Reverend Gloria Swierenga, Maryland ACORN

Reverend Gloria Swierenga is a preacher and fervent voter who helps to run a voter registration program as the president of Maryland ACORN. As a predatory lending victim and a mother, she feels that a critical way that citizens exercise control over their government is through making their voices heard at the polls.

"This wonderful, wonderful gift called democracy, it isn't always perfect and sometimes a wheel may temporarily come off, but it's the greatest gift on earth and the way one participates in democracy is to vote," says Reverend Swierenga. "It's a sacred franchise that was bought in blood. So we need to take it seriously in honor of those people who paid the ultimate price so that we could vote."

The Reverend describes her early life in New Jersey as troubled, saying she was a "street urchin," but in her teen years leaders such as Julian Bond of the NAACP inspired her to dedicate her life to serve the greater good. Her sense of justice was ripened by the tragic case of Emmett Louis Till, when as a teenager she raised large sums to pay for lawyers to prosecute Till's attackers.

The Reverend has raised 22 children, some of whom are her birth children and many of whom were taken in through adoption. She says that she believes that all of them are registered to vote.

The Reverend registered to vote in the 1960s when the District of Columbia won a battle so residents could exercise their right to vote. She was living in DC and taking classes at Georgetown University, where she met her husband.

It was her husband who had been responsible for paying the bills and keeping track of finances, and it was he who worked out the details of their subprime mortgage. The Reverend was not aware that their risky loan was throwing them into financial quicksand until her husband deserted her in the late 1990s. After that she found herself living in a home 11 months behind in the mortgage, owing money to a lending predator who had no interest in helping her correct the situation.

The Reverend believes that, especially for those experiencing hardships such as unemployment or being behind in their mortgage, people must get involved in their community and political life.

"Registering to vote is the only way you participate in building a greater America," she says, "and building a greater America is something we can't give up on."


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