Dear Mr. Mayor,
For the past year or so, I have been pushing a strategy that I developed to end voter suppression primarily in the Southern states. We have seen the gap between white participation and non-white participation in presidential elections widen since the Shelby v Holder decision in 2013. My strategy to end such discrimination is to create a large, deafening public uproar that forces state legislatures to revoke the voter suppression laws. How could we do this? We would promote a boycott by top-tier and highly-recruited athletes. They would refuse to attend universities and colleges in states with voter suppression laws. The University of Alabama’s football team is comprised of approximately 80% minority players. Imagine the outrage if historically highly-ranked football teams like Alabama, Auburn or Georgia fall to mediocracy because of their inability to attract top recruits to their schools or to keep established stars from leaving the school.
I recently saw in the news that you encouraged a similar boycott of universities and colleges in states that bar DEI programs taught in the public schools. I believe that it would be easy to address both the issues of voter suppression and barring DEI programs with the same boycott program. The boycott has the potential to bring about many changes in race relations.
I envision a small non-profit organization to promote the boycott. The first and foremost responsibility of this organization would be to get national awareness and recognition of the boycott. This would require enlisting a number of well-known national figures to support the boycott. This organization would then reach out to the high-profile athletes and provide the support and advice they would need to help them matriculate to a different college or university than they had originally intended.
I have reached out to top athletes, sportscasters, politicians, and religious leaders trying to bring a big-name personality to the cause. Unfortunately, I have not had any success up to this point. I would like to have the chance to talk to you and outline how my boycott could be implemented. I am in still in need of a big-name or a prominent politician to help give my program legitimacy. I was hoping you might be interested in working with me on this boycott and could provide a contact to others who might join in the fight.
I appreciate your attention to this proposal and look forward to hearing from you.
Howard Feldman
H O W A R D S B E N D 