This election, there’s one thing that’s pretty much guaranteed: A majority of the 300 or so souls on the rolls of Easter Hill United Methodist Church WILL go to the polls.
Elsa Chinea Stevens, who recently joined the 73-year-old church on Cutting Boulevard in the Park Plaza neighborhood, learned this while conducting voter outreach there as part of her “Engaging Communities of Color” class at Cal State East Bay. The 71-year-old Hilltop neighborhood resident expects to earn her first bachelor’s degree, in ethnic studies, this spring.
Stevens, who is Latina, told Richmondside she chose her major out of a desire to become more culturally competent.
“I’m learning not to be a Karen,” said Stevens, a native Spanish speaker who lives in the Hilltop neighborhood.
To aid her “Souls to the Polls” project, the church gave Stevens a list of about 56 members to call, most of whom were over age 80, with some older than 90.
Her phone script went something like this: “Easter Hill United Methodist Church calling. I’m Elsa Stevens, a new member. We just want to make sure everyone is voting. If you need to re-register or if you need a ride, call us. We have your back. I’m doing a paper for school. Please call or text me and tell me you’re voting… Again, if you need anything to vote, call me or the church office. God bless you.”
Their responses were heartening, Stevens said.
“It was not people just being polite but people being (enthusiastic) about what you’re calling them about,” she said. “I was floating on air.”
The Rev. Dr. Dale Weatherspoon, Easter Hill’s pastor for eight years, wasn’t surprised to hear of this enthusiasm, given the church has a decades-long history of centering justice in its ministry. Many in Richmond still proudly recall that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. made their pulpit his only stop on a visit to Northern California during the Civil Rights movement.
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“We constantly remind people about the importance of voting and of all that our ancestors have done to provide this right for us. We talk about it.”
— The Rev. Dr. Dale Weatherspoon, on Easter Hill United Methodist Church’s civically engaged congregation
“One of the things many Black churches focus on is justice and trying to alleviate the hurt on the marginalized lives and the oppressed,” Weatherspoon told Richmondside. “Easter Hill since its inception has been a church that has been about justice.”
He points out that the church has been a polling place for years and will be this Election Day as well. It has also opened its doors to other election events, including a city council candidate forum co-hosted this year by Richmondside, and has hosted community gatherings such as Richmond’s National Night Out.
The church planned to include a last-minute voting reminder in its newsletter last Friday.
“We constantly remind people about the importance of voting and of all that our ancestors have done to provide this right for us,” he said. “We talk about it.”
While he is careful to not incorporate political endorsements into his ministries, Stevens said he links religious messages to voting this way:
history of exercising their right to vote. Courtesy Dale Weatherspoon
“I am always reminding people we need to be voting for justice and be voting for candidates that would be doing what Jesus would be doing: providing a safety net, taking care of widows and orphans and taking care of brothers and sisters.”
It’s clearly a message that’s being heard, as Stevens found. Her favorite response from the church members she spoke with came from one who said:
“I will vote, so will my husband, so will my children, so will my grandchildren, so will my neighbors, and so will my friends BECAUSE I SAID SO!”
Stevens said she got a huge laugh from one person when she mentioned that she had called Myrtle Braxton to remind her to vote. She was unaware that Braxton — a longtime civil servant and well-known community leader in Richmond — was herself among the congregation’s most avid supporters of voting rights.
“The phone went silent. Considering that everyone I was calling was over the age of 80, I thought I was going to have to call an ambulance,” Stevens recalled. “My listener was fine. She was gasping for air because she was laughing so hard.”
She quickly learned that while Easter Hill members didn’t need to be reminded to vote or to register to vote, some were interested in help getting to the polls because many of them no longer drive or cannot drive when it’s dark. So her outreach project became one of coordinating rides to voting centers, “so we don’t leave anyone without a means to vote.”
“The response I got was so overwhelmingly positive that I felt like I was trying to teach swimming to lifeguards,” Stevens said. “The obvious conclusion to my ‘Engaging Communities of Color’ survey is: Not a single voter who was reached said, ‘Nah… I’m going to sit this one out.’ “
Kudos to Elsa and her church Easter Hill United Methodist Church!
Congratulations Elsa! I am happy to call Elsa Stevens a neighbor and a most sincere friend. Her enthusiasm for our communities of Heritage Park and Easter Hill is genuine and we benefit over and over from her willingness to engage on our behalf. Thank You Elsa for all that you do. I’m also a Friend of Easter Hill, a caring and responsive Church. Bless you Pastor Dale. For on-point journalism, thanks to Richmondside and Reporter Joyce Clark for telling Elsa’s story so beautifully.
Thank you for your kind comment Elaine, though we do not have a writer by that name.