WATERLOO - Local community activist David Goodson, working as part of a state advocacy group, is mounting a volunteer effort to get out the vote Nov. 7 in predominantly black areas of Waterloo's east side.

"I'm organizing for the Iowa Citizen Action Network," based in Des Moines, Goodson said. "We'll be doing some kind of effort to get out the vote - knocking on doors, phone calling. We'll probably have 30 to 50 individuals working with us on the ground, kind of a grass-roots operation."

There will be a special push in the last 24 hours before the polls close, Goodson said. "We'll be kind of enhancing a push for people to get out to vote, giving them transportation to the polls, those kinds of things," he said.

The push will concentrate in Waterloo's 4th Ward and one precinct in the 3rd Ward. "Pretty much the African-American community," Goodson said. "We tend to have a lower voter turnout, lower voter registration.

"We fought and struggled for this right to vote for so long. We want people to take advantage of that," Goodson said, referring to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s that led to the passage of the civil rights bill and Voting Rights Act under President Lyndon Johnson's administration.

"We paid a big price for this," Goodson said, "from the Freedom Riders, to SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) to Dr. (Martin Luther) King, the entire civil rights movement. Many lives - literally, lives - were lost over the right to vote. Medgar Evers was fighting for the right to vote when he was shot in the back (in Mississippi in 1963). As a result of people protesting for the right to vote, four little girls in the Birmingham (Alabama 16th Street Baptist) Church were bombed out" on Sept. 15, 1963. He also mentioned that Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were struggling for the right to vote when they were murdered in Mississippi in the Freedom Summer of 1964.

"We paid a heavy price to vote and now that we have it, it is our civic duty and our responsibility," Goodson said.

ICAN volunteers began calling Wednesday and will begin door knocking Saturday, Goodson said. The drive won't exclusively target black voters, and those of other ethnic backgrounds in the targeted areas also will be encouraged to participate.

While previous local ICAN efforts focused on voter registration, which will continue, the new effort will concentrate on voter mobilization, Goodson said. He is ICAN coordinator of voter mobilization for the current effort.

Individuals wanting more information, either as a voter or a volunteer, may contact Goodson at 504-1997.

Contact Pat Kinney at (319) 291-1484 or pat.kinney@wcfcourier.com.