New Haven Independent

The two city teens, Larry Stovall and Paul Hudson (pictured, left to right), rang downtown doorbells Tuesday to get voters to the polls for their candidate, activist Gary Holder-Winfield. Holder-Winfield was challenging a machine-backed candidate in a primary election for the 94th state General Assembly District seat.

The campaign was built in part on the promise of offering urban kids like Larry and Paul a better future than a lifetime pass through the revolving door of the criminal-justice system.

Holder-Winfield’s activist-driven campaign scored an upset victory Tuesday — and gave hope to newcomers to the process like Larry and Paul.

Along the campaign trail that day, the young men encountered just the kind of social and potential criminal-justice roadblock that their candidate said he wants to change.

They were trying to contact registered voters at a condo complex on Audubon Street. Someone called in security. The guard threatened to call the cops.

“We weren’t harassing anyone,” protested Larry when the security guard booted them. “We’re out here doing a good thing.”

The door-knocking duo met each other for the first time Tuesday morning. Paul, who lives in the Dixwell area, studies music at the Cooperative Magnet High School. Larry, an aspiring lawyer from Newhallville, goes to Hillhouse.

Both are 17, rising seniors getting their first taste of politics on an upstart campaign against a practiced team of Democratic party insiders. Larry met Holder-Winfield at the state Capitol one day. On a panel at a conference, Holder-Winfield gave an emotional speech, letting tears run.

“He moved me.” said Larry. Larry started working for the grassroots campaign buzzing on Winchester Avenue, a block away from his house.

Paul, an aspiring music teacher, came to the campaign that morning, referred by neighborhood activist Lisa Hopkins. They were two of about 35 paid workers getting out the vote for the campaign.

Their first excitement of the day came while they were handing out campaign flyers at Lincoln Bassett School. There they came across the opposition candidate, Newhallville Alderman Charles Blango. Encountering the alderman for the first time, they got into a debate over whether enough was being done to help Newhallville besides renovating the school. The debate got “hot,” they said.

Driving through Dixwell later that day, they came across Blango’s campaign pickup truck, which was playing a “get out the vote tune” written by a couple of friends for election day.

The students cracked up.

“The song is horrible!” said Larry.

“The beat is old!” said Paul, who plays piano and sings.

Paul and Larry were given a new task around 5 o’clock. They climbed into a Honda Odyssey belonging to Alison Berk, a college-aged woman from Love Makes A Family, a gay-rights advocacy group that endorsed Holder-Winfield in the primary.

Berk, who came down from the day from Newtown, was dizzied by the labyrinth of New Haven streets. They helped her navigate.

“You have a ton of cops here,” she remarked as they watched police load a suspect into a van outside a Dixwell polling place. “They’re everywhere.”

“You get used to it,” they told her.

Berk, who’d worked on a couple campaigns before, handed them a map and a list of voters. Seasoned campaigners typically work from lists of supporters, identified by ones and twos to signify that they support the candidate. The idea is for the campaign to concentrate on bringing its supporters to the polls, rather than bringing the opponent’s supporters, too. This list included everyone who had voted in the past two primaries — even people such as Downtown Alderwoman Frances Clark, who was not supporting their man.

“Your job is to physically get them to the polls,” Berk told the young men. They scrutinized the unfamiliar addresses on the map.

“I’m confident,” said Larry, a self-assured man who had spent some time in ROTC.

“We’re going to whoop Blango,” said Paul.

They hit the streets: Larry in a button-down shirt with a pen in the pocket, Paul in jeans a campaign T-shirt.

A convertible stopped at a stoplight, blasting an R&B song. Paul, who’s the lead singer in a hip-hop jazz band called Urban Love (click on the link for a video), stopped to sing along for a moment.

Larry marched on to the next address.

Their task proved tough: Several people had moved. Many weren’t home.

At McQueeney Towers, a supportive housing high-rise on Orange Street, they hunched over the intercom.

“Miss Hattie? This is Larry Stovall with the Gary Holder-Winfield campaign.”

“With the who?” asked Miss Hattie. She said she was too sick to vote.

“Well if you do feel any better before 8, please do come out to vote,” said Larry.

“We would really, really appreciate you voting,” he told another woman. “Every vote counts.”

Several other voters said they’d already been to the polls.

“I was out there already,” replied one elderly man. “Where were you at?”

“That put a smile on my face,” said Larry as they walked away. “He sound like my grandfather.”

Booted

Over at Audubon Court, things didn’t go as smoothly.

At the top of a staircase, two gates guarded the inner sanctum of the condo complex. The pair let an opportunity pass to catch a closing gate, preferring to stay outside unless someone invited them in. The young men worked through their list, ringing doorbells through an intercom. The complex was quiet. Most people didn’t answer.

“This is a bad area to do this in,” remarked Paul, writing “no response” next to another name on the list.

“My neighborhood, you see people out on their porches. You can’t have a conversation here.”

They had two quick, polite conversations through the intercom: One woman said she’d already voted. A man said he’d try to get there before 8.

A few minutes later, a security guard called up to them from below.

“Come down from there,” she ordered. She said she had gotten a call from one of the tenants who wanted her to call the police.

“I don’t understand,” said Larry, quickly descending the stairs.

“You’re harassing people,” she charged. “You’re trying to get into the complex.”

Larry tried to explain. “We’re with a campaign,” he said. “We didn’t ring any doorbell more than once.”

She told them if they didn’t leave she would have to call the cops.

“Welcome To My World”

The young men calmly obliged. As they walked away, they talked about how they feel the adult world, and criminal justice system, are stacked against them — themes that have surfaced in Holder-Winfield’s campaign.

“Welcome to my world,” Paul said to this reporter. He said he wasn’t mad at the security guard: “She was doing us a favor, believe it or not.”

Paul said when he and his friends hang out downtown, singing or rapping at a bus stop or waiting for the trolley outside an architecture firm, people often call the cops on them for creating a disturbance. “It happens all the time.”

“It don’t matter” if you’re doing anything illegal or not, he said. His have nicknames — “Boots,” “Asshole” — for the cops who question them. “They can come up with any charge.”

Both said they have learned to avoid confrontation.

“Don’t argue,” said Larry. “Just walk away.”

Though he didn’t show it, Larry said he was upset they got kicked off of their door-knocking route.

“Harassing them?” he asked. “We were out here doing a good thing.”

They finished their task and sat down, having reached only a handful of the 41 people on their list, none of whom they could convince to get to the polls. The results didn’t seem to faze them.

“I learned a lot today,” volunteered Paul, unprompted, as they waited for a ride back to their neighborhoods. He was still fired up over his morning debate with Blango, eager for the activists to beat the establishment.

Both said they’d “definitely” work for a campaign again.

A Reason

Later, after the polls closed, Larry and Paul joined campaign supporters at the Community Outreach Center on Orchard Street. Paul looked for a piano to play a victory tune.

He couldn’t find one. They celebrated anyway.

“I’m just happy that all the hard work weren’t for nothing,” said Larry.

“Yeah. We were out there for five hours!” Paul said.

“I want to thank all the young people who believed in me,” said the candidate in a victory speech.

In a post-victory message to supporters, he expanded on the key role those young people played.

“I wanted to bring young people in and give them a chance to help and have a real say in this campaign,” he wrote. “Frankly, I was prepared to lose if it meant helping one of the many young people, which made up my campaign, to understand the importance of voting and the role they could play in making a positive change in their community.”

After he got off the stage on election night, he praised Larry for working hard for him throughout the summer.

“People say people are disconnected from politics,” said Holder-Winfield. “You have to give them a reason. You have to inspire them.