By Laura Onyeneho
Black Voters Matter (BVM), a leading organization in the fight for Black voter rights, introduced an ambitious plan to counter ongoing attacks on voting rights and mobilize Black communities ahead of the 2024 elections. During a recent press conference, BVM leaders discussed their latest initiative, the “We Fight Back” campaign and bus tour, which will traverse the nation to educate, mobilize, and empower Black voters.
“We have recently joined the Harris campaign to lead their Black polling,” said Terrance Woodbury, Co-Founder of HIT Strategies. “We’ve heard a lot about how Black voters are showing up, who Black voters are supporting, and how much support has increased with Donald Trump.”
HIT Strategies research stated that the key issues of Black voters are “kitchen table issues” that impact their day-to-day lives. Affordability of housing, college, and healthcare, inflation, anti-Blackness, and racism are among the few.
Kristen Powell, Principal for Black Futures Lab, said that to get Black people to win at the polls, there needs to be a Black economic agenda, which includes solutions to bringing the costs down, ensuring livable wages that support a family, and protecting workers.
“We know that it’ll be rural black voters and black voters in the Midwest that are typically under-engaged. That will be the key to flipping the balance of power in cities and states,” she said. “And so we’re talking to 250,000 Black voters ourselves around this agenda and are excited to partner with many of the organizations on this call to make that agenda happen.”
Andrea Haley, CEO of Vote.Org, shared that they’ve registered over 700,000 voters and hit the 1 million mark on people checking their voter registration through the site. The site allows people to look at all 50 states to see the voting rules in those states. And to do things like request absentee forms, find polling locations, and a one-stop shop for everything you need to vote.
“One of the exciting things that we’re seeing, trends that we’re seeing right now, is that more 18-year-olds register to vote than at this time in 2020. The majority of people who are registering right now are younger and more diverse. We’ve registered over 300,000 [of them],” she said. “We’re overall in the battleground states also seeing huge spikes. When the vice president became the presumptive nominee, we saw over a 700% spike across the nation and in several key states.”
Cliff Albright, co-founder and executive Director of BVM, said Speaker 8: They have programs that invest in local groups that specialize in Black male voter outreach, and not solely for voting purposes.
The “We Fight Back” campaign is a multifaceted approach to voter engagement. As part of this initiative, BVM is launching a national bus tour, affectionately dubbed “the Blackest bus in America.” The tour will visit communities nationwide to spread awareness and build grassroots support, and it will stop in Texas from Sept. 6-7. This tour is not just a temporary push; it’s an extension of BVM’s year-round commitment to voter education and mobilization.
They are also working with students at HBCUs through its program called “Take the Field,” an initiative that aims to engage, excite, and prepare Black college students for acts of civil disobedience that can have a significant impact on their campus and community.