December 2020 – Balancing the Scales

VOLUME 39 NUMBER 5

INSIDE … » Long-term views for building progressive electoral power » Voting Rights success stories » Art Nurtures Justice

DECEMBER 8, 2020

» Learning from and supporting the Louisville uprising » Who cleans up the messes left by bankrupt coal companies? … and much more!

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Kentuckians For The Commonwealth P.O. Box 1450 London, Ky. 40743

BALANCING THE

www.kftc.org | December 8, 2020

2 | Balancing the Scales

is a statewide grassroots social justice orga­­ni­ zation working for a new balance of power and a just society. KFTC uses direct-action organizing to accomplish the following goals: • foster democratic values • change unjust institutions • empower individuals • overcome racism and other discrimination • communicate a message of what’s possible • build the organization • help people participate • win issues that affect the common welfare • have fun KFTC membership dues are $15 to $50 per year, based on ability to pay. No one is denied membership because of inability to pay. Membership is open to anyone who is committed to equality, democracy and nonviolent change.

KFTC STEERING COMMITTEE Cassia Herron, chairperson Alan Smith, vice chairperson Rebecca Tucker, secretary-treasurer Tiff Duncan, at-large member Meta Mendel-Reyes, immediate past chair Chapter Representatives Tiffany Pyette, Big Sandy Luke Morgan, Central Kentucky David Miller, Cumberland Courtney Kearney, Jefferson County John Wade, Madison County Paul Schwartz, Northern Kentucky Alvin Madden-Grider, Rowan County Amelia Cloud, Rolling Bluegrass Megan Adkins, Southern Kentucky Shannon Scott, Wilderness Trace

Table of Contents KFTC News Executive Committee elected at annual business meeting...................................................... 3 Year-end appeal from KFTC Chairperson Cassia Herron ....................................................... 12 Opening panel looks at building progressive electoral power.............................................. 13 Shared learning includes health justice, police issues.............................................................. 14 KFTC preps for 2021 legislative session with many unknowns............................................. 16 Whitney Kuklinski joins KFTC staff; Greenfield to provide contract work........................ 19 Ezra Dike, Joy Fitzgerald and Matthew Gidcomb elected to the Ky. Coalition board. 19 Come with us into 2021 ...................................................................................................................... 20 Voter Empowerment What it will take to win: grassroots organizing, deep connections....................................... 4 Successes to build upon in a challenging election year........................................................ 5-6 Some history and context of KFTC’s Voting Rights work......................................................... 7 Aubrey Clemons: power comes when more voices included.................................................. 7 Debra Graner: the most precious part of democracy................................................................. 8 Savvy Shabazz: Voting means equality, being a full citizen..................................................... 8 KFTC is “All In” for building regional power with Georgians................................................. 15 Racial Justice Amplifying and learning from the Louisville uprising .......................................................... 10-11 New Energy and Just Transition Amid coal bankruptcies, who cleans up the mess left behind? ........................................... 17 Building Grassroots Power Art Nurtures Justice auction a success for Rolling Bluegrass .............................................. 18 Some fundraising planning steps for other chapters .............................................................. 18

Cover, from left: Aubrey Clemons, Debra Graner and Savvy Shabazz

Chapter Alternates Kathy Curtis, Big Sandy; (vacant), Central Kentucky; Venus Evans, Cumberland; Cordia Pickerill, Jefferson County; Kelly Smith, Madison County; Roberta Campbell, Northern Kentucky; Angela Rowe, Rowan County; Rosanne Klarer, Rolling Bluegrass; Johnalma Barnette and Alayna Milby, Southern Kentucky; Joe Myers, Wilderness Trace Associate Chapters representatives Lynne Anderson and Joy Fitzgerald; Shelby County Jim Gearheart, Western Kentucky

Balancing the Scales is published by Kentuckians For The Commonwealth and sent as third class mail from Louisville. Reader contri­butions and letters to the editor should be sent to P.O. Box 864, Prestonsburg, KY 41653 or jhardt@kftc.org. Subscriptions are $20/yr.

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Balancing the Scales | 3

executive committee corner

Executive Committee elected at annual business meeting KFTC members re-elected most of the leaders currently serving on KFTC’s Executive Committee.

The Executive Committee consists of five officers who also serve on KFTC’s Steering Committee and who make necessary decisions between Steering Committee meetings. Four members of the Executive Committee are elected each year at the Annual Business Meeting, held this year on November 21. The fifth position is held for the immediate past chair.

KFTC staff and members nominate people to serve in these leadership positions and the Leadership Development Committee recommends, and the Steering Committee approves, a slate of nominees to be voted on by members attending the business meeting.

Nominations also are accepted from the floor (this year it was an online process, and there were none).

Executive Committee members may serve two years in the same position. Cassia Herron, Alan Smith and Rebecca Tucker were elected to their second term as chairperson, vice-chairperson and secretary-treasurer, respectively. Tiff Duncan is new to the committee, elected as the at-large representative. Duncan replaces Fannie Madden-Grider, who asked not to be reconsidered due to health reasons.

Executive Committee members are tireless workers for KFTC. They meet by video conference numerous times through the year to deal with pandemic response, approve voter engagement strategies, move the Organizational Change Initiative forward, serve as KFTC’s legislative strategy team and handle many other ongoing issues.

Chairperson: Cassia Herron, Jefferson County

Cassia Herron is the first Black woman to be chair of KFTC, a position she was first elected to in 2019 after previously serving as vice-chair. Herron leads KFTC with vision, providing leadership in KFTC’s work for collective liberation and inclusivity in the Steering Committee, and through her work with the Executive Committee as KFTC moves through its Organizational Change Initiative and racial equity transformation, All-In electoral work and unionization. Before serving on the Executive Committee these last two years, she supported the Jefferson County chapter’s

“We Are Kentuckians” event, which seeks to honor African American women and Black culture in Kentucky.

She is experienced in community organizing and has previously worked with union organizers and trainers with the Highlander Center. Herron is a leader in the Louisville community and a founder of the Louisville Association for Community Economics, a nonprofit developer of the Louisville Community Grocery.

ticipating in local Democracy Team and issue work, and supporting Madison County’s interns and student workers. She also is a PhD student getting ready to start her dissertation. She serves on the board of the Ampersand Sexual Violence Resource Center.

Vice-chairperson: Alan Smith, Southern Kentucky Chapter, Warren County

Duncan has served on the Steering Committee for the last three years, representing the Central Kentucky chapter.

Duncan participated in the 2019 KFTC Organizing Academy cohort, helping to expand and deepen KFTC’s collective understanding of accessibility through Disability Justice workshops, and currently serves on the Interest-Based Bargaining team. Relationship building is her favorite organizing strategy, and she believes that transformation happens when people exist in supportive environments where they can challenge dominant cultural narratives.

Alan Smith has served as vicechair for the last year. He is an active member of the Southern Kentucky chapter and has been dedicated to the chapter since he began to get involved right around the time the chapter was founded. Smith has served on the Economic Justice Committee and Voter Empowerment St r a t e g y Team, and has served on the Steering Committee for three years and the Kentucky Coalition Board for one year. He’s continued to support statewide issues by participating in events like A Seat at the Table and Hear Our Health. Locally, he was active on Voter Empowerment Strategy and Voter Registration efforts, fundraising, and at-home lobby meetings.

Smith has provided consistent, insightful and reliable leadership to KFTC for many years.

Secretary-Treasurer: Rebecca Tucker, Madison County Rebecca Tucker has served on the Executive Committee as Secretary-Treasurer for the last year. Before that, she served as the Madison County chapter Steering Committee representative and a l t e r n a t e .

She’s a valued leader, always asking quality questions and moving the work forward. Tucker also has been active on KFTC’s Economic Justice Committee and Leadership Development Committee, and is an active supporter of local work, helping to plan chapter fundraisers, guiding and par-

At-large member: Tiff Duncan, Central Kentucky Chapter, Fayette County

Meta Mendel-Reyes (Madison County) will continue as Immediate Past Chair.

Meta Mendel-Reyes is KFTC’s Immediate Past Chair. Before she served as chair (201719), Mendel-Reyes was Madison County’s Steering Committee representative and an active member on the Economic Justice Committee, the Voter Empowerment Strategy Team, the Leadership Development Committee and the Racial Justice Committee. Mendel-Reyes was instrumental to KFTC’s first Organizing Academy, designing curriculum, planning agendas and facilitating meetings. Mendel-Reyes has informed how KFTC members think about the value of creating an organization together, and the importance of grassroots fundraising. Along with the rest of the Executive Committee, she continues to lead through these intense times with generosity, acuity and commitment to social change.

