Thomas Breen photos
Writing to swing-state voters from the sidewalks of Loomis Place.
On a quiet, tree-lined Prospect Hill block, several dozen New Haveners gathered at pandemic-safe distances to listen to cello music, enjoy the picture-perfect autumn afternoon — and write letter after letter after letter, desperately encouraging swing-state voters to do their part to ensure that the United States remains a functioning democracy this election season.
That get-out-the-vote block party took place Sunday afternoon on Loomis Place, a tranquil residential stretch of large, stately brick single-family homes right next door to The Foote School.
The event was organized by Loomis Place neighbors James Forman, Jr. and Muneer Ahmad. Roughly 60 participants from East Rock, Prospect Hill, Beavers Hills, Westville, and elsewhere from across the city came out to sit in folding chairs placed six-feet apart and write letters to registered voters in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Florida about why they should hit the polls — in person or absentee — this November.
Forman, Jr. (right) with Newhallville/Prospect Hill Alder Kim Edwards.
Forman and Ahmad said that they received a list of voters from “historically under-represented communities” from an organization called Vote Forward. They said the nonpartisan mission of Sunday’s outreach effort was to get as many people as possible in those critically important swing states to vote in the upcoming presidential and congressional general elections.
“This feels to me like the most important election of my lifetime,” said Forman. He said his parents met during the Civil Rights movement, and that he learned at an early age not to take for granted the hard-fought and ever-precarious right to vote, especially for Black Americans.
This sidewalk letter-writing campaign represented an opportunity for fellow politically-galvanized New Haveners to gather in person in a relatively safe manner during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, and to add a personal, handwritten touch to their efforts to motivate swing-state voters to cast their ballots.
“There’s something that comes from this collective energy,” Forman said, that’s feels fundamentally different from sitting alone in one’s home while phone-banking or writing letters to strangers thousands of miles away.
Ahmad walks some attendees through the letter-writing process.
Ahmad said that this is the second weekend in a row that Loomis Place has played host to such a get-out-the-vote gathering.
He and Forman organized the first blockwide letter-writing campaign last Sunday, in the immediate aftermath of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death. Sunday’s event took place one day after President Donald Trump announced that he would like to see conservative federal Judge Amy Coney Barrett replace the late liberal icon on the country’s top court.
The Prospect Hill organizers plan on holding similar letter-writing parties on each of the next two Saturdays. They’ll then gather all of the letters written over the course of the four events and mail them all on Oct. 17 — a date selected by Vote Forward, with the goal of having the letters arrive several days before the Nov. 3 election.
Andrew Rosen (right) and cello student Zayn Ahmad-Dhillon play “Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star.”
Ahmad said the roughly 30 people who participated last week wrote a total of 400 letters. This week, he said, the organizers hoped to have 1,000 more letters penned.
“I feel such intense urgency around this election,” he said. Whichever candidate wins the presidency and whichever party wins control of Congress will have profound implications on the future of affordable and accessible healthcare, immigrant rights, and economic inequality in this country. Ahmad said he believes that the more people who vote — especially in states that play a disproportionately important role in the electoral college map — the more likely this country can tilt towards becoming a “community of equality and fairness.”
The dozens of New Haveners who came out to Sunday’s letter-writing event agreed.
Rosalie Mutonji (pictured at right with Ahmad), a Beaver Hills resident and immigrant from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said she wanted to emphasize in her letters to Pennsylvania and Florida voters just how much their votes and voices matter in this election.
“I am a woman, an immigrant, Black,” she said. “I feel like my voice needs to be heard, too.”
East Rock resident Lise Dondy (pictured) said that voting is a foundational, essential component of participating in a democracy.
“I feel like if I don’t vote and someone is elected who doesn’t support the policies I believe in, I only have myself to blame,” she said as she wrote a letter to a Florida voter.
The message fellow East Rock resident Patricia Garland (pictured) wanted to convey in her letters to Florida voters? “Just go vote.”
She said she has been including in each of her letters a quotation from Abraham Lincoln. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” In order to keep this country a democracy, she said, people must exercise their right to vote.
High School in the Community Principal and North Carolina native Matt Brown (pictured with Forman) said he turned out to Sunday’s letter-writing event in part to demonstrate to his school’s students just how seriously he takes the right to vote, and how invested he is in participating in and protecting democracy. “It is so critically important to vote,” he said, in order to have a say in what the future of this country looks like.
Constance LaPalombara (pictured) said she was writing specifically to female voters in swing states on Sunday. In her letters, she’s written about how hard this generation’s mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers worked to secure and preserve the right to vote for women. “Our democratic institutions are at stake,” she said.
“I figured in a democracy, it’s really important to be civically engaged,” said Yale Law School student Ink Berko (pictured). That means not just voting come election time, but also gathering with other politically engaged members of New Haven’s community to collectively encourage greater democratic participation across the country.
Enroue Halfkenny, Ifadayo Engel-Halfkenny, Tagan Engel, and Tomi Engel-Halfkenny.
And Tagan Engel and Enroue Halfkenny made Sunday afternoon’s letter-writing campaign a family affair, joining their teenage children Tomi and Ifadayo in penning letters to Florida and Pennsylvania voters.
Engel said she has seen an increasing number of Trump lawn signs and bumper stickers the more she travels outside of New Haven, and is concerned that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s current lead in national polls may be less sturdy than some might think.
Tomi, who is 12, pointed out that she’s not old enough to vote yet. But she’s old enough to recognize that the more people who turn out to vote, the stronger this country’s democracy will be.
“I’m trying to put in my letters just how important it is to make your voices heard,” she said.
