by Anurima Bhargava

It was in the August heat of Arizona that I witnessed the grassroots rehydrate.  In a small union hall, more than a 1,000 volunteers gathered to preserve opportunity and ensure an open democracy; to exercise the power of an organized community; and to demonstrate that Arizona need not succumb to the divides of race, class, gender and sexual orientation.

Together, they sounded the bell on Ward Connerly.

Ward Connerly is the infamous African-American marketer of a new “civil rights” brand—the kind that seeks to shut down magnet schools, scholarships for women interested in science, and domestic violence programs.  And, which counts among its few endorsements the Ku Klux Klan. 

Connerly’s primary market has been the ballot initiative process, which he has used to wage a highly successful campaign to end equal opportunity programs in states across the country.  His crusade started in California with Proposition 209.  By 2006, Washington and Michigan had also fallen prey.  Two years later, Connerly took his show on the road to Oklahoma, Nebraska, Missouri, Colorado, and Arizona. 

Connerly had a foolproof approach: Pour in loads of money to launch a so called [insert-state-name] Civil Rights Initiative, use deceitful language—“prohibi[t] the state from discriminating or granting preferences” based on race or gender—that nearly everyone would support, misleadingly claim that the initiative’s purpose is simply to end discrimination and quotas (which incidentally are already unconstitutional), pay an assembly of migrants to collect sufficient signatures to get the initiative on the ballot (with the pay-per-signature approach resulting in one such collector finding Jimmy Carter, Jerry Ford, and Muammar Qaddafi all living. . . in Phoenix), proclaim November 4, 2008 the “Super Tuesday for Equal Rights,” and extend an invitation for everyone to “join the party.”

But on November 4, Connerly had only Nebraska to celebrate.  In Arizona, Oklahoma, and Missouri, the initiatives were not certified for the ballot, and the Colorado “civil rights” initiative was defeated at the polls.  The unrelenting grassroots energy that brought President Obama to victory also spelled defeat to Connerly’s initiatives. Obama’s triumph played against the enduring realities of disadvantaged communities in each of these states and the unrelenting energy of those communities to keep doors open to them. 

In the Arizona heat, that energy was palpable.  In two weeks, the “Arizona 1000” reviewed the signatures Connerly submitted to get on the ballot.  More than 100,000 were found to be invalid, and the initiative never made it.  

Each time a volunteer identified an invalid signature, they rang a bell.  A real bell, the kind you find in a hotel lobby. 

I watched as high school students worried about getting into college rang the bell; as a 40-person extended family took turns ringing the bell and told their twelve year old niece they were there so she would have a chance to study biology; as members of the Chamber of Commerce said simply that they did not want to see Arizona resegregate; and as the elders reminded everyone how quickly communities can rot from within when opportunities for all to engage educationally and economically are curtailed.  

The energy, camaraderie, and power in that room are what Connerly fears most.  It’s what he fails to witness and couldn’t anticipate.  Actual people.  Of all different backgrounds.  With lived experience.  Who can’t take opportunity for granted.  Who know affirmative action as a door opened, not an impermissible quota.  Working side-by-side, person-to-person, they built power and preserved democracy —for all—in their community.  

President Obama recently observed that “elections aren’t democracy.”  I’d agree.  Democracy is the bell ringing in Arizona, and across the country.