By Fern Gillespie
There’s been a lot of messaging about the irony of Vice President Kamala Harris, California’s veteran prosecutor, district attorney, and attorney general, running against the felon Donald Trump for President of the United States. However, social justice attorney Lurie Daniel Favors wants the conversation to also view Harris as a veteran advocate for criminal justice reform.
“While she was a prosecutor, when she was in the district attorney’s office, when she was at the attorney general’s level, she was considered, at that time, a progressive prosecutor,” Favors, Executive Director of The Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College and talk host of the Lurie Daniel Favors Show on SiriusXM Urban View, told Our Time Press. “I know that phrase (progressive) gets tossed around a lot, but back when she was in those positions, we didn’t have the type of reentry programs.
We didn’t have the sort of programs that were designed to ensure that the quality of life for people in criminal justice had some sort of way out of that recidivism cycle. That’s what we talk about now in terms of a baseline for criminal justice reform. A lot of those elements were things that she was working on while in office.”
To Favors, the Biden-Harris administration has made a major positive difference in the lives of Black Americans. “The Biden Harris campaign has been able to elevate Black wealth to the highest that it has been in decades,” she said. “We’re talking about cutting Black unemployment and building and providing more than two million jobs in our community.
Whether it’s jobs, health care, housing, education, or investment in the student loan forgiveness program, when it comes to those key issues, they are moving the country in a direction that will be more advantageous for Black and Brown people.
Particularly for Black New Yorkers. I find these issues very pertinent because these are all issues that we hear about when folks are reaching out to the Center for Law and Social Justice to find someone to help advocate on their behalf. Many of the issues that our constituents are raising alarms about are issues that Vice President Harris has been working on and will continue to work on.”
Getting out the vote is crucial. The Center for Law and Social Justice’s Our Future Our Vote campaign reaches out to Black New Yorkers who are registered voters and nonregistered voters to remind them that their vote matters. “At the Center for Law and Social Justice, while we recognize this is very important to go into court, to go to battle, and to fight for voting rights, those voting rights are only as effective as they are activated and relied upon by the voter,” said Favors.
“The Our Future Our Vote campaign takes a very proactive approach to this issue by targeting New Yorkers of African descent from the ages of 17 to 40 years old and essentially, we provide a series of workshops and programs, activation opportunities for them not just to register to vote, but to understand how to meaningfully engage with the ballot so that we are able to secure the resources and the political representation that we need in order for our communities to thrive.”
Currently, the Center for Law and Social Justice is recruiting college students for its annual Voter Empowerment Internship. It’s seeking approximately 12 students for the paid internship. “Last year, the students reached 18,000 New York City residents by phone, and we had more than 800 New York City residents participate in workshops and programs,” she said. “You have a group of young people who are excited not just about the issues generally but can specifically talk to you about how your vote matters, why it is significant, and what difference it might make in our community.”
Favors, a graduate of New York University Law School who holds a bachelor’s degree in African and African American Studies from Pennsylvania State University, is an ardent advocate of grassroots empowerment. Through Advocacy Academy 101, an 11-week virtual course, individuals can learn how to develop and execute initiatives that make a positive difference in their community.
The applicant works on their personal project. Registration is still available for the Zoom classes held September 17 to December 3. The course is taught by political and community affairs expert Celeste Morris.
“The Advocacy Academy recognizes that people in our community can understand and identify problems and have wonderful solutions,” she said. “It allows people who have that passionate solution in their heart that they don’t know how to implement. It teaches them how to create an issue campaign around that particular point of advocacy.
It allows them to understand what it would mean to have a budget to support this campaign. What does it mean to build a campaign? How do you incorporate elected officials and other community members? It’s an incubator for change.”
Upcoming programs in October for the Center for Law and Social Justice include a conference that examines the state of Black college students in New York City. In addition, “Cinema with a Cause” films will explore a variety of social justice issues.
To balance her dynamic careers in social justice activism and progressive talk radio with her life as a mother and wife, Favors practices mindfulness and yoga.
On September 21, the Center for Law and Social Justice will hold the holistic “Saging NYC: Cleanse the Path to Civic Power” at Medgar Evers College, which combines self-care, community healing and civic empowerment.
“Often, we think of wellness in terms of our physical body and our mental state of being. We are expanding on that notion by saying wellness also means being in control of the resources in your community,” said Favors. “As a part of having your physical health in check and having your spiritual and emotional and mindfulness health in check, we’re also going to make sure you’re registered to vote and know how to vote in a meaningful way.”
For more information, contact the Center for Law and Social Justice at www.clsj.org.
