Watch the recording of Georgia State Rep. Park Cannon's Feb. 11 Black History Month virtual lecture, moderated by Kay Martinez, director of EDIJ Learning & Development at Lesley.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge of the electoral system is a superpower, or so Georgia State Rep. Park Cannon found out when launching a six-week-long special election campaign to fill a vacant seat in her district.
Cannon, a 30-year-old Democrat who assumed office in 2016 (on George Washington’s birthday), was working in a reproductive health center when she was urged by the retiring State Rep. Simone Bell, one of her heroes, to succeed her in the District 28 seat.
“She said she was vacating her seat, so I had to decide in a really fast fashion whether I wanted to run, whether people wanted me to run,” said Cannon, the guest speaker at a Black History Month virtual lecture presented by our Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Justice. Cannon said she was entranced by Bell’s activism on behalf of marginalized communities and remembers her wrapping herself in police caution tape on the floor of the legislature.
Bell’s example was only part of what impelled Cannon to run for office. She was also fired up by what she observed in state government, particularly around efforts to suppress the vote of Black citizens and others.
“I was very angry about the current political system,” said Cannon who, then 24, became the youngest elected official in Georgia’s history. She is also the first openly queer official to hold office in the Peach State.
“So many of the identities that intersect in me are not represented in the statehouse,” Cannon said, adding that she was also a survivor of domestic violence and, at Chapman University, was victim of a hate crime, when people scribbled the N-word on her dormitory door.
Made to feel unwelcome, she left school and began working at a mall before eventually finishing her studies at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
Then, in 2015, she announced to her family during Thanksgiving dinner that she had decided to seek office.
“My family was shocked,” said Cannon, who has been a dancer all her life and has never been particularly shy.
“I’ve always been the little girl with a lot to say. My family was used to me being willing to take up space.” But politics?
“They didn’t know I believed in this government system,” Cannon said. “They were worried. They were like, ‘This definitely elevates your profile.’”
Her family was right about her raising her profile. Last March, she was arrested at the statehouse for interrupting Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s press conference as he signed into law Senate Bill 202, the controversial Election Integrity Act of 2021. Cannon repeatedly knocked on the governor’s closed office door (the Georgia State Patrol characterized it as “beating on the door”), according to a CNN report. Cannon was arrested and charged with felony obstruction and preventing or disrupting general assembly session, though the state declined to prosecute.
“People saw me get drug out of the state Capitol last year for simply knocking on the governor’s door when he was taking away all of these rights,” Cannon said.
The sweeping overhaul of the state’s election rules imposes voter ID requirements, limits drop boxes and allows state takeovers of local elections, according to coverage by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Cannon added that the law and other practices like gerrymandering are designed to make it more difficult on Black and brown voters.
However, Cannon said it’s important to take part in the electoral system, as flawed as it is, as voting in elections is akin to practicing a sport, dance or other activity. Through regular voting, citizens familiarize themselves with the process and are better equipped to detect foul play at the polls.
And Cannon encouraged others to run for office if they believe that is their calling. She is the author of a 2021 book “The Universal Guide for Running for Office,” in which she dispenses advice and recounts her electoral journey.
In addition, political action committees and nonprofit organizations can help, as Cannon has been assisted and championed by EMILY’s List (Early Money Is Like Yeast). Starting out, one doesn’t require an abundance of money up front to wage a campaign, as long as the candidate has energy and tenacity.
And a “kitchen cabinet” doesn’t hurt, she explained. When choosing campaign advisers and aides, a spicy chief of staff or another aide will metaphorically throw an elbow when needed to protect the candidate. A campaign office also needs a number of “allspice” people who excel at a variety of tasks, and a “cinnamon spice” person to talk to the press.
Of course, successful candidates are often the ones with thyme on their side.
Cannon also held fundraisers at drag shows, online yoga classes and other places with which she and her likely base felt some affinity. And, she added, she had the confidence that, when it comes to her “lived experience,” she is the subject-matter expert, and that guided her candidacy and informs her service.
“Know that the stories you have in your lived experience you can bring to the campaign trail, and start writing down those stories now,” Cannon said.