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Voter Empowerment

What it will take to win: grassroots organizing, deep connections When KFTC members gathered on Zoom November 21 to elect officers and reflect on this year, they considered what it will take to achieve the Kentucky we envision.

KFTC Vice Chair Alan Smith led a panel discussion about this year’s election and what it means for the political landscape in Kentucky.

“A lot of us were expecting Kentucky’s turnout to be way better than this, and it wasn’t,” said Smith.

In a year when Kentuckians got to vote early and by mail, voter turnout in Kentucky was around 60 percent, compared to 70 percent nationally. Eastern Kentucky in particular saw lower voter turnout.

Comparing the last presidential election year to this one, Kentucky’s voter turnout was 59.1 percent in 2016 and 60.3 percent in 2020.

Democrats gained eight Kentucky House seats in 2018, then lost five in 2020. This year Republicans ran unopposed in far more districts than Democrats, and Donald Trump got 62 percent of the vote in Kentucky.

Panelists acknowledged the challenges of voter engagement during a pandemic and the need for deeper conversations and relationship building.

Alicia Hurle, former KFTC Deputy Organizing Director for Democracy who now serves as co-director of Commonwealth Alliance Voter Engagement and Kentucky Civic Engagement Table, said getting back to our roots as organizers will be the key to shifting the landscape.

“A lot of this for me is about how we’ve really tried to build this electoral machine as progressive organizations, and I think what’s kind of been lost in that is that we are grassroots organizers first and foremost and we know how to speak to people and we know that our issues are actually the ones that are winning and that can win the narrative battle. And we kind of have to get back to those roots.”

Hurle pointed to candidate Charles Booker, who ran against Amy McGrath for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in the 2020 primary. Booker generated excitement and won more counties than Biden or McGrath by talking with people about issues that matter to all of us, like healthcare.

Clark Williams, chair of Commonwealth Alliance for Voter Engagement and chair of the People’s Campaign, said organizing is building relationships.

“The onus is on us not to just rely on a particular candidate having those relationships, but we’ve got to … build those relationships where people are looking to be pointed to the issues and how they affect them and what are organizations looking at and who are we

endorsing and why. We’ve got to become that relationship they need even more so than the candidate.”

Hurle suggested the voter turnout map might have more to tell us than the red/blue map. “What if we flipped from saying we’re expecting people to perform red or blue to we need to be in those areas where folks are disengaged, where nobody’s talking to them, where nobody’s reaching out to them and that be the focus of our electoral work?”

Joy Girgis, who worked as a KFTC Voter Empowerment Organizer in Northern Kentucky and talked with many voters, said she heard from several folks that they didn’t plan to vote because they didn’t think their vote mattered. But by framing the conversation around issues, she was able to help folks connect the dots between voting and issues that affect their lives.

Lisa Garrison, a KFTC member who ran for Corbin City Commission and did voter engagement work in this election, said she heard from some voters that they didn’t want to vote for the lesser of two evils.

“You want to validate that, and it’s a hard objection to overcome,” Garrison said, “but you have to be honest and help them understand the value of their vote no matter what. And I agree wholeheartedly that framing this around issues is the better way to go about it because that opens the door to building relationships.”

Panelists noted the importance of deeper conversations, which were harder to achieve this year when deep canvassing wasn’t an option. Smith said studies have shown that the longer conversations of deep canvassing are “stickier” – they stay with folks longer and impact their outlook.

Dana Beasley Brown, a former KFTC chairperson who won re-election to the Bowling Green City Commission, said she won her race in 2018 by going door

to door and talking with thousands of people in her community. This year, she made the difficult choice to keep folks safe and do phone banking, texting, mailers and digital outreach instead. For a candidate at the bottom of the ballot who doesn’t have unlimited funds, talking with voters is critical.

“We have to have an army of progressive folks just like us who are willing to do the really hard thing of having awkward conversations with strangers about what we care about and what we believe in and why it matters,” Beasley Brown said. We also need training to build folks’ skills around phone banking and deep canvassing, as well as training for candidates on how to build power beyond our base and reach folks who aren’t voting, she said.

Panelists also noted that white supremacy did well at the polls this year in Kentucky.

“White supremacy is always on the ballot, and the majority of white people vote in favor when given the choice,” Hurle said. “It’s important to talk with voters about racial justice because we all suffer under white supremacy – regardless of the color of our skin. When we don’t fill that narrative with a different vision, the right is going to do that, and they do it really well.”

Smith added, “We’ve got to refine our message, we’ve got to learn to listen and we’ve got to talk to white folks, and part of that has got to be about race.”

Beasley Brown said we need to remove the “distortion filters” that the right has used to control the narrative. And we need to equip more people of color to run at every level.

KFTC Chairperson Cassia Herron wrapped up the conversation by reminding folks: “We are the leaders that we’re looking for, and we are the leaders that we deserve.”

Alan Smith

Joy Girgis

Lisa Garrison

Clark Williams

Alicia Hurle

Dana Beasley Brown

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Voter Empowerment

Successes to build upon in a challenging election year KFTC started the year knowing 2020 would be a challenging one for electing candidates who share a progressive vision for Kentucky.

With established conservative vote getters topping the general election ballot, and millions of dollars from out of state used to elect a moderate opponent for Sen. Mitch McConnell, progressive voters and progressive values were largely shut out in most areas of the state.

It might have been a different fall election with Charles Booker in the race for U.S. Senate – a Black legislator from Louisville who showed he could fire up progressive voters and bring in new voters.

Progressive ideas and values would have been in the forefront of political conversations.

And, of course, KFTC did not anticipate the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 202,500 Kentuckians infected and more than 2,000 deaths.

In early March, when some restrictions were first put into place, KFTC had just hired nearly 30 voter empowerment organizers prepared to impact the elections through thousands of in-person conversations about voting and candidates. They expected to meet folks at their front doors and at numerous community events and campuses across Kentucky.

Instead, KFTC was forced to stop, stay home, slow down and rethink.

Despite these challenges, major structural changes that bring Kentucky closer to a healthy democracy were won.

KFTC and allies at the Kentucky Voting Rights Coalition won voting rights for 170,000 Kentuckians with felonies in their past late last year through an executive order

by Gov. Andy Beshear. Much of KFTC’s effort in 2020 was spent trying to connect with those same voters, register them and mobilize them to vote.

KFTC worked with others to come up with proposals for how to hold a safe and robust election in these conditions and pushed these ideas with the governor, secretary of state and county clerks. Voters won the option to vote by mail (postage paid or with a drop box option) and three weeks of early in-person voting.

After the June 23 primary election, KFTC worked to win more polling locations in the general election, rules that led to fewer rejected ballots, a far better “cure process” to fix errors on ballots, better tracking, and much more.

This work helped Kentuckians have their voices heard, and also likely saved some people’s lives by limited exposure to the coronavirus.

Governor Beshear, Secretary of State Michael Adams, the State Board of Elections and 120 county clerks deserve thanks for listening to Kentuckians and taking these steps to make voting more accessible and stronger in this challenging time. Attorney General Daniel Cameron tried unsuccessfully to stop these changes through a lawsuit challenging Beshear’s authority to issue the emergency order under which

early and mail voting took place.

For these changes to become a permanent part of Kentucky’s elections, state legislators will need to pass laws to make that so. That will be a priority for KFTC in 2021.

In a normal election year, KFTC would focus on tabling, community events and door-to-door work to connect with voters face to face. Those tools are the best ways to deeply and broadly build relationships with voters, but they could not be done safely at any scale this year.

Instead, KFTC pivoted to: • •

• • •

broad online leadership development training early on, training hundreds of participants at dozens of events; phone banks, where KFTC volunteers, voter empowerment organizers and staff made 118,000 calls (a KFTC record) in the General Election and 70,000 calls in the Primary Election; putting literature pieces on more than 75,000 voters’ doors; big texting campaigns; and “election protection” – monitoring polls, spreading good information about how voting would happen and inoculating against misinformation.

KFTC’s biggest success was the number of members and volunteers trained, and who got out to do voter work. A total of 922 KFTC members volunteered in 2020 on election work, and collectively KFTC built skills for future elections. continued on the next page

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Voter Empowerment

Successes to build upon in a challenging election year continued from the previous page Voter turnout was good given the pandemic circumstances. A total of 2,150,954 Kentuckians voted, about a 60.33 percent turnout. That’s a better turnout than in the 2016 or 2012 presidential year elections, but not quite as high as 2008 and some years prior to that.

KFTC’s New Power PAC endorsed in 47 races this year and fought hard to elect candidates who local chapters nominated as being aligned with KFTC values. Seventeen of those candidates won.

