In 2016, Laverne Berry, an attorney from Brooklyn, NY, heard that North Carolina Republicans were illegally purging thousands of black voters from the rolls. She and three of her friends volunteered to do what they could to protect North Carolina voters in the upcoming presidential elections. Capturing the Flag is about their experience.
Aisha Dew is the former chair of the Mecklenburg County Democratic party and a former vice chair of the North Carolina state party. She has helped dozens of minority Democratic candidates win local and statewide elections.
Laverne and Aisha were both in Cambridge this weekend as Swing Left Greater Boston’s special guests at the Capturing the Flag screening and the following evening at a fundraiser for Aisha’s efforts to turn out the vote in the September NC-09 special election. Swing Left Greater Boston would like to thank our audience and our generous donors who contributed almost $9,000 to Left of Center for this voter turnout project.
Voter suppression has a long history in North Carolina dating back to the Jim Crow era. It’s a constantly changing set of obstacles, all created with the same goal: to prevent minorities from exercising their constitutional right to vote. Laverne and Aisha are modern-day civil rights heroes, worthy of all the support we can give.