Tamieka Atkins has spent her career building coalitions most people never see. As CEO of ProGeorgia, she leads a network of more than 60 organizations working to make sure every voice in the state counts, including the ones that have historically been left out of the process.
What does ProGeorgia do?
ProGeorgia, we’re a coalition of over 60 organizations, and my job is to hold the connective tissue that lets all of these organizations work as one effort instead of separate efforts. We are the infrastructure underneath Georgia’s democracy. We’re talking about voter registration, shared data, funding coordination, the work that makes everybody else more effective, and that nobody sees when it’s working well.
How do you hold that coalition together?
We do coordinated voter registration and civic engagement across the state of Georgia. Our partner organizations have a multitude of interests. Some of them focus on people with housing insecurity.
They focus on members of the LGBTQ community, a variety of marginalized communities, but we all know that if we want to build long term sustainable power that transforms the lives of our communities, voting has to be part of the strategy. I hope to coordinate that so we’re efficient, effective, we’re finding our people where they’re at, and that the resources and the data and the tools are provided.
Why does full participation in democracy matter to you?
When we talk about democracy, and I’m speaking specifically of Black people, we’re not actually talking about an institution, we’re not talking about the federal government or the buildings that house it. When Black people talk about democracy, we’re talking about freedom, we’re talking about liberation, and a quality of life that we already know we deserve. We know that when we get free, everybody gets free. We need to get democracy right, and that means housing, health and schools stop being favors that somebody is granting, and it becomes part of what a free people should expect.
What are your top priorities for civic engagement in Georgia?
We focus on access, engagement and representation. We want to make sure that everyone in Georgia, particularly marginalized communities, can actually access the ballot. That means when we’re talking about legislation that’s put in place to make it difficult for them to vote, when polling locations get moved last minute, everything with the voter suppression bill from 2021 that we’re all still navigating, we reduce those barriers.
We make sure that people understand what they’re voting for and can connect it to their lives. Who actually has control over the schools? Who actually has control over minimum wage? Now, let’s say you can vote, you want to vote, you do vote and then you find out that your vote gets diluted with redistricting, with cracking and packing.
We make sure that people know that there’s an attempt to remove their voice and to remove representation, and that they need to come out and hold their elected officials accountable, like they did for special session. Georgians came out every day of special session to say do not steal our vote.
What gives you hope for the future of civic engagement?
This special session, I can’t talk about it enough. It wasn’t prepared for, and this is a session where they were going to redraw our maps to remove specifically Black representation in the legislature. People showed up every day to pack the Capitol. There was a time when something like redistricting felt like a nuanced, complicated thing that only the lawyers and the policy wonks talked about, but this has become a kitchen table conversation.
And I gotta say, the other thing that gives me hope, young people. There is this false story out there that young people are apathetic, that they don’t care about voting, and that is not true. There are barriers that are put in front of young people the same way they’ve been put in front of Black voters, voters of color and low income voters.
Young people are not checked out, they are locked out, and that’s the difference. They already understand that democracy is about freedom, and they know it’s not just about the ballot. They know the vote matters, but they also know that the vote alone won’t save us. That the real work is changing the systems underneath.
What would you say to someone who believes nothing ever changes?
The best thing they convinced us was that our vote didn’t matter. They would not put so much effort, so much energy, so much time and so much money into silencing us, into removing our vote, into making it difficult for us to survive and thrive if they didn’t know that we were on the cusp of change and transformation.
I have to believe that there is hope. Freedom isn’t a today for tomorrow thing. We are links in a chain. There have been decades of work ahead of us, and there may still be decades that come after us, but we have to do our part.
How can people get involved with ProGeorgia?
They can go to govotega.org. Not only can they learn about the work that ProGeorgia is doing, that’s where they can get real time information about how to access their ballot, how to make sure they know how to vote, the rules for voting, and can even get support if they need help.
They can get language support, and what I tell everyone, voting is just the beginning. We want people to join their local community organizations so they know that they’re not alone. They can learn about our 60 partners and see who they want to become a member of, so that they are advocating as part of a group in a community and not alone.