There were genuine bright spots – like Dana Beasley Brown (a former KFTC chairperson) winning reelection to Bowling Green City Commission along with a new progressive ally Carlos Bailey.

The outcome for progressive voices grew bleak in the Kentucky state legislature, where Republicans have overwhelming supermajorities in both the House (75-25) and Senate (30-8). Redistricting will also likely happen before the next election, which would allow Republicans to consolidate their power even more.

This is a challenging moment for KFTC’s work, and KFTC leaders and members are working to find the best paths forward.

There’s an opportunity to pass electoral reforms in the General Assembly next year,

including early voting and mail-in voting. These options were popular in Kentucky in 2020, and the current class of legislators won using those systems, so they’re aware they work.

Same-day voter registration, automatic voter registration, longer polling hours on election day and voting rights for people with felonies in their past also are on KFTC’s list of legislative goals.

There are no elections scheduled for 2021, so that allows space and options to plan for the future. Registering people with felonies in their past to vote and building support on the issue, focusing on training members, finding and training good people to run for public office, also are part of the strategy for 2021 and beyond.

A candidate forum in Bowling Green (above). Voter empowerment organizers in Louisville (below).

“If the question is ‘where do we go from here?’ the answer is forward.”

— Rep Charles Booker.

Voter turnout in the 2020 General Election The 2020 General Election wasn’t record setting in terms of turnout. Kentucky had a 60.33% turnout, not far from the 59.1% in 2016 and less than 2008’s turnout of 64%. The record general election turnout was 73.2% in 1992, which featured the race between Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.

Here’s a map comparing turnout between counties in the 2020 general election. Nationwide median for voter turnout in 2020’s general election was 69.8%. Kentucky’s turnout was below that, at 60.3%.

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Voter Empowerment

Some history and context of KFTC’s Voting Rights work Interviews with three people directly affected by KFTC’s Voting Rights work follow below and on the next page.

Here is a little history and context of that work.

one-by-one, broader expungement laws, joining legal cases and pressuring governors to streamline the process. But the major objective has always been to pass a Kentucky constitutional amendment to restore the right to vote to all Kentuckians after they’ve served their debt to society.

For many years, legislation putting this constitutional amendment on the ballot passed the Kentucky House with overwhelming support from Democrats and Republicans – by as much as an 86 to 9 margin.

But Senate Republicans consistently stopped meaningful legislation on this issue from coming to a vote in their chamber.

A partial victory was won in 2015 through Gov. Steve Beshear streamlining the pardoning process.

But that was immediately overturned by Gov. Matt Bevin a few months later.

KFTC and allies in the Voting Rights Coalition helped thousands of people over the years to regain their right to vote – by helping them individually to fill out paperwork, by raising awareness and by pres-

suring Kentucky governors to approve more requests.

Gone are the essay, character reference and processing fee requirements in the application, and much more.

But by far the biggest victory came late last year KFTC's work on restoration of voting rights of when Gov. Andy Beshear through executive order people with felonies in their past began in 2004, more restored the right to vote to over 170,000 people with than 16 years ago. KFTC launched a large voter regfelonies in their past. istration effort in north Lexington and got educated It was a monumental moment in the history of about the issue at people’s doorsteps.

Kentucky democracy and Beshear deserves praise for KFTC met people like Lillian Holloway, who it. It’s also still a long way from what is needed. And told members she was not allowed to vote, just for it’s turned out to be difficult to help people figure out writing some bad checks over a decade before. Holif they’re one of the 170,000 or so people with felonies loway and others became KFTC's first leaders on in their past who got their right to vote back – or one this issue, rooting the campaign in personal stories of of the 170,000 or so who didn’t. people who have lost their right to vote.

KFTC spent much of 2020 reaching people by At first the campaign focused on Gov. Ernie phone, text, email, ads, events and other methods to Fletcher, who had instituted new barriers to people help them figure out if they were covered by Beshear’s getting their right to vote back – a requirement of order and to register to vote. Hundreds of KFTC character references and an essay in addition to a promembers and allies were trained about how to navicessing fee and complicated paperwork for someone gate the process. to request their right to vote back. At the start of the Looking to the future, it’s still a primary goal to campaign, Fletcher had never given back their pass a constitutional amendment bill in the right to vote to anyone who requested it.

2021 Kentucky legislature to restore voting If you or someone you know has a felony in their past, As years went on, this campaign worked rights to all Kentuckians with felonies in their visit www.civilrightsrestoration.ky.gov or call 502-782-9731 on new fronts – pushing for federal legislation, past. If successful, that would mean the questo find out if you’ve received your right to vote back. tion would appear on the 2022 ballot. helping people navigate the existing process

Aubrey Clemons: power comes when more voices are heard Aubrey Clemons has always valued voting. But Clemons lost his right to vote after a felony conviction in 2006. He recently got his right to vote back. He lives in the Smoketown community of Louisville and is a KFTC member.

Q: What is your history with voting and what does voting mean to you?

Aubrey Clemons: Voting on a personal level is really special to me because as a young man, when I was 18 I never played into politics or policies. My up-comings and my community, the last thing we thought is that our voice mattered. It was typical to hear a brother of 18, 19, 20 years old say, I’m not voting, it doesn’t mean anything.

I didn’t start hearing the conversation about voting until maybe 2004. The only reason why I voted is because my son’s mother was really big on voting. She made it a date. She’d get all dressed up and took me/us to the polls.

Unfortunately in 2006 I got into some mess in Hart County, Kentucky. I never knew that boot-legging DVDs and CDs to be sold was bad, but I lost my right to vote be-

cause of it and became a felon.

Voting was a part of our tradition as a couple, that we could have started but never got the chance to. Right after I was able to vote, right after I learned the power of my voice, I lost my right to vote. So that tradition got stomped. Even when I was in that place, serving my time in the state of Kentucky, she would always call me and let me know that she voted, that it was voting time. She had my kids out there excited to vote for Obama, twice! It’s really a big deal to me.

Q: How did it feel to vote in the General Election this year?

Aubrey Clemons: I had two first-time voters with me that day, so it was double exciting to use my voice and help these two use theirs. I posted a photo of myself on Facebook saying, hey, I voted! A KFTC staff person asked, hey can I share your picture?

And I said sure, go ahead.

When he shared that picture I felt so much encouragement.

I felt like, wow, this is a big deal. I remember being in Frankfort fighting for this. I felt like one of the fighters who could really feel continued on page 9

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Voter Empowerment

Debra Graner: the most precious part of democracy Debra Graner grew up in Pennsylvania, lived in Oklahoma, and moved to Kentucky in 2008 with her husband, Fred. She lost her right to vote after an accidental fire in her home resulted in an arson conviction in 2012. In 2019, she was one of 170,000 Kentuckians who got their right to vote back when Gov. Andy Beshear issued an executive order. She worked with KFTC this year to reach folks with a felony and let them know they might now be able to vote. She voted in the 2020 elections.

Q: What’s something you’re looking forward to in 2021?

Debra Graner: There are still so many people that we need to gather up in our arms and make sure they understand the vote, why it’s important, and encourage and ask them how it makes them feel as a person.

I always took voting for granted until I lost my right to vote in 2012. I was kind of like an ostrich with my head in the sand. When I found out I couldn’t vote I shoved it all away and didn’t want to think about it. Then in 2018 when I happened upon KFTC, my interest was renewed. I never thought I’d learn as much as I have about voting and all the ins-and-outs in such a short time.

Savvy Shabazz: Voting means equality, being a full citizen KFTC spoke with Savvy Shabazz about his experiences as an organizer, what voting means to him as a Kentuckian who could not vote because of a felony conviction, and what he thinks it’s going to take to get more people ready and excited to vote.

Shabazz grew up in Paducah and gave a special shout to Elmwood Court, the low-income housing project he and his family lived in. He visits his hometown often and helped organize McCracken County voters throughout the 2020 election season, but now lives in Louisville. Over the years he’s gained experience as an effective community leader working with organizations, such as the Louisville Urban League, The Bail Project, All of Us or None, and his own reentry program, Life Coach Each One Teach One Re Entry Fellowship.

Q: Do you have advice or words of encouragement for organizers and Kentuckians who want to do this work?

Debra Graner: Going out and having town meetings and going out into under-served areas like so many folks are already doing. Really sitting and talking, almost teaching, you know, teaching a class about voting and understanding the vote.

Anything to educate people.

To feel comfortable to vote, you need to have some understanding of the system and what it means.

I think education is a key component to helping everyone feel that their vote makes a difference, that it makes a difference to vote.

