“Our strategy is year-round civic organizing,” Amanda Avalos, executive director of Leaders Igniting Transformation (LIT) told Wisconsin Examiner, following the Nov. 5 election won by President-elect Donald Trump. LIT canvassers knocked on more than 665,000 doors ahead of Election Day, and the Milwaukee-based group plans to keep up its civic engagement work in the years ahead. “This doesn’t stop us,” Avalos said of the election results. “And if anything, this is fueling.”
LIT, a grassroots nonprofit and nonpartisan group led by youth of color, focuses on building political power for young people through strategic civic engagement. From canvassing neighborhoods and knocking on doors, to advocating for policy change or even preparing young people to run for office, recent years have seen the organization make a name for itself.
Amanda Avalos
It isn’t that LIT’s staff didn’t feel the waves of fear, anger, and despair many community members experienced after Trump’s victory Tuesday. Those emotions were familiar to LIT organizers. “This is not the first time that we’ve been under a Trump administration,” said Avalos. “And we know the direct negative impact that he has on the communities that we work with. And that’s young Black and brown people in the state of Wisconsin.”
LIT plans to counteract that impact by staying organized and motivated. From advocacy efforts to leadership development, sustained organizing is LIT’s mission, said Avalos, explaining that the group is dedicated to “growing our base year-round in between election seasons — not just during election season, but for moments like these…where we need to mobilize and act.”
LIT is already preparing for another big election on April 1, when voters in Wisconsin cast ballots in the state Supreme Court race.
Meanwhile, Avalos says, organizers need to take time to rest, process, grieve, regroup and find community. “That’s what it’s going to take to get through more moments like this,” Avalos told Wisconsin Examiner. “That’s what it took last time, and we continue to hold onto each other and continue to move fiercely with our plan, with our advocacy, with all the ways that young people are leading all across the state.”
The day after Trump’s election victory, Black Americans across the country received racist text messages telling them to be prepared to be collected and sent to the nearest plantation for cotton picking. Women have also reported being increasingly harassed online since Trump’s reelection and a far-right social media meme has gone viral, trolling women on social media with the slogan “your body, my choice.”
The election was particularly divisive for young people. While Harris attracted many young women voters of color, Trump attracted more young men. Some young activists also expressed dissatisfaction at both major political parties. On Nov. 6, protesters gathered in Milwaukee’s Red Arrow Park to protest the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza and express their frustration over the sense that they were ignored by the Democratic Party. The protest was led by groups including Students for a Democratic Society UWM, the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and the Milwaukee Anti-War Committee. Speakers encouraged protesters to find an organization to join and get involved.
Protesters march in Milwaukee after the 2024 presidential election. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)
Avalos agrees that young people feel ignored. “More than ever young people are frustrated,” she said. “The lack of social-economic progress, not being heard at the local decision-making levels — local government, state government and federal government. … There’s a lot of disillusionment, disappointment, frustration, completely valid.” Avalos has heard young people express their sense of powerlessness on issues including the war in Gaza, climate change, the cost of living, housing, tuition and gun violence, as elected officials have failed to remedy those concerns. “Those issues continue to be a priority, and we’re not at the point where we see that reflected in policy and law,” she said.
Avalos told Wisconsin Examiner that LIT will be back at the doors soon, engaging with communities and asking them what they want to to see from their elected leaders. Avalos stressed that connecting the issues that affect people’s families and communities to voting helps impress on people why it’s important to show up at the ballot box. LIT will focus on getting more citizens engaged in school board meetings, common council meeting and public hearings in the state Legislature.
As people process the fallout from the November election, Avalos said she hopes that people will support one another and remember what motivates them. “At the end of the day, it’s not because of anything more than we love each other,” she said of LIT’s continuing work, “and we need know that we all deserve better.”
Isiah Holmes is a journalist and videographer, and a lifelong resident of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His writing has been featured in Urban Milwaukee, Isthmus, Milwaukee Stories, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Services, Pontiac Tribune, the Progressive Magazine, Al Jazeera, and other outlets.
Wisconsin Examiner is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
