DNC CHAIR Minyon Moore (left) pictured during an interview with N’DIGO Publisher and show host Hermene Hartman at an event celebrating the legacy of Ida B. Wells.
Crusader publisher ready to register voters
While the Democratic Harris-Walz team is crisscrossing the nation solidifying votes, history was also being made in Chicago Thursday, August 8th, when Democratic National Committee Chair Minyon Moore’s GOTV remarks stirred up excitement for the upcoming election including Chicago Crusader publisher Dorothy Leavell who declared that the “Black Press is going to be front and center” in getting people to the polls come November 5th.
“We are often discounted, but I can assure you that the people are waiting for us to tell them what to do, and we’re going to do it.” Leavell said. “I’m right across the street from the 694-unit Parkway Gardens complex, and I’m going to register all of those young people over there. We’re going to win, and we’re going to do this all over the Midwest and make sure we win these battleground states.”
Leavell wasn’t the only one excited about the upcoming election, which is just 87 days away. People were busy networking and comparing notes about their methods of voter registration and GOTV. However, Moore, a Chicago native trained by the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, said her preference in working campaigns is to do it the “old-fashioned way,” meaning going door-to-door in search of votes.
DOROTHY R. LEAVELL, Arnette Hubbard, Minyon Moore, Leslie Hairston and supporters.
HERMENE HARTMAN (far left) and Mary Datcher (far right) are among the supporters flanking Del Marie Cobb (center).
Besides excitement over the Democratic ticket, a lot of history was in the Truth Italian Restaurant, 56 E. Pershing Rd., where Del Marie Cobb, owner of Publicity Works, was celebrating the fifth Ida B. Wells’ Legacy Committee linking Wells’ history of being the first Black woman to run for office in 1929 and 1930 to Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris’ being the first female, first Black and first Asian-American to become Vice President and the second Black woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate.
While Shirley Chisholm was the first Black woman to run for president in 1972, Cobb pointed out that President Biden chose Harris as his vice president and Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first African American U.S. Supreme Court Justice. However, the first trailblazing, historic African American female officeholders didn’t stop there.
Moore is making history too being the first Black female to chair the Democratic National Committee. One of her first official acts was made last Tuesday, August 6th, in certifying Harris and Tim Walz, her vice president pick, as the party’s nominees. Moore said she would not be in this position if she had not been a volunteer and adviser to Rev. Jackson during his 1984 and 1988 presidential runs coupled with her working at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
Cobb said women will be coming out in “full force” and that “they are serious” about this campaign. “These are exciting times” given that the DNC is just 11 days away.
SUPPORTERS AND ATTENDEES at the Ida B. Wells’ Legacy forum held at the Truth Italian restaurant on Thursday, August 8, 2024. (Photos by Chinta Strauserg and CG Palmer)
Moore took questions from N’Digo Newspaper publisher Hermene Hartman, who asked the Chicago native several questions about her background and the campaign.