Savvy Shabazz: We’re going to be focused in 2021, not only on voter restoration and voter engagement, but voter education. We believe if people knew the importance of voting, we think that could change a lot of the minds and hearts.

Because we have people that don’t vote, we have people that refuse to vote, we have people that cannot vote. I think if we have more education about voting, I think we’ll be more successful and get a lot more people out to the polls if they just knew.

And I think we need to get the right people in the right positions as well. When we made the list for Hopkinsville, I didn’t go there. I only know a handful of people there, so instead we decided to find a community leader who knows everybody. She worked that list the same way I worked mine in Paducah. She knew everybody on the Hopkinsville list, so it’s like putting people in the right place.

There’s something about when I say it matters that people listen. Not everybody is going to be able to go to my hometown and set the example. That’s what I’m looking for, people to set an example. If he can do it, you know, that’s my friend, that’s my nephew, or that’s my relative. I’m going to support them in that and I’m going to vote too. That’s what we need and that’s what I mean when I say getting people into the right places. We gotta recognize who are the leaders in our communities, who those voices are, who has the power to relate to the people in the demographic we’re focused on.

continued on the next page

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If this past election doesn’t prove that you need to exercise your right to vote, to use your voice, then I’m not sure where people are coming from. So that’s why I know KFTC or any other organization that’s into voting rights needs to go out and foster people who are not so inclined to vote and help them walk through it and understand why it’s so important.

Q: What does it look like to “wrap people up in our arms” or “foster” folks into this voting rights movement?

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Voter Empowerment

Savvy Shabazz …

Debra Graner …

Q: What does voting mean to you?

Q: What does voting mean to you?

Savvy Shabazz: When we’re talking about voting, I first hand know. I haven’t been able to vote since 2002. I know what it’s like to get out and feel like you’re not a full citizen anymore. You’ve done your time, paid your dues to society and you still do not have the right. It’s not a privilege, it’s a right. That’s what we have to get people to understand: it’s our right.

What does it mean to me? It means that I’m a full citizen. It means equality. It means that I’m equal to everybody else. So if that’s taken away from me, that makes me less equal.

Look at all the people across the state that are in pre-trial. They couldn’t afford cash bail so they couldn’t vote. Polls should be taken into county facilities. If you have not lost your right to vote, you as a jailer should be doing everything you can to get a poll set up inside the jail. Those individuals have not been convicted of a crime, they should have the right to vote. There are hundreds and hundreds of people that didn't get to vote in this state simply because they couldn’t afford cash bail.

So that’s what it means to me, getting everyone to the polls, getting people to understand what their rights are, and getting people to utilize those rights.

I like to talk about building leadership in people. It helps them feel whole.

When they’re welcomed back into the community, we should help them also find their leadership so they can benefit and contribute to their community.

Debra Graner: It’s the most precious part of democracy to be able to vote for people that are going to do something good and are representative of the folks that they are representing!

If we really want to do democracy in its fullest, we gotta take part. We’ve got to push ourselves out there to make sure we’re doing our end of the deal or it just doesn’t make a whole hell of a lotta sense.

You can’t sit here and complain about something if you’re not going to try and work on it from your end or my end. You know what I mean? It’s a process and we all need to take part in it. And something you don’t realize until you don’t have the option. I hate to see people get in that situation, you know, and never come out of it.

I’m anxious to see any kind of data showing how many people were truly reached, then figure out what we need to do to get out there and engage with the folks who still do not know that they got their right to vote back. The work’s not yet done.

continued from the previous page

Aubrey Clemons … continued from page 7 the victory. I felt really good then and I felt really appreciated.

The consistent encouragement from KFTC really made me believe that it was possible. Whenever I went to Frankfort I believed it was just a matter of time. I believed it was going to happen, it was just a matter of time. These people are consistent. They’re consistent with me, with the movement, with the policies, they’re consistent as an organization. That’s why I became a member in the first place. It was the consistency and encouragement. The encouragement pushed me for the long run. I’m literally voting now.

I’m a felon and I’m voting, right now! I’m gonna vote again and keep on with it.

Q: What’s it gonna take to restore voting rights for everyone?

Aubrey Clemons: The same thing that got us to this point. The consistency of the mass of voices. Right now is a prime opportunity to make the conversation about democracy more common in the household no matter what demographic you’re living in. The conversation should be more common, more fluent, people shouldn’t feel intimidated. … If people talk about

continued from the previous page

it amongst their community and it’s a more common conversation, then people will want to be a part of it, the movement and everything. The encouragement of, hey, your voice matters, we can do this as a unit.

The more backgrounds, different walks of life get involved they’re gonna start running for office and really start changing a lot of the things that are going on in Frankfort. The imagery, the conversations and the language that’s used in those spaces will be powerful if more voices are included. Because even though we’re all Kentuckians, we have a different voice and a different sound. No one should feel left out because they don’t look like the “majority.”

Among the many allies who have contributed to these Voting Rights wins are: the Poor People's Campaign, ACLU, All of Us or None, Hood to the Holler, Kentucky Unitarian Universalist Justice Action Network, People Advocating Recovery, 874k Coalition, Northern Kentucky Justice and Peace, AFL-CIO, AFSCME Council 962, Appalshop, Black Lives Matter Louisville, Bluegrass Activist Alliance, Catholic Conference of Kentucky, Central Kentucky Council for Peace and Justice, Common Cause, Commonwealth Alliance, Fairness Campaign, Frankfort Anti-Racism Advocates, Jewish Community Relations Council, Kentucky Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Kentucky Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Kentucky Council of Churches, Kentucky Equal Justice Center, KY Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Kentucky Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials, Kentucky Mental Health Coalition, Kentucky Protection and Advocacy, League of Women Voters of Kentucky, Louisville Showing Up for Racial Justice, Louisville Urban League, Making Changes Together, Mijente, NAACP, National Conference of Firemen & Oilers/Service Employees International Union Kentucky, People's Campaign, Together Frankfort, Quaker Committee for Kentucky Legislation, United Food and Commercial Workers, Women’s Network, Young People in Recovery, International Union of Electrical Workers/Communication Workers of America and many others.

www.kftc.org | December 8, 2020

10 | Balancing the Scales

Racial Justice Justice for Breonna Taylor

Amplifying and learning from the Louisville uprising On March 13, Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) murdered Breonna Taylor – a 26-year-old Black woman, award-winning EMT and beloved community member – while she was resting in her own home.

Coinciding with a nationwide uprising for racial justice and Black liberation, Breonna Taylor’s death has sparked a months-long resistance movement in Louisville and across Kentucky.

For months, organizers committed to protecting racial justice in Louisville have demanded accountability for the police officers who murdered Taylor, divesting from the Louisville Metro Police Department’s $190 million annual budget and reinvesting in community resources.

These demands have been amplified and repeated throughout the country and Kentucky – from Lexington’s movement for police accountability (lpdaccountability.com) to countless solidarity actions in rural and small towns.

It’s also true that the Louisville uprising has come with incredible loss and hardship. These include the murder of David “YaYa” McAtee, a Black man killed

by National Guard and Louisville police outside the barbecue restaurant he owned; the murder of Tyler Gerth, a white photographer and activist shot in Injustice Square Park, where protesters have taken up space and erected a memorial for Breonna Taylor; and the LMPD arrest of hundreds of protesters speaking out against white supremacy.

Attorney General Cameron’s failure to deliver justice for Taylor through the grand jury proceedings also contributed to the movement’s hardship.

Despite these challenges, Louisville organizers have shaped one of the most long-standing and resilient movements in the country. Thanks to the leadership of Black, Indigenous and People of Color organizers, the uprising continues.

Breonna’s Law – a win for Louisville, and hopefully for Kentucky Due to this leadership, particularly the leadership of Black women, the city of Louisville has already seen some remarkable wins in this uprising.

One of the most notable wins was when Louisville’s Metro Council listened to public pressure, led

by ACLU strategist Keturah Herron and others, to unanimously pass “Breonna’s Law” – which banned the use of “no-knock” warrants (the type of warrant used by LMPD the night Breonna died).

Attica Scott, a long-time KFTC ally who serves as the only Black woman in the state legislature, is leading the movement to ban no-knock warrants beyond Louisville. In August, she pre-filed legislation for a statewide Breonna’s Law, to be considered by the 2021 General Assembly (learn more and become a “community cosponsor” of the legislation at atticascott4ky.com/breonnas-law).

Members of Shelby County KFTC and other community groups held an action on the steps of the local courthouse on September 25 in solidarity with #JusticeForBreonnaTaylor and Black Lives Matter Louisville.

