will candidates competing for three available seats on newark's Board of Education took part in a forum last night ahead of the April 25th election Newark is one of only about a dozen districts in the state that still hold School elections in April rather than November to save money and boost what tends to be low turnout last year just three percent of registered voters in the City cast ballots for School elections Wednesday night's Forum was co-hosted by newark-based non-profit project ready it's a voting rights advocacy group that's also sponsoring a pop-up Museum in the city with an interactive experience walking visitors through key moments in the country's history of civil rights all in hopes of encouraging them to utilize their power to vote Melissa Rose Cooper has the story so when you immediately walk in you'll be able to sit at a 1960 sit-in Diner at the diner we explore what happened during the sit-ins and we explore what college students across the country country were able to do in order to make sure that we could actually have access to sit down at diners and eat at diners it's one of several presentations visitors will see inside the power of voting experience the pop-up Museum in Newark is an interactive exhibit highlighting significant periods of the Civil Rights Movement Shanna McLeod CEO of the non-profit voting rights advocacy group project ready says each experience is designed to remind people why voting is so important we also very excitingly have Ruby Bridges classroom it's one of my favorite parts of the piece because in the classroom we're able to explore some of the elements of what education looked like before and what the educational system looks like now and we're hopeful that people will be able to pull on Ruby Bridges experience but also be thinking about how we need to be thoughtful about 27 of our kids that are actually reading on grade level what do we do what we do is we vote and with newark's low voter turnout history McLeod says the museum is a perfect way to encourage residents to head to the polls especially with the school board and primary elections approaching we've created an unofficial Ballot Box I say unofficial because I don't want anyone thinking they can vote at 79 University but we want people to learn more about the vote by Mel process through the polling that we've done at project ready we've learned especially for black women in particular that they want more opportunities to vote because they may not be able to make it out to the polls so the vote by mail process in addition to The Ballot Box may give you that opportunity this was like an old voting booth here and you can see like a hand holding a ballot and you see the children Suleiman enque is the artist behind this mural titled claiming our seats using mostly spray paint to create this piece Encore says it depicts how the past and present are connected with this it's just showing a bus boycott from back in the 60s and then you flash forward to the George Floyd protest and we also did the the Selma Bridge you know that Bridges the gap of the two and the elders the seniors you know who had been in the past and still here now they're still pushing they're still strong enough to know this is what we need to do don't forget it I feel fought for this so don't let that go this is an actual bus from 1964 and visitors can actually hop on the bus and take a little tour and get an up close look at history everything is about an exploration of the past and the present so being able to go from Rosa Parks who claimed her seat on the bus Amiri Baraka who did so much in the city of Newark New Jersey in order to push the Civil Rights Movement forward John Lewis who actually is one of the founding Freedom Writers and Stacy Abrams who we know is running around and has been killing it in terms of activating voters and making voters aware and also ensuring that she fights for voter access and plans are in the works to take the bus around the city to engage more voter turnouts the exhibit will remain open through the end of June for NJ Spotlight news I'm Melissa Rose Cooper [Music]