The first time I decided to become politically active (other than voting) was in 2017 when Charlottesville happened. I realized I needed to stand up for immigrants using the privilege I had. My mother, a yellow-dog Democrat and someone who encouraged me to stand for what is right and just, later passed that year.
In 2020, the world, and I, forever changed with the introduction of Covid. I could not – and still can’t – bear the thought of being responsible for another person’s disability or death. So when George Floyd was murdered by police that summer, my husband and I fled to the streets to protest the injustices Black men in America face.
In 2021, the local Tea Party complained about a LGBTQIA+ Pride display at our local library. When I heard they tried not only to get the pride display taken down, but were attacking and insisting on the removal of books at the library, I knew I had to once again take direct action. I went to my first library board meeting in August 2021 and have been involved in protecting the library ever since. Several other local library activists and I formed a community dedicated to protecting the Craighead County library, called Citizens Defending the Craighead County Library. We were attending each library board meeting and subcommittee meeting we could to ensure no books were tossed because of pressure to censure certain books – books that cover LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, disabled, other religions, and science topics, in particular.
I had finally had enough of the man responsible for this unconscionable attack on our library and their staff and decided I needed to go further and challenge him for his seat of state senator. In January 2022, I announced my candidacy for Jonesboro’s state senator.
During that time, I visited and became friends with the queer, Muslim, Black, and Pagan communities of Jonesboro and Craighead County. Each of these groups of people have been systematically attacked by the same censors attacking books. When I see injustices, I have to fight to make it right, something my mom instilled in me.
I worked not only on my own campaign, but I worked making phone calls for Kelly Krout (ran for AR Lt. Governor), Lisa Parks (ran for AR State Representative in NWA), Chris Jones (ran for AR Governor), Cliff Hart (ran for AR State Senate), Jonesboro Forward (ballot initiative to convert one of the two representatives of each ward into ward-only voting), Dr. Anthony Coleman (Jonesboro City Council Runoff), and our local Justice of the Peace candidates.
When November 2022 came, I did not win my race, unsurprisingly. A Democrat had not run for that spot since 2014 so we had no data; part of my goal was cleaning up the data so that others who come after have the best tools at their disposal. We raised $10k, made over 21,000 calls, and knocked on hundreds of doors, and we managed 38% of the vote. I ran as a proud progressive, unafraid of what opposition said to and about me living my values.
In January 2023, I started in the Emerge Arkansas program, which trains progressive women to run for office in their communities. I learned a lot from that program including how to successfully run a campaign, should I ever decide to run for office again or manage someone else’s campaign, and heard from leading progressive women and Emerge alums like Virginia State Senator Danica Roem. Emerge inspired me to fight more for progressive change, so I decided to run for Justice of the Peace in Valley View, announcing my campaign in 2024.
In 2024, I volunteered for the campaigns of Daniel Parker (AR State Representative Candidate), David McAvoy (AR State Representative Candidate), Erika Askeland (AR State Senate Candidate), Rodney Govens (AR U.S. Representative Candidate), and other local Justice of the Peace candidates making phone calls, sending texts, and writing postcards to voters. While we did not win these races either. For my campaign, we again cleaned up the data, raised $2000, and sent more than 1800 postcards to voters in Valley View. In addition, I was elected Arkansas Progressive Democrats Caucus (APDC) co-chair and appointed NEA Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) steering committee co-chair in 2023.
Now that Election 2024 is over, I have the drive to get back to work making a change for the better in my community. I will continue to work as co-chair of the APDC and Secretary of the Craighead County NAACP to bridge divides our community has.
Chenoa Summers 