Looking Forward The uprisings for racial justice, combined with a pandemic and an election season like no other, have

offered important lessons. The work for KFTC members, and all Kentuckians, in 2021 is to learn from events of this year to achieve the anti-racist Kentucky. continued on the next page

Honoring and supporting KFTC allies Take a moment to read about, honor and consider supporting the leadership of some of the Blackand People of Color-led organizations that collectively make up an ecosystem of support for the uprising.

Change Today, Change Tomorrow (change-today.org) helps Louisville’s predominantly Black community in the West End access fresh food and groceries, after one of just two grocery stores closed following the National Guard’s murder of David McAtee. Though the grocery store reopened, CTCT’s #FeedTheWest program, spearheaded by Shauntrice Martin, will continue on through Martin’s work to open the Black Market (facebook.com/BlackMarketKY), a Black-owned and sustainable fresh food source for West End residents.

Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (kentuckyalliance.org) is a 45-yearold organization that supports the occupation of Injustice Square Park (formerly called Jefferson Square Park) in Louisville throughout the uprising. Injustice Square park has served as a memorial to Breonna Taylor, a hub for activists to be in community, and a space of political education and shared grief. As of early December, the occupation had lasted continuously for 190 days. more groups listed on the next page

www.kftc.org | December 8, 2020

Balancing the Scales | 11

Racial Justice

Amplifying and learning from the Louisville uprising continued from the previous page “We have learned the importance of abolitionist frameworks in our organizing – and that to invest in community, we need to divest from the systems that don’t serve us,” pointed out Aja Holston-Barber, who consults with KFTC on equity issues.

“We have learned that we need to show up for each other, and to create spaces and ecosystems for people to show up for each other.”

All Kentuckians have a role in this work, KFTC members are learning.

There is a role for white people doing self-work and working with other white people to move toward an anti-racist vision.

There is a role for rural-urban solidarity in the face of white supremacy and scarcity.

There is a place and a need for the progressive movement in Kentucky to keep leaning into a deeper commitment to anti-racist organizing that brings about our collective liberation.

And, perhaps most important, this uprising demonstrates that Black, Indigenous and people of color people are showing up, are leading and are ready to be supported. It’s up to the rest of us – Kentuckians and KFTC members – to create the support and resources and ecosystem where they can thrive.

Injustice Square Park in Louisville

Honoring and supporting allies List continued from previous page

KFTC is launching a political education curriculum in 2021 where we will learn from abolitionist perspectives about defunding the police and moving toward our vision for ALL people to enjoy a better quality of life. Sign up to stay informed on when this curriculum will launch at cutt.ly/PoliEdSeries

Black Lives Matter Louisville (blackliveslouisville.org) plays an important role in broadening the narrative and lifting up demands to dismantle the system that killed Breonna Taylor, including through divesting from the LMPD and re-investing in community (investdivest.org for more). BLM Louisville offers support for housing, bail and jail support, and led many of the uprising’s direct actions.

The Louisville Bail Project (bailproject.org/city/louisville) provides crucial jail support by posting bail for protesters arrested while demanding justice for Breonna Taylor and is a consistent presence in holding down Injustice Square Park.

Collective Liberation Network (instagram.com/collectiveliberationnetwork) provides direct support to the Louisville uprising by coordinating necessary mutual aid to support queer and trans BIPOC leaders in Louisville, organizing meals for protesters, amplifying important organizing opportunities related to the uprising via social media, and more.

Louisville Showing Up for Racial Justice, or Louisville SURJ (louisvillesurj. org), and Southern Crossroads (fight4thesouth.org), although not Black and brown-led, have been doing the crucial work of organizing white people for racial justice in Louisville and in small towns in the South.

Members of KFTC and ally groups in Morehead and Rowan County showed their solidarity with #JusticeForBreonnaTaylor and Black Lives Matter with a gathering back in the summer.

www.kftc.org | December 8, 2020

12 | Balancing the Scales

To KFTC members and friends:

Recently a KFTC staff person told me about a training she thought may be good for me. A somatics class with a focus on trauma and resiliency.

I sent it to my girlfriend and said, “Girl, you think I should take this?” She’s an expert many things, and her advice is always solid. She responded, “Yes, I think it may be good for you.” I took the offer.

in

The first night I was so annoyed! There was pre-work I hadn’t completed and I was rushing to be on time for class, only to get there and discover I was three hours early – Pacific time.

Finally, I get into the virtual class and there are over 200 people from around the world and the instructor is a late boomer white lady leading us in these rowing moves 15 minutes into the course. I thought, what is this? I committed to 10 weeks of this?

Four weeks into it I’ve come to understand that the instructor is well trained and has a fully developed practice in somatics that comes from a variety of cultures and disciplines. The rowing exercises are part of our weekly centering practice so we can focus on the work before us; and despite there being so many people and looking at a computer screen, the space has been quite intimate – and sacred in a way.

This class has required me to stretch, adjust my expectations and work hard. I appreciate being immersed in something new and unexpected that is also very intentional. And I’ve realized that the experience has applications for the coming year at KFTC. At our Annual Meeting next year, KFTC will celebrate 40 years of organizing and power building. And as we prepare to mark this milestone, we’re embarking on an organizational change initiative that will set a new foundation for the next 40 years. We’re asking ourselves who we want to be – to each other and to Kentucky? What beliefs, strategies, structures and processes will be needed to support that? It will require a lot of work, energy, creativity and investment from all of us. We’ll be uncomfortable at times and that’s OK. Like the class, I so appreciate the opportunity we have to step into something new and different with all the intention to get better at what we do. We organize – to build the KFTC we need to achieve the Kentucky we envision.

As you close out this year, I invite you to join me in making a gift to KFTC. Our collective contributions allow us to keep investing in the leaders we deserve. Money helps us get better at what we do. Thanks for your continued support and happy holidays!

Sincerely,

Cassia Herron KFTC Chairperson Make your donation or membership renewal online at kftc.org/support

www.kftc.org | December 8, 2020

Balancing the Scales | 13

KFTC Fall Gathering

Opening panel looks at building progressive electoral power Under “normal” circumstances, KFTC would host a weekend-long annual meeting to gather in person, learn with each other, share meals and stories, and elect our leaders for the year. That meeting had been scheduled for late July, in Berea.

This year, the annual meeting was turned into an online Fall Gathering where members came together during September and October for a series of sessions and a business meeting in November.

Building Progressive Electoral Power On September 18, KFTC kicked off the Fall Gathering with an opening panel featuring Nsé Ufot, executive director of the New Georgia Project, along with Charles Booker of Hood to the Holler, Christopher Rashad Green of Free*Dome Unlimited, Inc., and Mary Danhauer of the Kentucky Poor People's Campaign.

KFTC Chairperson Cassia Herron moderated the discussion, which happened about six weeks before Election Day, well before the outcome of the elections across Kentucky and the country were known. But the panel’s discussion of how grassroots efforts can change the South together – and what folks can learn from each other – now seems even more relevant.

Ufot shared that Georgia is going through a massive demographic shift and is on track to becoming the first state in the deep south with a white minority.

The New Georgia Project’s focus is on registering and engaging Georgia’s increasingly diverse population, especially people of color, young folks and women while building power with them because “we want to win. We want to build power to stop bad things from happening to us and our families and our loved ones.

And we want the power to bring about the policies and changes that we seek.”

To get there, The New Georgia Project has registered more than half a million Black and brown voters across every county in Georgia since its inception in 2014, and contacted a million voters in 2020. The results of their and others’ work is becoming evident now as Georgia had a marked increase in voter turnout in the 2020 general election.

But it’s not just about making turnout calls right before Election Day. It’s about building real relationships with Georgians.

“We don’t pick up the phone just to make phone calls,” says Ufot. “We’re having high-quality conversations with Georgians. People will tell you the things that they care about, the fears that they have, and the hopes that they have for themselves, for their families,

and for their communities and we work to lean into that.”

And they’re reaching people beyond phone conversations, naming how “culture eats strategy for lunch” and how important it is to meet people where they are. To do that, they’ve created several outreach and engagement programs, including a program where Black fathers talk about the importance of completing the Census. They’ve put out a call to artists to reimagine what Stone Mountain – the largest Confederate monument – could be instead. And they’re working with EA Sports to organize a gaming tournament on the voter registration deadline.

Representative Charles Booker shared his perspective on what it will take to reach and move people to action. As a candidate for U.S. Senate in the Democratic primary, Booker traveled all over the state and had countless conversations with Kentuckians. He shared how important it is to redefine the story we tell about ourselves and do it in such a way that speaks to our common bonds.

