Charlotte, N.C./April 21, 2023 – On April 19, 2023, the Charlotte Racial Justice Consortium (CRJC) met at Central Piedmont Community College (CPCC) for a culminating event of presentations from all five institutions in the consortium.
The CRJC is a partnership between CPCC, Johnson C. Smith University, Johnson and Wales University’s Charlotte Campus, Queens University of Charlotte and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
The consortium works to create a Charlotte community that understands its history of race and racism, embraces a more comprehensive narrative on race, eliminates a hierarchy of human value and develops faculty, staff and student leaders who advocate across the five campuses and community for truth, justice, racial healing and systemic transformation.
THE CRJC is in its third year. Each year, it has its student fellows research an issue and come up with a plan to address it in their community. This years’ theme was voting rights and advocacy.
“This year what we decided to do was move students toward a community impact project,” said Dr. Melvin Herring, director of the master of Social Work program and CRJC advisor at JCSU. “The thought was that students would develop strategies that would last through the 2023 presidential election. The strategies would engage each community in participating in their civic duties. Subsequent fellows will build on this plan through 2024.”
JCSU’s 2023 CRJC Student Fellows included Cierra Carter, Kyndall Ragins, Constance McKinley, Lashae Lewis and Krajani Kelley. Dr. Cindy Kistenberg, professor of Communication Arts and Theatre, served alongside Herring as a CRJC advisor.
The cohort at JCSU focused on a movie-showing and voter registration event. The team showed the movie Selma, a 2014 film that highlighted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the subsequent march from Selma to Montgomery which let to the official signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“We wanted to show this movie so we can try to highlight the fight for voting rights in the past to show students the importance of voting and talking to their representatives,” said Ragins.
The cohort registered a few students to vote and also took a poll to see if students would be more likely to vote if the voting precinct was located on campus. With results showing students would be more likely to engage in their civic duties if the precinct location was on campus, the team is ready to pass the baton to the next group of students.
“Our vision is for the next cohort to try to get the voting precinct back on our campus,” said Carter. “They can do this by getting a petition signed by administration, faculty, staff and students and with the support and advocacy of the Board of Elections.”
