Recorded from Salisbury, Maryland, 2021.
This snapshot was gathered by the Peale in conjunction with the Maryland Voices initiative at Maryland Humanities, specifically to supplement the "Voices and Votes: Democracy in America" traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program. This collection, made up of stories of first-time voters between the ages of 18 and 24, showcases the experiences of young people as they wrestled with the 2020 presidential election, issues around social justice, the environment, immigration, and the pandemic. The full collection of stories is available at www.museumonmainstreet.org.
Augustus Roberts Jr. (00:00): My name's Augustus Roberts Jr. I'm currently a senior English major at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. A couple facts about myself. I like to create from graphic design to film, to even still life pictures, which is my main passion, but that's the main thing I love to get my hands on when it turns to digital media.
Augustus Roberts Jr. (00:23): I'm not the type of person to say progress isn't there. And progress can come up in many forms. And even like the most minute piece can still be made with little victories.
Augustus Roberts Jr. (00:34): Those are the little victories I'm seeing. Even for like women's rights. That's like crucial to us. Even seeing things on a different playing field and understanding like, okay, we need different perspectives around us. Even Kamala Harris, even having her in that position, I believe it changes a lot of other ignorant perspectives that people have about what women can do it and the true power of the divine feminine, but I'm rambling.
Augustus Roberts Jr. (00:59): But that's also another thing too. Women's rights. Just even studying about not even the history of suffrages and what they show us in school, but the actual boots on the ground that has been done since like the seventies and things like that, I've seen, okay, it's a reason we still are where we are, but it's those little changes that I'm seeing right now with how we even be more inclusive with women and gender and race. People telling more black stories about how that can improve more of the progress that we're hoping for.
Asset ID: 2021.03.05.c