“When I talk about rationing insulin, how I nearly died because I chose to feed my girls over getting my refill – and that that’s why I personally believe everybody should have health care no matter where they continued on the next page

www.kftc.org | December 8, 2020

14 | Balancing the Scales

KFTC Fall Gathering

Shared learning includes health justice, police issues Programming for KFTC’s Fall Gathering – the alternative to KFTC’s usual in-person annual membership meeting – continued on three Saturdays after the opening night panel discussion (see previous page).

Each day began with an informal gathering where folks could chat with each other or practice yoga together from the comfort and safety of their homes. This was followed by a shared space for learning about a particular issue.

After a break, folks were invited to come back for a voter empowerment training and given opportunities to volunteer safely either at home or in their communities.

On September 26, folks learned about the intersection of health justice with racial and economic justice and the importance of affordable health care for all from a group of members and allies. That included Aja Holston-Barber of the Center for Health Equity

at the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health & Wellness, Emily Beauregard of Kentucky Voices for Health, Tiff Duncan, a member in Central Kentucky, and Beverly May, a nurse practitioner in eastern Kentucky.

Then on October 3, a group of KFTC members and staff led a political education workshop on what it means to defund the police and move towards a vision where voices are heard and systems meet a community’s needs.

This was an initial offering that will be followed soon by the KFTC Political Education Series, where folks can learn from Abolitionist perspectives about defunding the police. Sign up to stay informed about the curriculum at https://cutt.ly/PoliEdGroup.

And on October 10, the Fall Gathering concluded with a celebration of KFTC’s work, connections and commitment to choosing each other.

Members connected with each other in small groups, made a collective virtual altar of items that bring them hope, celebrated the work of the past year with photos and awards, and closed out with a dance party!

An annual business meeting is a requirement in KFTC’s bylaws, and usually takes place during the annual membership gathering. This year that was held on November 21 as a stand-alone online video conference.

In additional to electing statewide officers (see page 3) and board members for the Kentucky Coalition (page 19), participants were treated to a panel discussion and analysis about the 2020 election (see story on page 4).

Recordings of all the main Fall Gathering programming pieces can be found on KFTC’s website at www.kftc.org/fall-gathering.

Opening panel looks at building progressive electoral power continued from the previous page come from, how much money they have – when I share that, it breaks down the partisan divides about it.

People in Appalachia know what that feels like. And it gives us a fertile environment to say ‘how do we build together? We have these things in common, what are we going to do about it?’”

This will to speak to our common bonds is crucial to Booker’s idea of a new Southern Strategy and his commitment to ending poverty, which is about pulling up the roots of racism at a structural level.

“We meet people where they are, saying, ‘Wherever you are in this conversation, you need to be a part of the solution.’ If we create spaces and we lead in those spaces, we can build the type of movement that I believe will beat the Mitch McConnells of the world and that will take back power.”

For Christopher Rashad Green, an organizer and a formerly incarcerated individual from Virginia, a new Southern Strategy will include restoring voting rights to people with felonies in their past.

Green, who had his voting rights restored in 2016 along with 200,000 others by the executive order of Virginia’s governor, has been organizing to engage, register, educate and mobilize those folks. They’ve had success in streamlining the restoration process and re-

moving the requirement to have no court fines and fees before someone can register.

But, Green said, “We’ve done a lot and we’ve got a long way to go” because he kept hearing from folks that even if they had their voting rights restored, they still had difficulty finding a job because of their record.

So now they organized to help pass some expungement laws in Virginia.

Green also is hoping to expand the electorate even further by organizing support for people who are currently incarcerated to be able to vote, saying, “We want voting rights for all. Even people who are incarcerated should have the right to vote.”

All the panelists spoke to the importance of accountability of leaders once they’re elected to office.

“Once you get somebody into office, you have to hold their feet to the fire,” Mary Danhauer of the Kentucky Poor People’s Campaign shared. “We can’t give up on the day after the election when our person gets in. We have to move them because they’re not exactly where we want them to be.”

“We want the power to hire and fire the elected officials who we will be co-governing with,” said Nsé Ufot. “We don’t want people to take their foot off the gas after election day, even when we’re victorious. The idea is to win and then to defend those wins beyond

one election cycle.”

In closing the panel, Herron asked the panelists to share what brings them joy and hope, an essential part of sustaining this movement.

Nsé Ufot: “At all of our meetings, we have food, music and childcare. You don’t come to a New Georgia Project meeting where we don’t have food, music and childcare. It’s super important.”

Christopher Rashad Green: “Joy comes from being empathetic. After suffering and traveling in those circles for all those years and not realizing my potential, empathy brings me joy. I just want people to share their voice and join us.”

Mary Danhauer: “Taking time to work on the inner work. Feeling energy of like-minded folks who are willing to stand up and work for justice.”

Charles Booker: “My joy comes from my faith, my daughters and family and the people of Kentucky.

We’re facing tough times, but we’re built for it.”

Cassia Herron: “If we can’t sing and dance together, we can’t get free together.”

Thanks for being a KFTC member. Renew here: kftc.org/support

www.kftc.org | December 8, 2020

Balancing the Scales | 15

Voter Empowerment

KFTC is “All In” for building regional power with Georgians KFTC has been in conversation with national and regional allies, and particularly with our allies in Georgia, about ways we can pitch in to build power in the South through our continued work to unseat Mitch McConnell – if not as Kentucky’s senator, at least from holding the power of the U.S. Senate Majority Leader.

KFTC’s Vice Chairperson Meta Mendel-Reyes has helped lead this work, and here is her request to fellow members.

We choose each other when we support building progressive power in the South, and right now, power is at stake in Georgia – with broad consequences for Kentucky and the entire nation.

Georgia's Senate run-off election is the next stop in our collective work to take our power back from Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump, who won’t even admit he lost the Presidential election. Currently Mitch leads the U.S. Senate, and that means he can block the most crucial initiatives by the new Biden administration to bring back a government for the people, not the wealthy and their corporations. But that will change - if the two challengers in Georgia win on January 5. The Georgia Senate run-offs

give us a great opportunity to rebuild power at the national level, and strengthen the progressive movement here in Kentucky and in the South.

KFTC has been active in regional organizing because we know that it takes all of us to build the kind of South that we want to live in. Sideby-side with our allies, such as the New Georgia Project, we have fought against voter suppression, disenfranchisement of former felons, and all the other ways that the right-wing has tried to take away the basis of our democracy, the right to vote. During KFTC’s recent virtual Fall Gathering, Nsé Ufot, CEO of NGP, made it clear that vigilant organizing by ordinary Georgians led to Biden’s victory, the first victory by a Democrat in a Presidential election in their state in 28 years.

Although the South is often portrayed by national media as the “reddest” region in the country, we know the reality – that the Southern progressive movement has developed an organizing model that the rest of the country could learn from. Now organizing is needed more than ever, and people from all over the country are paying attention to the run-offs. Money is flowing into

Take your $300 Charitable Deduction Under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed by Congress in March, taxpayers who otherwise would not itemize deductions on their federal income tax return may take a deduction of up to $300 from their 2020 taxes for charitable cash contributions made in 2020 to qualifying organizations.

Previously, charitable contributions could only be deducted if taxpayers itemized their deductions.

To qualify for that deduction, make your year-end gift to the Kentucky Coalition instead of KFTC. You can do so online at kftc.org/support (and choose the Kentucky Coalition option) or mail to Kentucky Coalition, PO Box 1450, London, KY 40743.

Here's another giving option If you have appreciated stock or bonds and would like to avoid paying capital gains tax while getting a tax deduction, you can donate the stock to KFTC or the Kentucky Coalition. Contact Jerry Hardt at jhardt@kftc.org or 606-496-6402 to learn how.

the state, from Democrats and Republicans who think alike that elections are won through television ads. But we know better. Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossof can win – but only through organizing from the grassroots up.

Here’s where KFTC comes in. We know how to organize for power because we’ve done it for over 39 years. Together with the rest of the progressive movement in the South, we can help make the difference by deep canvassing in Georgia (following safety guidelines during COVID), as well as phone banking, personal letters and postcards, and all the things people can do at a distance.

What will you do?

Here are the opportunities gathered from the table of allies working with the leadership of The New Georgia Project – a Black-led organizing group founded by Stacey Abrams, led by Nsé Ufot and working to register Georgia voters and for safe and secure elections.

1) Phonebank to Georgia. SURJ (Standing Up for Racial Justice, a national organization with an anchor here in Kentucky) is mobilizing folks nationwide to make calls to white voters who are registered Democrats in rural areas. This is strategic for creating a block of voters for this election, and for building progressive power in Georgia with a racial justice lens. These conversations would be great practice for KFTC members!

