Four types of advocacy in one week. Can you pick one to try?
By Cameron Vickrey
Last week, I engaged in four different types of advocacy. I have experience in advocacy, but this was a rare week for me. One thing I did wasn’t more important than another. And one kind of advocacy isn’t more impactful than the others. All are needed. And all of us can do one of these things.
On Monday of last week, an article came out in Texas Monthly. Although I do like to write articles, I didn’t write this one. This time, I was more of the assist. This article was about a man on Texas’s death row, Will Speer, who was scheduled for execution in mere days, unless he received the clemency his legal team and other advocates were requesting.
This brings us to the first act of advocacy: spreading awareness. Social media has its ills, but it is a powerful tool for story sharing. My journalist friend learned about Will Speer through my Instagram post.
I connected Bekah, the journalist, with an organization advocating for Will, who helped her secure an in-person interview with him at the prison. Bekah then asked me if I knew any pastors she could interview about the Christian belief in redemption.
And here’s the second type of advocacy I was able to practice: raising others’ voices. I’m a pastor, my husband is a pastor, my dad is a pastor, and I know a lot of other pastors who are well-practiced with the media. But for this particular story, I thought carefully about who would be the right voice. I had a hunch that a friend of mine who is a hospice chaplain might know of someone in prison chaplaincy. She attends Antioch Missionary Baptist Church. Sure enough, one of Antioch’s ministers is a chaplain at a high-security prison nearby. He rarely gets calls from journalists, and it meant a lot to him to be interviewed and quoted in Texas Monthly. It can be tempting to seize every opportunity to speak out with your own voice, but it’s also advocacy to look for who else might have something of value to say.
The day after the Texas Monthly article came out, I spent a couple of hours at the Texas Capitol with my colleagues and friends on the Fellowship Southwest board of directors. We didn’t have any appointments or plans, but we were in Austin with time available and decided that the Special Session would be an opportune time to witness legislative activity. We were right and wrong.
We were wrong that the Capitol would be abuzz with activity. It was eerily quiet. Most of the offices were locked. There were empty tables in the cafeteria. No hearings were happening.
But it was still a fruitful day of more traditional advocacy: legislative lobbying. In our group of five, we found two of our state senators’ offices open and staffed. We popped in, introduced ourselves, and had wonderful conversations with their staff members. We were able to share about our values and hear updates on the bills we were concerned about regarding immigration and public education.
Making and keeping relationships with legislative staff members is a very effective way of advocating for the issues you care about. It may sound intimidating, but if you first do it in the company of more experienced advocates, you’ll learn what to do (and what not to do) and then you’ll be ready to practice this on a regular basis.
Two days later, Will Speer was scheduled to be executed. A partner organization of Fellowship Southwest, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, encourages local chapters to hold vigils on execution days. I drove 25 minutes downtown in the rain to stand on a sidewalk with about 10 other compassionate souls.
I was running late, as usual, and flustered by the downtown parking situation, as usual, so I neglected to pay for parking. For the record, I tried, but it was a whole QR code system, and I was trying to balance my credit card in one hand and my phone in the other while walking down a sidewalk in the rain, and I must have missed a number because the payment didn’t go through. At that point, I gave up and figured, what are the chances? I’ll only be here for a few minutes.
An hour later, I made it back to my car to find a $50 parking ticket. Not surprisingly, I had gotten wrapped up in conversations with the others who cared enough about people like Will Speer to show up in the middle of a rainy day to hold a banner that reads, “Time to end the death penalty in Texas.”
And that’s the fourth and final type of advocacy: public activism. This may be what most people think of when they think “advocacy.” Protests, marches, public vigils. It’s actually the one I am least practiced in, and possibly the least comfortable with. Because let’s be honest - it’s the hardest. I had lots of reasons to NOT drive 25 minutes downtown in the rain that day and incur a parking ticket. I knew it wasn’t going to change the outcome for Will Speer. But showing up always matters, even it’s only for you. It mattered to me that the other 9 or 10 folks that day showed up. I felt less alone in my feelings. I felt more hopeful.
But did any of it matter?
Well, I can’t speak for the Texas Legislature, but as soon as I got home from downtown that afternoon, I had a text from my friend at TCADP telling me that Will was granted a stay of execution, just five hours before his execution was scheduled.
Nothing that I did directly saved Will’s life. But I do think that more people know and care because I acted on something I cared about, and took a little bit of time and made a little bit of effort. I have the luxury of this literally being my job. But lots of us can find ways to do one of these things, whether it’s spreading awareness, raising others’ voices, lobbying or public activism. Which one will you try next?
