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Women/Voter education one goalFrom NEWS1grade, after hCI family movedout of a segregated section of Cleveland into another neighborhood, she and her sister were among only about five blacks in their n?w school. She recalls that everyone in the school was picked to he in a play withnarRemodeling since t588.Design/Build, Inc.719-634-7079iforma'icn^il BrochureUi CEKTER;* ntli Service Garden CenterR SPECIALexception of the black kids. She wciu home and told her mother about the slight.That's probably where I began to speak up, she said. “Decisions were being made that we couldn’t participate in certain activities.'’As Jefferson-Jenkins grew older, her activism deepened through her experiences in Cleveland and her grandmothers community work in Forest City, Ark. Her grandmother, Barbara Blaine, would go to black families’ homes to teach reading so that more blacks could vote.ft brought to my attention Lhe dissonance of what I was told to expect as a citizen and the reality of what happened, she 3aid of her experiences in the South.Ebck then, JcffenonJrnkiiiflsaid the wliiie middle-class image of the League of Women's Voters didn’t register with her grandmother or with her ”1 knew nothing about the league. I thought it was a white elitist organization you had to , be invited-to join.She ffrst encountered the league as a young professional in Cleveland,The group was sponsoring a candidate debate, aid she really wanted to go. She called the league and asked tor tickets but was told that only members could gel tickets. Sc she wrote the league a check and became a member.Later she showed up at a meeting and asked:“Yon got my money, so what do you do?”That was the start of a productive 16-year relationship with the league.Vicki Paris, League spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., said Jefferson-Jenkins is the perfect example of die legacy of league women.“It’s fin Filly showing what an organization like ours has strived for so long, not onlywomen in places, of power, but minorities, too, Piiia said of Jefferson-Jenklns' election.The organization is changing.It has male presidents of its local chapters, mere working women and mure diversify.It's pushing to get not only more women elected to public office, but minorities also.Jefferson-Jenkiris coordinated the league's 1996 Get Out and Vote campaign which registered more th:in oft,000 people to vote.Jeffersori-Jenkins, who was recently married, will reside in Ualorado springs aurtr.g her two-year tenure as president, but she'll log a lot or Qequent-fher miles trying to accomplish the organization's goals.By the year 2000, the league wants to see 85 percent of alleligible voters registered. Othergoals are to reform campaign financing, expand voter education find political knowledge, and. increase participation in the political process.Polls say meal Americans are cynical and angry about politics.In the 1996 presidential election only 48 percent of eligible voters turned out 12 percent, decline from the election in1968.She adds that making the government represent the population it governs is an even bigger challenge, especially for women.While women make up 51 percent of the population, only 21 percent of elected officials in s.ate legislatures are women (35 percent, in Colorado), only 51 of the 43G members of die U.9. House of Uepresfntarives are women and only nine of the 100 U.S. -Senators are women.JeOeison-.Tenkins is committed to pursuing those goals“If we don't reconnect citifies to the ulectoi'dl process, then we don’t liave a truly representative democracy,' she said.Ovetta Sampson iray be reached at 630374 or cvctta@gazcttc.cam
Newspaper Details
Colorado Springs Gazette
Colorado Springs, Colorado, US
Fri, Jul 03, 1998
Page 13
Full Page
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USA 14 Apr 2022
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