The Black Affairs Council and Student Programming Council of Southern Illinois University joined forces with Carbondale’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) branch for the “Saluki’s Vote Counts” event to encourage voter registration among the student population.

Linda Flowers, president of Carbondale’s NAACP branch said, “what I am hearing is that the young people are going to be deciding this election, and if that being true, isn’t it wonderful that the young people here on campus of Southern Illinois University is making sure other young people are doing their civic duty?” 

Flowers expressed her faith in the young people of today, and shared her appreciation for Southern Illinois University with its many events for the student body to get informed and participate in both local and federal elections, such as the voter registration event. 

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Demetrius Lovejoy, the coordinator of administrative affairs for the Black Affairs Council emphasized the importance of student engagement with the political climate.

“This event is something I deem very important for students to be knowledgeable about. This election, the political climate in general, has become very somewhat harmful and toxic to people who may not be familiar with policies that are in place against certain stereotypes,” Lovejoy said.

He went on to talk about how this election cycle’s marketing decisions are for the younger people of the world.

“It’s a lot more marketed, specifically with the democratic party’s nominee, Kamala Harris. People may follow her on the tiktok Kamala HQ or they may tune into the record breaking zoom calls hosted weekly to see the different variety of people who come together,” Lovejoy said. “Really does help shape how this election season will turn out, and most importantly, people are really seeing and waking up and realizing, yeah, I will be affected if I don’t use my voice.”  

At the beginning of the event, BAC passed out pamphlets created by the NAACP, outlining Project 2025, the 922-page list of policy recommendations constructed by the Heritage Foundation, is a federal policy blueprint for a presidential transitional project in favor of conservative policy recommendations. The pamphlets outlined key aspects and goals of Project 2025. 

An attendee, Micheala Black shared, “I think it is important [to register to vote] because I feel like every vote matters. And a lot of people say, oh, my vote doesn’t matter, just because there are so many people, but I think every vote matters, and like I wouldn’t want to miss out on voting because there’s a lot of things I don’t agree with that certain parties want to do.” 

Finally, Lovejoy shared resources to gain reliable and unbiased information on political candidates and their policies.

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“I try to keep a middle ground, [news] so I can find information that is not going to throw the other party in a negative connotation. I think that is important, especially on this campus,” Lovejoy said, “To try to reach out to those who are trying to do things like this, such as voter registration, or like the NAACP, or potentially the USG [Undergraduate Student Government]. Reaching out to those students that have the ability to connect with a variety of people… to tie it all back up I would say to reach out and to do your own research.”

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The pamphlet outlines many of the key points of Project 2025, such as, 

• Cut over time protections for 4.3 million workers
•  Restrict access to medication [medical] abortion
•  Deny students in 25 states and washington DC access to student loans because their state provides in state tuition for undocumented immigrants
•  Roll back civil right protections across multiple fronts, including cutting diversity, equity, and inclusion related (DEI) programs and LGBTQ+ rights in health care, education, and health care.” 

The pamphlet went on to reveal what Project 2025 seeks to do, “restrict reproductive rights and access to health care, create a new “border control and immigration agency” to resurrect Trump’s border wall, build camps to detain children and families at the border, allow discrimination where we live, study work and play- rolling back hard-fought [civil] victories, and seriously considering mandatory military service.” 

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