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“All In: The Fight for Democracy” – a new documentary about voter suppression, featuring 2018 Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams – will premiere in theaters and on Amazon Prime next month. We were thrilled to have the chance to hold a behind-the-scenes conversation with the documentary’s directors, award-winning filmmakers Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortés, about the making of the film, the inspiration behind it and the urgent need for each and every one of us to make our voices heard in the November elections.

Below is the first part of that conversation. You can learn more about “All In” and read the full interview here.

First of all, thank you for making this important film. What drew you to this project and how did it come together, with the two of you co-directing?

Liz: Thank you! The project started when I met Stacey Abrams in the summer of 2019. She came to New York to meet different filmmakers to explore making a film about voting rights and its tortured and tumultuous history. It was a bit of kismet, because I had wanted to make a film about the franchise after the 2016 election but didn’t have the “hook.” Stacey’s gubernatorial race of 2018 was that hook. It was the small story that could tell the big one.

When Stacey chose Story Syndicate for the film, I quickly reached out to Lisa Cortés, a filmmaker I knew through her work on “The Apollo” and deeply respected. We had a year to make a film – so we quickly got to work, dividing and conquering.

The film is about the past, but it’s also about the present. Having recounted the history of voter suppression efforts since the era of the Black codes that followed Reconstruction, what parallels do you draw with what is happening across America today?

Liz: William Faulkner wrote, “The past isn’t dead. It’s not even past.” We see that so clearly when we look at the history of the struggle for voting rights. At every turn, when progress is made, there is a retrenchment – new laws or tactics to limit the franchise. Tactics that were used back in the Jim Crow era – billy clubs, police violence, lynchings – to intimidate and suppress the Black vote may not be apparent [today], but laws are passed that have the same effect.

After Reconstruction, with a great expansion of the franchise to the newly freed slaves, Black officials started being elected to state and federal offices. This led to the Black codes – laws that criminalized normal behavior and the state of poverty – which, of course, affected Black Americans who had been enslaved and had not participated financially in the fruits of their labor.  So, for example, “loitering,” which might mean standing on a street corner looking for work, was a charge, and that could cause you to lose your right to vote.

After the Voting Rights Act, we saw another great expansion of the franchise, with a similar retrenchment after the Shelby County v. Holder decision in 2013. And what we see today: voter ID laws with a narrow set of eligible IDs (for instance, in Texas, your gun license is a permitted ID but not your student ID), poll closures, purges – along with recent threats by President Trump to have a police presence at polls. These are current tactics to suppress the vote. And no surprise, they disproportionately affect Black, brown, poor, Indigenous, Latinx and young voters.

Read more here.

In solidarity,
The Southern Poverty Law Center

P.S. Did you know that the SPLC is holding weekly phone-banking "Power Hours" in support of voting rights? Sign up here for our next Power Hour on Thursday, Sept. 3, when we'll be calling to recruit poll workers in Georgia.