Stories

Keynote address

On Monday, February 5th, Dr. Sekou Franklin, an alumnus from the class of 1994, addressed an audience of around 100 students, staff, faculty, alumni, and community members in a keynote address on “Why Voting Rights Matter: Race and Elections in the U.S. South in the 21st Century,” followed by a Q&A session. Dr. Franklin was invited by the Political Science Department as part of the annual Eric Hanson Alumni Speaker Series. Every year a distinguished alumni of the department is invited to share their professional experiences in memory of Dr. Eric Hanson’s constant pursuit of knowledge and his commitment to his students.

The Political Science Department worked with co-sponsors and partners to support Dr. Sekou Franklin’s two-day visit, including the Inclusive Excellence Division, Office for Diversity & Inclusion, Office for Multicultural Learning, the SCU Black Alumni Community, Ethnic Studies Department, Igwebuike, Together Ladies of Color, and QPOCA. During his return to SCU, Dr. Franklin engaged with students in lunch gatherings, visited Professor Leung’s classes, and attended a Happy Hour hosted by the Political Science department that reunited him with fellow alumni and some of the professors he had back when he was a student at SCU.

While at Santa Clara University, Dr. Franklin was an athlete on SCU’s last football team, and co-chair of the Black student union, Igwebuike. Dr. Franklin is currently a Professor of Political Science at Middle Tennessee State University. He is the author of After the Rebellion: Black Youth, Social Movement Activism and the Post-Civil Rights Generation, co-author of Losing Power: African Americans and Racial Polarization in Tennessee Politics, and editor of The State of Blacks in Middle Tennessee. He has served as an expert on multiple civil rights cases, President of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists, lead investigator of the Dallas County Area Study/Black Rural Project sponsored by the Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth and Reconciliation, and Redistricting Coordinator for the Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP. He has also worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center, the James Lawson Institute’s civil resistance project, Community Oversight Now, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the Tennessee Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. In 2019, he received the NAACP Benjamin L. Hooks Keeper of the Flame Award.

In his talk, Dr. Franklin sounded the alarm about voting rights being as much at risk today as they were in the 1950s and 1960s. The campaign to suppress voting in marginalized communities is especially powerful in the South, where we’re seeing extreme gerrymandering, voter purges, strict voter ID rules, and reductions in polling sites and early voting. With the Supreme Court eliminating preclearance from the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County in 2013, Southern states have responded with a slew of new restrictions on voting. Professor Franklin warned that the courts today are as hostile to voting rights as they were in the mid-twentieth century. He also warned that this “voter suppression regime” is deeply-financed and well-coordinated, with its leaders willing to “play the long game” to insure a “continuation of countermajoritarian politics” and resist America’s shift to a multi-racial democracy. He called for everyone to get involved, to fight, and to be persistent. Even though we’re in a liberal state, he argued that mobilizing here at home will have ripple effects in the “interconnected ecosystem” of which we are a part. For example, he pointed to the way that California’s criminal justice reform efforts have been emulated by other states. He also noted that election protection can be done by anyone anywhere and noted that the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights spearheads efforts that we can join.

If you are interested in watching the recording of this event, use this link to access the video.

Happy Hour with Political Science Department and alumni.

Lunch with Political Science faculty and students.