MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In the shadow of an historic steeple presiding over a street in Allentown, Pennsylvania, I talked with the founder of an organization trying to encourage young people - especially young people of color - to become more politically active.
GREGORY EDWARDS: Yeah, this is Liberty Bell Shrine.
MARTIN: Our conversation with the Reverend Gregory Edwards comes with a brief tour of his congregation's new home. There are elegantly carved pews, elaborate glass stained windows and, in the basement, a replica of the Liberty Bell.
EDWARDS: It's very loud if you ring it - very, very, very loud.
MARTIN: I kind of want to hear it.
EDWARDS: OK.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF CHURCH BELL)
MARTIN: This is the former home of a church where the Continental Congress hid the original Liberty Bell from the British in 1777. Today it's a predominantly Black congregation - Resurrected Life Community Church - which Edwards leads as senior pastor, while also leading a community organizing initiative downtown.
EDWARDS: You're in the business district, what some folks call the heart of Allentown. That's arguable, but it's - you know, home is where the heart is.
MARTIN: Reverend Edwards tells us the center of his city looks very different than it did a few years ago, just like the people who attend services at this church. But some things have not changed, which is why he's partnering with some 300 congregations throughout the area. It's the battleground of the battleground which Pennsylvania has become.
EDWARDS: So the Lehigh Valley has about 600,000 people. The cities - Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton - are - well, they're all held in office by Democrats. But all of the surrounding areas - all of them are very red, which makes for purple.
MARTIN: So it's not that people change their minds. It's not that the people change. It's a question of who gets their people out. Is that it?
EDWARDS: Who gets their people out.
MARTIN: You're a pastor. You're a community organizer.
EDWARDS: Right. Right.
MARTIN: And all of the above. Do you feel like you have a role in this right here?
EDWARDS: I mean, I'm doing everything I can to be able to have folk that are in my universe understanding what's at stake, but also having conversations with rightfully cynical folk that have been led to believe that life hasn't changed for them. Whether it was Barack Obama that looked like them, or Donald Trump that really didn't give a [expletive] about them, they're saying, how does voting impact me? So...
MARTIN: And what do you say?
EDWARDS: I have to acknowledge their cynicism. I mean, they're rightfully cynical, because I get it. They don't understand what's at risk. All they understand is that when they go to the grocery store, they keep getting less in the bag than more. That's not a five-minute conversation. That's a let's come to the house and have a dinner and talk, right? So I think that there's not been an investment in deep relational organizing that really helps politicize people so that they're not feeling like they're invisible and disposable.
MARTIN: There's been a lot of talk about the move among at least some young African Americans and Latinos for Trump. You think it's more discouragement. It's more that people just aren't feeling it.
EDWARDS: I think they're not feeling it. And I think that when there's someone that intentionally has messaged about the whole notion about Black jobs - and that's not just him coming up with that. It's him being in a relationship with folks that are saying, yeah, the reason why Black folks are struggling is because there's a new minority group that's entering the country illegally. They've been messaged that. That's intentional.
MARTIN: Do you think it's interesting that Trump of all people - rich, inherited - legacy wealth, never been poor a day in his life, probably never cooked his own meal - has tapped into something that people who presumably are more in tune have not?
EDWARDS: Yeah.
MARTIN: Do you think that there's something interesting about that?
EDWARDS: Well, I think when someone says, yeah, government's broke. You're right. It ain't working, I mean, I think there's brothers in the barbershop, there's folks on the basketball courts that are like, yeah, this [expletive]'s broke. Now, are they connecting the dots between police brutality, who's the DA and me not voting so that that informs what the police officer does? I don't know if they're connecting the dots on that, but I think that there's a general cynicism about government. And I think when you have a political character that comes forth and says, yeah, this [expletive]'s broke, that's right, I think it messages to folk that have been left out, like, yeah, it's broke. And they're coming after me, and they're going to come after you. I think that there's folk that are like, yeah, he's right. Or, oh, he's such a renegade. He's so outspoken. He's not like the polished Harvard pedigree. I think that there's some of that, too.
And we're having conversations between folk who are legacy civil rights voters who we know are going to vote, and some of their grandchildren who are like, I ain't feeling it. And what we've learned through research is you can't shame them. You can't put your finger in folk who are really economically suffering and say, well, you should vote, and we fought for this. And we - I have institutional memory of Dr. King, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X. I have John Lewis. But that's a generation or two removed from my children, so we have to show up, and we got to do it - like, we do it year round. We can't do it simply two weeks before the most consequential election of our lifetime.
MARTIN: That's the Reverend Gregory Edwards. He is the senior pastor of Resurrected Life Community Church. He also leads an initiative to encourage more civic engagement. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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