Prospect PHILADELPHIA – “I the voters!” The older Black woman behind the screen door pointed at a nearby church. She had that 100 percent exasperated cadence that African American elders take on when delivering a “why is this even a question?” message to a young person, in this case, canvasser Chris Tuck, who was asking her about her “plan to vote.” Not only did she plan to vote, she intended to cook for people voting and working at the local polling place.
Party affiliation? “Democrat!” What about everyone else living there? “Everyone in this house votes!” I’d met up with Tuck, a Working Families Party canvasser, at the party’s office on South 60th Street late last Friday morning, as he prepared to head out to his assigned streets in the predominantly Black Haddington/Cobbs Creek neighborhoods in West Philadelphia for the traditional staple of presidential election-year organizing: knocking on doors to get registered Democrats to the polls. By pure coincidence, I landed back in my old neighborhood—I’d grown up across the street from Cobbs Creek Park. Every single corner of West Philadelphia seemed to have its quota of “Defend Choice!” “Defend Democracy!” and “We Won’t Go Back!” posters up on street poles, reminding people to “Vote Early!” These two sections of West Philadelphia are working/middle-class areas of small rowhomes, some of them well maintained but more than a few fallen into disrepair, owned by frail elderly people .
