Vote Like A Mother

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Voting is not an individual act. When we vote, we’re making a decision that affects the lives of everyone around us. We need a public ethic that honors our interconnectedness, a fierce love that enters the polling place to vote for our neighbors’ self-interest. What if we voted like every child was ours? Because, in a fundamental way, they are.

Two days before the midterm elections, join an incredible panel discussion about how we can reshape our politics. Ruby N. Sales is a legendary civil rights activist who has spent her life advancing human rights and political liberation. Since working for SNCC in the 1960s, she has tirelessly organized for revolutionary change. She has founded several justice organizations, served on the steering committee for the International Women’s Day, and taught countless young folks how to do this work. V (formerly Eve Ensler) is a Tony and Obie award-winning, New York Times best-selling playwright, author, and activist with plays and books published in over 48 languages and performed in over 140 countries. She is also the founder of V-Day, the global grassroots movement to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender, transgender, those who hold fluid identities, and nonbinary people), and the planet. Nelba Márquez-Greene lost her daughter Ana Grace in the Sandy Hook shooting, and has since dedicated her life to advocating for the rights of children, removing guns from our communities, and creating community and connection for families. Her work on grief devotes a particular focus to caring for folks whose loved ones were killed by gun violence. Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis brings this work to the pulpit and national stage, where she has become one of the country’s foremost thinkers about antiracism and politics that uplift all people. Her most recent book Fierce Love provides a road map for the national and personal transformation we so desperately need. Rev. Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft is the founder of Raising Imagination, a platform that examines social issues through the lens of imagination and encourages activism with young and old alike. Her activism has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo, the Wall Street Journal, and Refinery29.

Together, the five will describe what is at stake in this election, and how we can build coalitions that support mutual thriving.

Ruby N. Sales is a nationally-recognized human-rights activist, public theologian, and social critic, whose articles and work appear in many journals, online sites, and books. Under the tutelage of Professor Jean Wiley, Sales joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960’s as a teenager at Tuskegee University and went to work as a student freedom fighter in Lowndes County, Alabama. In August 1965, Sales, along with other SNCC workers, was arrested and held in jail. Jonathan Daniels, a White seminarian and freedom worker from Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts was assassinated as he pulled Sales out of the line of fire when they attempted to enter Cash Grocery Store upon their release. As a social activist, Sales has served on many committees to further the work of racial, sexual, gender, and class reconciliation, education, and awareness. She has served on the Steering Committee for International Women’s Day, Washington, D.C.; the James Porter Colloquium Committee, Howard University, Washington, D.C.; the Coordinating Committee, People’s Coalition, Washington, D.C.; the President’s Committee On Race, University of Maryland; and the Coalition on Violence Against Women, Amnesty International, Washington, D.C.

V (formerly Eve Ensler) is a Tony Award-winning, New York Times best-selling playwright, author, and activist with plays and books published in over 48 languages and performed in over 140 countries. She is the author of the Obie award-winning theatrical phenomenon The Vagina Monologues, published in over 48 languages, performed in over 140 countries, and heralded by The New York Times as one of the “best American plays” of the past 25 years and that “no recent hour of theater has had a greater impact worldwide.” She is also the founder of V-Day—the global grassroots movement to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender, transgender, those who hold fluid identities, and nonbinary people), and the planet—and the founder of One Billion Rising, the biggest mass action campaign to end violence against all women and girls in over 200 countries, and the co-founder of City of Joy, a revolutionary leadership center for Congolese women survivors of violence in Bukavu, DRC.

Nelba Márquez-Greene is the founder of The Ana Grace Project. She founded The Ana Grace Project in 2013 as a response to the school shooting in Sandy Hook, Conn., in 2012, which took the life of her daughter, Ana Grace Márquez-Greene. The Ana Grace Project is dedicated to promoting love, community, and connection for every child and family through three lead initiatives: partner schools, professional development, and music and the arts. “Love Wins” is the family slogan they adopted after Ana’s senseless murder. This movement is one of increasing relational connections. Nelba maintains an online community of over 100,000 followers and an Ana Grace Project community where people from all over the world learn, share, grow and witness love through grief. Behind this is the belief that not only does Love Win – it also save lives. The Ana Grace Project has adopted classrooms in New Britain that focus on social and emotional learning. It has hosted mental health conferences and professional learning opportunities all over the country.

Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis is Senior Minister for Public Theology and Transformation at Middle Church in New York City. In her activism, preaching, speaking, writing, and teaching, Dr. Lewis advocates for racial equality, gun control, economic justice, and equal rights for all sexual orientations/genders. A world-renowned theologian, Dr. Lewis has been featured on the The Today Show, All In with Chris Hayes, AM Joy, The Melissa Harris Perry Show, NY1, ABC, NBC, PBS, CBS and many more, and her writing has appeared in outlets like Harper’s Bazaar, Vox, The Huffington Post and Religion News Service. She is the author of several books, most recently Fierce Love: A Bold Path to a Ferocious Courage and Rule-Breaking Kindness That Can Heal the World which was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.

Rev. Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft is the Consulting Community Minister at Middle Church. Prior to Middle, she served as Director of Outreach at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian in Midtown Manhattan, and as Outreach Coordinator for Metro Baptist Church/the Rauschenbusch Center in Hell’s Kitchen, NY. She is the founder of Raising Imagination, a platform that examines social issues through the lens of imagination and encourages activism with young and old alike. Her activism has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo, the Wall Street Journal, and Refinery29. She’s a regular writer and inaugural board member of The Resistance Prays, and serves on the Junior Board of The Lower East Side Girls Club. Amanda was ordained by Metro Baptist Church in 2016, is married to Graham and has three children Zane, Levi, and Skyler.