To sign up for SURJ phone banks, go to: https://bit.ly/2LgLnd1 A charged phone and laptop are needed. SURJ is using a dialer that only works with FireFox or Chrome and doesn’t work with tablets. SURJ will train callers on the software and the conversations before calling begins.

2) Contribute. To contribute financially, make a donation to The New Georgia Project. You also can contribute to the Georgia Victory Fund (https://secure.actblue.com/donate/surjpac-ngpaf ) that splits resources between SURJ and the NGP. 3) If you're interested in going to Georgia to canvass, please fill out this questionnaire (shorturl.at/rt256) from New Georgia Project.

www.kftc.org | December 8, 2020

16 | Balancing the Scales

Kentucky General Assembly

KFTC preps for 2021 legislative session with many unknowns The 2021 Kentucky General Assembly begins Tuesday, January 5. Republicans hold large majorities in both the House and the Senate, and will control the content and flow of legislation.

Because of the ongoing pandemic, there are many unknowns about how the session will be conducted, especially in terms of public participation. KFTC and allies are seeking clarification from legislative leaders (who control some parts of the capitol and the capitol annex) and the governor (who controls some parts of the capitol) as to how the public will be given access to legislators and legislative proceedings.

Passing a one-year budget will be a major focus for this session. Though the state usually operates on a two-year budget, the onset of the pandemic last March disrupted the final days of the 2020 sessions and created economic uncertainty. Legislators decided at that time to pass just a one-year budget.

Gov. Andy Beshear is expected to offer his budget proposal in early January.

The House came close to passing a good version of the Voting Rights bill pushed by KFTC and others in the 2020 session, after a weaker version had passed the Senate. That will be among KFTC’s priorities for 2021.

KFTC also supports making permanent some of the temporary voting measures put into place this year because of the pandemic – specifically voting by mail and early voting. Other proposals will include extending voting hours past 6 p.m. and making voter registration easier.

Breonna’s Law, which would ban “no-knock” search warrants as well as make other reforms in how police use search warrants, will be another top priority.

Because of the Republican supermajorities – meaning that Republicans have enough votes to override vetoes by Gov. Beshear – it is expected they will push troubling legislation they have prioritized in the past. That includes the continued eroding of funding for public education, attacks on immigrants and health care, a new iteration of the “War on the Poor” bill and more, as well as actions to undermine Beshear’s executive actions in response to the pandemic.

The KFTC Steering Committee began a conversation about KFTC’s involvement in the 2021 sessions, weighed with other organizational priorities, at its December 5 video meeting. The Executive Committee will serve as KFTC’s legislative strategy team during the session.

Next year’s session will be a “short” session held in odd-numbered years. This means lawmakers will meet for no more than 30 working days, extended from the first Tuesday after the first Monday in January (the start date set in the state constitution) and cannot extend beyond March 30. The calendar is as follows: January 5-8: Part 1 – first four days, generally used to orient new members and for organizational purposes February 2 - March 16: Part 2 – daily legislative sessions (Monday-Friday), with the following days off:

February 18: Presidents Day holiday March 11 & 12: no session

Then from March 17-29, there will be a veto recess to give the governor time to consider legislation that has passed.

March 30: legislators meet for one final day with a chance to consider any veto

Give the gift of a KFTC membership this holiday season Give someone you love the gift of KFTC membership and the chance to make a difference in Kentucky. We set up a simple online form for you to complete your gift, and your friend will enjoy the benefits of their KFTC membership for the coming year.

To set up your gift membership, go to:

kftc.org/gift Thanks.

Have a wonderful holiday season.

www.kftc.org | December 8, 2020

Balancing the Scales | 17

New Energy and Transition

Amid coal bankruptcies, who cleans up the mess left behind?

Blackjewel – the coal company that gained notoriety last year when it shut down and declared bankruptcy while owing its workers unpaid wages – has unreclaimed mines with significant environmental violations. KFTC along with the Citizens Coal Council, Appalachian Voices, Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, Kentucky Resources Council, the Sierra Club, the Powder River Basin Resource Council and Kanawha Forest Coalition, represented by Mary Cromer, asked the bankruptcy judge to consider these environmental liabilities in settling the company’s bankruptcy case. The judge is expected to rule soon.

By Mary Varson Cromer Appalachian Citizens Law Center On Sept. 10 and 11, a bankruptcy court held a hearing on the status of Blackjewel’s coal mining permits and environmental violations. More than 15 months after seeking bankruptcy protection, Blackjewel still holds 209 Kentucky mine permits. Though most have sold, the buyers have yet to transfer the permits and assume the responsibilities of environmental compliance and reclamation.

Those responsibilities remain with Blackjewel.

Unless they don’t.

Since it entered bankruptcy, Blackjewel has spent little on environmental compliance and has racked up thousands of violations. Last week, Kentucky’s Energy and Environment Cabinet asked the court to order Blackjewel to comply with the state’s environmental laws. The court refused. It found that Blackjewel could only be ordered to address environmental violations that constitute an immediate threat to public health and safety.

The court found such an immediate threat in only one instance. In Harlan County, during recent rains, runoff from a Blackjewel mine washed trees and silt into the drainage system, which subsequently overflowed and washed out the road and public water line below. As the county struggles to fix the road and water line, residents have had to go without water.

In the case of a landslide threatening a home in Bell County, the court did not find an immediate threat. The house is located below a slide on a saturated hillside and, if and when it fails, the mountainside will slide into the house below. Still, the court found that the imminence of the threat was not sufficient to order Blackjewel to fix the problem.

This does not bode well for Kentucky. Twenty-nine percent of Kentucky’s mine permits are in-

volved in seven coal bankruptcies. What’s more, all of those permits are up for grabs, and there’s no guarantee that the clean up responsibilities that come with those permits will be assumed by another company. If the bankrupt coal companies’ permits aren’t transferred, it is likely that the reclamation will fall to either the bonding company or the state. Where the bond isn’t sufficient to clean up the mine site, the state will be responsible.

We’re talking about thousands of acres of unreclaimed mine land, mostly across Eastern Kentucky. As the Cabinet said, “conditions only get worse over time.

Ponds fill in with sediment washed from unreclaimed mining areas resulting in polluted discharges, unreclaimed slopes erode and fail while depositing mud, rocks, and debris into creeks and the backyards and homes of the citizens that live in the valley bottoms below.” That, combined with increased high intensity rain events caused by climate change, leave those “citizens that live in the valley bottoms below” in a very precarious situation.

Immediate actions are needed to protect those citizens and to address the impact that coal’s collapse is having in eastern Kentucky.

Many of the problems on Blackjewel’s permits stem from years of lax enforcement by the state. That must stop. Kentucky must stringently enforce all of its environmental laws to ensure that permits are in better shape when they enter bankruptcy. Coal companies

must bear the costs of clean up, and the only time that can be assured is before the company seeks bankruptcy protection.

Further, the Cabinet can and must pursue Jeff Hoops and other owners and controllers of these coal companies both for the costs of reclamation that are not covered by the bond amounts and for penalties.

But even that won’t be enough to clean up the hundreds of thousands of acres of scarred land and miles of polluted streams that the industry is leaving behind. The area needs federal investments aimed at creating the jobs needed to clean up these lands and waterways. Eastern Kentucky is transitioning away from coal. So far, that transition is chaotic and unjust.

Federal investment in the jobs required to clean up mine sites, as well as the jobs needed to fix the region’s dilapidated infrastructure, are the region’s only hope for a just transition.

Mary Varson Cromer is the deputy director of the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center in Whitesburg. This appeared in the Lexington Herald-Leader on September 18.

Blackjewel and its affiliates have mines in Bell, Breathitt, Floyd, Harlan, Johnson, Knott, Letcher, Martin, McCreary, Perry and Pike counties in Kentucky, as well as Virginia and West Virginia, and in the western U.S. Currently in Kentucky, 36 percent of all outstanding coal mining permits are involved in a bankruptcy case.

www.KFTC.org/MeetOnline KFTC lists our chapter meetings, trainings, cultural events, holiday gatherings and more where members can learn, take action and be in solidarity with one another this winter.

We list them at: www.KFTC.org/MeetOnline. New activities are continually being added.

We make space at every online event for people to get to know each other, really interact and make connections.

Anyone can connect by computer if you have a webcam, mic and speakers. Or you can join by phone. We use Zoom video conferencing.

However, you need to register so that we can send you the appropriate Zoom link or phone number (or event location when we are able to safely meet in person again).

