Danielle Williams is an organizer with the Massachusetts Communities Action Network, a coalition of faith-based groups that received grant funding in advance of the election to do outreach in Boston’s minority neighborhoods highlighting the important role of the district attorney. The ACLU of Massachusetts, which had conducted a poll showing 38 percent of Massachusetts voters did not even know DAs were elected, also mounted a public information campaign stressing the extraordinary power of the office.
The faith network’s phone canvassing efforts reached more than 14,000 Boston residents who were deemed the least likely to vote in the September primary – people from the age of 18 to 35 who had only very sporadically voted in past elections. The group also did street-level outreach, visiting barber shops and other places to talk about the DA’s race. Williams says organizers often brought a poster-sized map, based on a 2016 MassINC research study, showing the heavy concentration of homes in Boston’s minority neighborhoods that had a family member who had been incarcerated.
