The Providence office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which helps register low-income and minority voters, has received two threatening phone calls in the run-up to the presidential election.
ACORN Providence Lead Organizer Hannah Kahl said the office received messages on Sept. 24 and 29 from seemingly the same person, judging by the caller's voice.
"It was a very racially charged message," Kahl said. She said the caller talked about the fact that Obama was not born in the U.S., and "went on to imply really awful things about Obama's children."
In the second message, the caller identified himself as a white man and called ACORN a racist organization. Kahl said the caller asked if ACORN employees weren't answering the phone out of fear. "But he was calling at like seven in the morning," she said.
ACORN is a nonpartisan organization that has registered 1.3 million mostly low-income and minority voters for the 2008 election. Kahl said ACORN's mission is to go into low-income communities, find out what the residents want to change and then bring people together to effect change in those communities. She said voter registration is only part of this goal, and other projects include foreclosure assistance, free tax preparation and improvements to schools and sanitation. Kahl said recent media attention has given people a narrow view of the organization because, "the drama right now is in the voter world."
ACORN offices in several states are also currently under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for reports of voter registration fraud.
Kahl said ACORN has reported the incidents to the police and that workers are paying extra attention to their surroundings as they continue to register voters. Such threats are not unique to the Providence branch. Break-ins were reported at Boston and Seattle branches, said Charles Jackson, the association's communications director. Jackson said that threats have also been reported in Ohio, Louisiana, Florida and Michigan, where there have also been break-ins and death threats, but no physical altercations. Jackson said people are showing courage by continuing to work toward voter registration.
"I want to stress that we are certainly standing up for what is right and these racist threats will not deter us from our all-important mission," he said.
Kahl said that the threats are not surprising, adding that for any organization "working to make a change, there is going to be opposition."
