Power at Polls : In South L.A., Most Voters Say They Cast Ballots for Change

Just a block from the spot where the first stones of the spring riots were thrown, Jewel Charlot had the honor of casting the first ballot Tuesday morning, a quiet act repeated thousands of times across South Los Angeles by people hungry for meaningful change.

“The further we get from the riots, the more people get back into the old complacency, their apathetic ways,” said Charlot, a 57-year-old curriculum adviser for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

“We need a change,” she continued. “Riots, war, that’s what we’re teaching our children now. . . . Even though I don’t think it’s much of a choice, I’m definitely voting against Bush.”

Charlot cast her vote for Bill Clinton just after 7 a.m. in Los Angeles Precinct 2162-A, at a small wood-frame home on West 71st Street, one block from the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues, a flash point of the unrest that began April 29.

The polling place for Precinct 2162-A had an overflow crowd by 9 a.m.--half a dozen voters crammed into the tiny living room of Mamie Hodge, a longtime South-Central resident and veteran poll worker. Sixty voters cast ballots there in two hours, a better-than-average turnout repeated in many other South Los Angeles precincts.

Of 15 people interviewed in Precinct 2162-A, all but one voted for Clinton. They complained of a local economy gone sour, of layoffs and a lack of good jobs. Nearly everyone, it seemed, knew someone who was out of work, or a family that was surviving on food stamps and unemployment checks.

Some angrily maintained that the Bush Administration turned its attention to urban problems only after looting and arson had destroyed much of their community. South-Central still has not fully recovered--vacant lots and burned-out buildings still line the community’s thoroughfares.

Darrell Smith, 36, recalled that, just before the riots, he was laid off from the soft-drink sales job he had held for 13 years. Out of work for four months, he finally found a job recently as a hotel clerk. But his yearly earnings will be cut in half, from $35,000 to $17,000.

“If you’re working-class like I am, trying to bring up kids, there’s nothing going on as far as good jobs,” Smith said. “It’s been hard making it. It gets harder and harder. I think with Clinton there’s hope. George Bush hasn’t done a thing for this community.”

The lone Bush supporter was 74-year-old Wilbur Wilson, a retiree who believed Clinton would cut his Social Security benefits.

“I don’t want change,” he said. Indeed, Wilson is such a staunch supporter of the status quo that he voted for outgoing Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, even though the longtime prosecutor pulled out of the race.

“I want things the way they are,” Wilson added. “I’m looking out for myself.”

Wilson was just leaving the polling booth when his neighbor, Shirley Bradley, stepped in. Bradley said she voted for Clinton because it was in the best interests of her family. Like many South-Central parents, she fears for her children’s future.

“We can’t go on like this. We need to give our children something to look forward to,” said Bradley, a nurse. “Right now, there’s nothing for them.”

Bradley said things in South-Central are so bad, and the desire for change is so strong, that her two children--a 23-year-old daughter and 19-year-old son--voted Tuesday for the first time ever.

The Bradley family lives just across the street from their polling place, making voting especially easy and convenient. Still, Bradley’s son, Marko, seemed less than enthusiastic about participating in the democratic process. An aspiring auto mechanic, he spent hours at home working on his car, wondering whether he should follow his mother’s advice.

He came up with several excuses for not voting: “I’ve never done it before . . . I don’t think my vote will count . . . I don’t know what the right way is.” Finally, after talking about the issues for a few minutes, he had a change of heart.

“We want to see a change,” he said. “I’ve never seen a change.” What did he want to see change? “Everything. It’s hard for us young people to get jobs. We don’t get respect no more.”

Marko Bradley wasn’t the neighborhood’s only new voter. A few blocks away, at the Democratic Party’s South Los Angeles headquarters on Manchester Avenue, volunteers helped a 34-year-old homeless man vote for the first time.

David Jackson walked into the office early Tuesday morning, asking for help in casting his vote. Volunteers discovered that Jackson was registered at a general delivery address at the Terminal Annex Post Office. They drove him downtown to cast his ballot.

“I never thought it was very necessary to vote until now,” Jackson said, as he waited for his ride. “It’s important to vote now because the country is in a state of despair.”

About 100 Democratic Party workers were trying to get out the vote in the heavily Democratic community. They phoned voters at home, left election flyers on doorsteps, ferried voters to and from polling places.

“It’s important for the young kids; they need a future,” said 22-year-old Raul Barrientos, a campaign worker and first-time voter. “I wasn’t into politics before, but then I decided if I don’t change, nobody else will either.”

A few miles away at South Los Angeles’ only Republican headquarters, 88-year-old Richard Jones sat alone in his one-man Bush/Quayle Reelection Committee headquarters on Crenshaw Boulevard.

“I think I’ll close the office at 1 o’clock so I can go home and watch the returns on TV,” Jones said.

Back in precinct 2162-A, Jewel Charlot said she believed that it would take more than a few votes to turn things around in South-Central.

“We need to organize, get together,” she said. “We’re fighting each other rather than getting together. We need to think about solving our problems in a different way.”