have to embrace them as artists, give them freedom. It’s about the respect and allowance of not being defined.”

Read it all here: Project Brings Graffiti Art Out of the Dark

Voting Rights in an Off Year

In this Wall Street Journal front page story from the voting rights campaign, Reporter Brody Mullins examined how Project Vote conducted voter registration assistance and why. We traveled with him to downtown Denver, where Sarah Massey took this photo that was later used by the Journal. What we found there was a small army of workers fanning out across the city to engage Americans who had never registered to vote. The work was tedious, hot, and tough. But why is it that voter registration is so hard?

The National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) mandates that voter registration information must be made available at offices that provide services to citizens, including your friendly Motor Vehicle administration offices. Thousands if not millions have made it onto the voter rolls this way. If you apply for welfare or for Medicare, the office should have voter registration vailable. It’s a small step that could make a big difference in the proportion of low-income and minority voters — if it were implemented.

Unfortunately, some states have been reluctant (at best) to implement this part of the NVRA. Lack of oversight and accountability, and the fact that many staff have never learned that they are required to provide the forms, have led Project Vote to issue advisories to many states. The organization made headlines early this summer when it had to sue New Mexico and Indiana to try and ensure that these states come into compliance with national law!

If the NVRA were fully implemented, Project Vote estimates that two or three million voters could be added to the rolls per year. These voters would be primarily minorities and low-income citizens, who often are not targeted in voter registration drives. These two groups are notoriously underrepresented in the electorate. The law exists to correct this imbalance, so that the electorate can more fully reflect the general population. Entrenched interests — and simple inertia — are working against implementation of the NVRA. This year, Project Vote will sue any state that fails to do their parts to register voters. Because even though our focus is away from voting, the spotlight will get turned on again next year. We want to make sure that every American who wants to vote can vote.