Blurring party lines

Change. Community. Reaching across the political aisle. Connecting with younger voters — especially the unaffiliated ones. These were the overarching themes of Friday’s Sampson County Democratic Party training, held at the Lisbon Street Missionary Baptist Church.

The meeting, which the party named “Strategizing to Promote Citizen Engagement and Community Participation Leadership Training,” had presentations, a working lunch, and even a set of questions for the attendees — members of various political parties, not just Democrat-aligned voters — to consider for the day and the future.

Marcus Bass, a once-involved member of the party, is now the executive director of Advance North Carolina, which is “a statewide, independent, Black-led, 501c (4) organization with a mission to build political and economic power in Black communities and institutions in North Carolina,” according to its website. Bass was featured as one of the presenters of the day’s meeting, with presentations such as “Discovering Who We Are,” “Voices of the Past,” and “Goal Setting” as his topics of focus. Dr. Ruby Bell, chairman Ed Gillim, and Reverends Thaddeus Godwin and Jimmy Melvin all had speaking roles as well, from opening and closing remarks to invocations and grace to presenting the working lunch to the attendees.

In Bass’s presentation, which took place just before the working lunch break, “Voices of the Past,” his focus was on political leadership and different styles. One focus of the direction of these styles was on leading with your head versus your heart, and the balance that must come, he said, between the two.

“In a very real way, what’s more important: leading from your head or leading from your heart?” Bass asked the audience.

Using a metaphor comparing the teacher of the famous Peanuts cartoons and her unintelligible “womp, womp, womp” voice, Bass said that the students “fall asleep” and “aren’t learning anything” when you lead with just your head.

“If we only lead with the head, we won’t get the transformative change that we need,” he continued. “On the flip side, what if we were only motivated by our heart? We’d be worried about a lot of different things.”

One member of the audience was a guest who doesn’t belong to either the Republican or Democratic parties nor is he a citizen of Sampson County — yet he believes he and his political movement can help make changes in the rural community.

Josh Peters is a member of the North Carolina Forward Party — a new, grassroots third-party option looking to make an impact on rural communities across the country. “The Forward Party is an amalgamation of Andrew Yang’s kind of Democratic Party experience and Christine Todd Whitman’s Republican Party experience coming together to create a centrist perspective on the political discourse,” Peters said in an interview. Yang and Whitman are both founding co-chairs of the party, alongside Michael Willner, according to the party’s website.

“I’m down here because I got in touch with Edward (Gillim) and we were talking about how we need to change the conversation to get back to solutions rather than the kind of bickering and division that we see in politics today,” Peters continued. “So I just came down here to support that initiative and see where we can collaborate and have some cross-party opportunities to work together.”

“We wanted to tap into our base,” said party chair Ed Gillim, in an interview after the meeting. “That’s why we had past, present, and future leaders in the party and people from different parties … It was more of a training exercise on dealing with leadership and a Q&A about leadership and where you stand and everything, your strengths and weaknesses, your way of talking to the party, why you’re committed to the party, and how we can help the community.”

While a variety of topics were discussed, by presenters, speakers, audience members, and a representative of every group in attendance, key points stuck out both to members of the party and the leadership.

“I’m of Generation X,” Gillim continued in his interview. “But we need younger people to interact and engage in the party and into politics, and as a whole, politics, because they are our future and our present. We want to make sure they’re molded and they can make their own decisions on which party affiliation they want to have, but give them the insight and the information and knowledge so they can make a decision in their life and their livelihood also.”

Many of the day’s conversations focused on things that are happening at the federal level, with hot, polarizing political topics being at the forefront of many back-and-forths, but the eyes for the party are still on Sampson County and making changes locally before tackling state- or national-level agendas, Gillim and others shared. As part of those local changes, Gillim said there is a focus from the party on the community, especially with politicians at every level.

“Dr. Larry Bell really put it in perspective when he said that when he was in office, that there was a communication, there was a respect, regardless if you were Republican or Democrat, he said that he would have to work with everyone,” Gillim noted. “He said he didn’t see a Democrat or Republican. He saw someone that he could work with.

“I think that open line of communication hasn’t been used recently,” Gillim added. “Everybody wants affordable healthcare. They want opportunities in education. They want a good balance, economically, for the community; for their families. They want to provide for their families — that’s what I’m really saying. And so, I think that this right here, the Forward Party, with their information and everything, could really assist both parties — and definitely our party —in doing so and giving us information on everything and helping us with that information and communication.”

Peters noted that the Forward Party has “friends across the political spectrum” and that he and his party would be giving the same attention to the Republican Party here in Sampson County that they are giving the Democratic Party.

“I wouldn’t consider my role as a speaker,” shared Marcus Bass, who presented many of the subjects at Friday’s meeting. “But more of a facilitator and trainer for the discussion with leaders in Sampson County who are progressive. A lot of those individuals were former party officials and current party leaders at a precinct and county level. And a few individuals there were unaffiliated — I think one or two were not members of the Democratic Party, but were there because they were concerned about the direction of the country and what that means for Sampson County.”

Bass said his concerns for the future of the Democratic Party stem from things happening at the national level, rather than local.

“I think it’s (the future of the party) important right now, number one, because of what’s happening currently across the nation. We’re seeing a huge shift in priorities at the federal level that don’t match everyday people and everyday experiences for residents in Sampson County. I think the Democratic Party, even though they have a huge presence nationally, when you get down to local politics, it’s not as easy as saying one person is a Democrat or Republican,” Bass shared in another interview. “It’s not about Democrat or Republican — it’s about everyday Sampson County folks that are trying to make a living, trying to just exist and thrive. So the Democratic Party, I think right now, really represents an alternative.

Bass, like Gillim and Peters, said he welcomes conversations that bridge the gaps on the political spectrum, hoping for changes that help Sampson County residents.