Visit www.KFTC.org/MeetOnline and register for the events you want to join in order to receive an invitation to the Zoom video conference.

www.kftc.org | December 8, 2020

18 | Balancing the Scales

Building Grassroots Power

Art Nurtures Justice auction a success for Rolling Bluegrass

By Rosanne Fitts Klarer and Amelia Cloud Grassroots fundraising in a pandemic is challenging at best. We thought it wouldn’t work. Nevertheless we persisted because it’s how we stay tight as a chapter. Together we planned an online fundraiser.

Art Nurtures Justice began with a 90-minute Facebook Live event on November 14 and continued with an online auction through November 20.

As we planned this event, we communicated often, and we encouraged each other.

We laughed a lot and brainstormed ideas about how to make it work. What really convinced us to continue with this

project was when we started asking artists to donate art. They were almost all glad to help. Friends like Casey Papendieck of Turtle Farm Pottery in Wolfe County even met us in Lexington to hand off their donation.

Also, we were able to get help from talented KFTC intern Syd Gregory! She’s very creative and was able to maneuver through and teach the planning team the various platforms we used for this event. We utilized Facebook, Facebook live, Zoom and the BetterWorld online auction site. She also offered helpful advice on how to photograph art work to show online.

Our planning team met on a regular basis. Six weeks before the event, we had Zoom meetings once a week and went over our action steps and ideas for how to make this event successful. It takes a village.

A big shout out goes to Deb Graner, a voting rights warrior from Frankfort who was able to get several pieces of art donated from Frankfort artists. She connected us to Carey Sudduth of Capital Pride, who beautifully performed as Jennifer Grant in front of the old Capitol for our grand finale. We also had three other musicians perform social justice theme songs via video or live on Zoom. This music really helped mix up the 90-minute program.

We showcased some of the awesome art and gift baskets that we had up for auction through an online platform called BetterWorld. This one-week online auction and donation event brought in $1,764 and celebrated our chapter even in a pandemic!

SOME FUNDRAISING PLANNING STEPS FOR OTHER CHAPTERS Staying organized • • •

• • • • •

Start planning early, at least four months ahead of the event. Begin discussions at chapter meetings, then have regular planning meetings.

Have a good planning team and delegate tasks.

Keep track of items being donated. A spreadsheet listing: the items donated, the title of the artwork, the artist's name, the donor's name and contact info for both (email, phone, physical address – for thank you notes later), the item's description. Have a column for the item's value, minimum bid and final bid.

Have an online form that donors can fill out with the above information.

Request an artist bio at the time of donation that can be posted with the artwork.

Collect quality photos to post on the site.

Auction items: Don't be concerned about actually having the art/items in the planner's possession. If something doesn't sell, you won't have to worry about returning it.

After the event, BetterWorld (betterworld.org) will provide a list of people with their contact info who made the high bid on an item.

Marketing the event • • •

Create a catchy name, and choose a date and time for the event. Decide how long the auction should last. Our kick-off program was an hour and a half, and the online auction continued for another 6 days.

Social media is important. Have team members and the chapter share the event often (use email, text message, messenger and Facebook).

Highlight particular items, telling a bit about the item during the pro-

•

gram and online before and after the event.

Encourage people to make online donations (even if they are bidding) and to pay their annual membership.

Planning the Event • • • • • •

Utilize your chapter organizer’s help and the KFTC Communications & Development Team.

Choose a team member to set up the BetterWorld site with photos/details of the items and artist bios.

Create an event schedule. We divided up our live event into 20-minute time slots. Plan for various roles team members can play during the event.

Solicit musicians to perform: live on Zoom or by submitting a music video ahead of time. This makes the event interesting and fun. We interjected music throughout each 20-minute slot.

Secure members who will speak live on Zoom about chapter priority issues (3-5 minutes each).

Add some jokes (thanks, Brittany Martin) and any costumes or fun hats (thanks for the squid hats, Rosanne and Tim) to shake it up!

Planning this kind of event for the first time can seem overwhelming. It's why we wanted to share what we learned.

Event bonuses include: no fees for rental space or band. Using social media means no cost for creating and printing postcards or postage. Consequently, more money goes to donations. Also, a virtual event limits running around.

In the end, we found it less stressful. The kick-off event was fun, though we missed getting together with friends.

www.kftc.org | December 8, 2020

Balancing the Scales | 19

Whitney Kuklinski joins KFTC staff; Greenfield to provide contract work Whitney Kuklinski joined the KFTC staff in November as Interim Communications Associate after working throughout the fall as a voter empowerment organizer.

Kuklinski overWhitney Kuklinski saw the social media presence for KFTC, the Kentucky Democracy Project and the New Power PAC. She will continue largely in that role with an employment extension at least through May, working with the Communications and Development Team.

A Western Kentucky University graduate, Kuklinski studied Art History and Folk Studies, which stoked her passion for sharing people-centered stories and recognizing creativity in how peo-

ple communicate. She grew up in Elizabethtown, though has called Bowling Green home for nearly 10 years. She resides there with her partner and three dogs – Mama, Kermit and Dude.

Kuklinski began volunteering with KFTC in 2019 and is grateful for her local organizers who shared their knowledge and empowered her to continue to take action within the community.

In another change, Laura Greenfield will continue to work with KFTC on a contract basis rather than as an employee in order to pursue graduate studies and farming. Greenfield was KFTC’s Research & Data Visualization Manager and will continue to help with data management and special projects.

Also this fall, Michael Harrington, a program associate on the KFTC Administrative Team, took a job as the Kentucky organizer for Southern Crossroads (fight4thesouth.org).

See all current members of the KFTC staff in the column to the right.

Ezra Dike, Joy Fitzgerald and Matthew Gidcomb elected to Ky. Coalition board The Kentucky Coalition is the tax-exempt sister organization of KFTC. It supports leadership development programs and other charitable activities of KFTC. The Kentucky Coalition board includes the five members of the KFTC Executive Committee (see page 3) plus three additional members elected by KFTC’s members at the Annual Business Meeting.

Ezra Dike, Cumberland Chapter Dike, a current board member, is an active member in the Cumberland Chapter and serves on the KFTC Finance Committee. He has supported trainings and workshops, and as a public defender he consistently offers his perspective on legal matters, including helping the organization understand what it would entail to advocate for providing state-funded legal representation to those involved in civil court proceedings.

Joy Fitzgerald, Shelby County Fitzgerald has long been active in social change and has just served out her term as Shelby County Steering Committee representative. She continues to

be an active member of the Shelby County chapter and many other local organizations and efforts. Fitzgerald has supported candidate forums, the chapter’s Pride celebration, and building alliances with local People of Color-led organizations and community support efforts.

Matthew Gidcomb, Central Kentucky Chapter Gidcomb became active with the Central Kentucky chapter during the 2014 campaign to raise the local minimum wage. He helped start the chapter’s Energy and Equity Committee that works on issues related to Just Transition. He also helped establish the chapter’s Action for Democracy Team, and helps shape the local electoral strategy and candidate endorsement process. He consistently supports voter registration drives and canvasses and is very passionate about that work. He’s a graduate of Centre College, a software developer, and is active in a loosely organized professional network of folks who work in coding. He’s been working on a project with former colleagues to develop a website registry of local arts and culture events and programming.

/

KFTC OFFICES AND STAFF MAIN OFFICE Morgan Brown, Burt Lauderdale, Ashley Frasher and Kevin Short P.O. Box 1450 London, KY 40743 606-878-2161 | Fax: 606-878-5714 info@kftc.org

FIELD OFFICES Louisville E’Beth Adami, Carissa Lenfert, Corey Dutton, Jessie Skaggs and Shauntrice Martin 735 Lampton Street #202 Louisville, KY 40203 502-589-3188 Bowling Green Laura Harper Knight, Alexa Hatcher and

Whitney Kuklinski 958 Collett Ave., Suite 500 Bowling Green, KY 42101 270-282-4553 Northern Kentucky Joe Gallenstein, Caitlin Sparks

and Dave Newton 640 Main Street Covington, KY 41005 859-380-6103 Central Kentucky Jessica Hays Lucas, Heather Mahoney,

Erik Hungerbuhler, Meredith Wadlington,

Tayna Fogle and Nikita Perumal 250 Plaza Drive, Suite 4 Lexington, KY 40503 859-276-0563 Big Sandy Jerry Hardt and Jacob Mack-Boll 152 North Lake Drive P.O. Box 864 Prestonsburg, KY 41653 Berea Lisa Abbott, Amy Hogg and Julia Basil 210 N. Broadway #3 Berea, KY 40403 859-868-1179

Email any staff member at firstname@ kftc.org, except fpr Whitney Kuklinski use: whitneykuklinski@kftc.org.

20 | Balancing the Scales

www.kftc.org | December 8, 2020