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Your Voice, Your Vote
Let’s travel back in time to 2020, the year the world shut down as coronavirus spread. I was sixteen years old, a sophomore in high school. Suddenly, my friends and I no longer communicated in the cafeteria during lunchtime or on the way to class. Our lives moved online.

VoteThatJawn
Apr 302 min read
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These Are The Rules I Will Live By
I may not have a vote, but I do have a voice, and I intend to use it. Encouraging others to engage in the democratic process became my way of contributing, even if indirectly, to US democracy. For every person I convinced to register or to show up at the polls, I felt like I was speaking up for those of us left out.

VoteThatJawn
Apr 302 min read
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Funding SEPTA: A Matter of Justice
Every evening on my walk from Drexel’s library, I watch packed SEPTA buses pass by. Many are packed with healthcare workers from nearby hospitals and riders returning from medical appointments. Many are packed with students returning from college. Others are traveling to restaurants in Center City or a Flyers game. Over 750,000 rides are taken on public transit daily through SEPTA.

VoteThatJawn
Apr 295 min read
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Too Young to Matter
I used to wish my parents had forged the date on my birth certificate. Or at the very least, I’d been born two weeks earlier.

VoteThatJawn
Apr 234 min read
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Letting 18-year-olds Drive Us to the Future: Confessions of Old, Some of Us, Like, Seriously Old, Youth-Vote Advocates
Each day, another 50 or so 17-year-olds in Philadelphia turn 18, and soon it’ll be time to hand them the keys.

VoteThatJawn
Nov 12, 20243 min read
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Deja Kilgore – Vote That Jawn!
Deja Kilgore sits across from me at Philadelphia City Hall, leaning in with a quiet confidence, poised for our conversation.

VoteThatJawn
Nov 12, 20244 min read
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Championing Change: Inside the Philadelphia Citizen with Executive Editor Roxanne Patel Shepelavy
I spoke with The Philadelphia Citizen’s Executive Editor about her experience editing and writing for The Citizen.

VoteThatJawn
Nov 12, 20243 min read
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Democracy in Danger: The Battle for Your Ballot
Preventing residents from exercising their constitutional right is unacceptable

VoteThatJawn
Nov 12, 20243 min read
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Philadelphia College Students Are Mobilizing To Get Out The Youth Vote
At the Vote That Jawn press conference, student leaders from across Philadelphia and city officials reminded voters that their voice matters

VoteThatJawn
Nov 12, 20243 min read
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Students: Turn Your Emotions Into Action!
The upcoming election carries a lot of weight for Philly, the biggest city in one of the biggest swing states.

VoteThatJawn
Nov 4, 20243 min read
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2024 Trend That Jawn
Eight University of Pennsylvania students who attended Trend that Jawn offered their reflections from the evening.

VoteThatJawn
Nov 1, 20244 min read
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2 comments


Youth Voting Initiative Hosts #TrendThatJawn, Youth Vote Press Conference at City Hall
At their annual event, #VoteThatJawn encourages young people to register and vote!

VoteThatJawn
Oct 2, 20243 min read
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We Need Black Teachers! Here’s a Pipeline
Today, we’ll dive into the ongoing legacy of Philadelphia, part of a long line of efforts to liberate people from oppression.

VoteThatJawn
Aug 9, 20243 min read
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How Freedom Schools Made It to Philadelphia
By Rae Norman Imagine a school that teaches “young people to function productively and meaningfully in society, or [gives] them the tools...

VoteThatJawn
Aug 9, 20244 min read
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Freedom Summer 60 Years Later: Lessons from ‘The Other Philadelphia’
No one outside of its residents had ever really heard of the small Mississippi town before June 1964. That’s when the stories began.

VoteThatJawn
Aug 7, 20242 min read
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The Freedom Summer: When Students Rose Up and Changed the World
Today in 2024, we find ourselves at the 60-year anniversary of some of the most influential few months of the Civil Rights Movement.

VoteThatJawn
Aug 7, 20244 min read
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Freedom Summer 60 Years Later: Chapter 3 – Healing
“Blacks [do] everything. Everything,” Ruby Doris Smith Robinson, declared in awe. And it was true.

VoteThatJawn
Aug 7, 20243 min read
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Freedom Summer 60 Years Later: Chapter 2 – Danger
It was June 21, 1964 and James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael “Mickey” Schwerner were setting out for Philadelphia, Mississippi

VoteThatJawn
Aug 7, 20242 min read
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Freedom Summer 60 Years Later: Chapter 1 – Orientation
Freedom Summer volunteers had an orientation; here’s yours.

VoteThatJawn
Aug 7, 20245 min read
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So, what's really going on?
We woke up to a new world. But no worries, we’ve got this

VoteThatJawn
Jul 31, 20242 min read
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Voting Against Memory
There were many times I wasn’t allowed to leave the house because of demonstrations happening downtown.

VoteThatJawn
Jul 24, 20243 min read
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How School Might Help Prepare Youth for Real Life
By Cassidy Whaley Over the years I've come to realize a striking truth: in school, students often spend as much time questioning the...

VoteThatJawn
Jul 24, 20244 min read
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How Many Beatings Have YOU Taken, Congressman?
By Hannah Chang This blog is not a rallying cry to go out and vote. It’s trying to think about the vote. What makes it so great? Well,...

VoteThatJawn
Jul 24, 20242 min read
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Tune In, Turn Up, Turn Out: Coercing Your Friends to the Polls
Isabel Engel provides ways to get your friends out and to the polls during election season!

VoteThatJawn
Jun 29, 20242 min read
36 views
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