Tallahassee Democrat
June 18, 2001
By Paige St. John

Political fire and brimstone rained down Sunday at Florida A&M University as seasoned activists tried to light the fire beneath young people from over 30 states.

"What we're about is a very serious proposition," exhorted Ron Daniels, a former campaign manager for the Rev. Jesse Jackson who now is executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. His arms waving high in the air, pumping up a loud chorus of agreements from the audience, Daniels urged the youth in front of him to reform the voting process.

"We want to make sure what happened in Florida never happens again!"

The kickoff by Daniels and other liberal veterans, including U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is the start of a weeklong boot camp at FAMU.

The largest bloc of participants came from St. Louis. Community worker Rick Le-Grand said he recruited 30 young adults, some headed to college and some not, in the hope they would leave with a greater awareness of political issues.

"It's almost like vocabulary building," LeGrand said. "They're hearing concepts they've never heard before. They're the next generation of leaders."

Return to the election

The session lasts through Saturday on the campus whose students marched against the capital during the November election crisis. It is sponsored in part by the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies and the NAACP. Throughout the opening session, there was an atmosphere of having returned to the scene of a crime.

Tallahassee was fertile ground for proving contentions of civil rights violations and "injustice, ineptitude and inefficiency," seminar sponsors noted, quoting the conclusion of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights final report.

The program promised that participants will learn of the "widespread disenfranchisement of black voters in Florida," including a Civil Rights Commission claim that 54 percent of disqualified votes were cast by blacks, a population that makes up only 11 percent of the state's voters.

But FAMU student body President Andrew Gillium cautioned against adopting a belief that the vote was stolen by careful planning and conniving. "It's not a conspiracy we were battling in this state," Gillium said. "It was a culture."

When they leave Tallahassee, "Democracy Summer" participants will be able to join up for internships in Florida and elsewhere in the country, working to revamp "our deeply-flawed, undemocratic electoral system," the program asserts.

Also speaking at Sunday night's kickoff program was Dorris "Granny D" Haddock, 90, who walked across the United States to call for abolishment of private campaign donations.

Contact Paige St. John at pstjohn@taldem.com or (850) 599-2305.