Kamora Greggs returned to her college campus with voting on her mind. She’d just visited her home in Jackson, Mississippi, about three hours away, when her mom encouraged her to exercise her right. “And don’t have anybody change your mind about what you want to do,” Greggs recalled. As a first time voter, the 19-year-old […]
Voting
Posted inElections, Politics & Policy, Voting
Black Organizers Change Their Message to the Hip-Hop Generation
The Rev. Lennox Yearwood had learned from experience that getting more members of the hip-hop generation to be politically active was difficult. He knew it wasn’t enough to get them to turn out to vote for one election – because they might not show up for the next one. And he believed that creating change […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
Justin Jones Wants Black Voters to See the Bigger Fight Behind Tennessee’s New Map
When Tennessee Republicans divided Nashville among three congressional districts in 2022, the move dismantled a Democratic bastion. Just four years later, Memphis got a similar treatment. Republican lawmakers in May approved a new congressional map that cracked Memphis, gutting the state’s only remaining Democratic congressional seat. For state Rep. Justin Jones, 31, a Nashville Democrat […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
Black Virginians Are Fighting a Voting Barrier That Outlasted Jim Crow
RICHMOND, Virginia — Within a week of leaving prison in 2024, Quadaire Patterson applied to have his right to vote restored. He waited for about two years, without success. But when he checked Virginia’s online portal this past August, there had been a big change. His status said “pending,” whereas before it had said “denied.” […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
Black Women Are Sounding the Alarm About Voting Rights and America’s Future
Is the nation – from institutions to lawmakers — investing in the needs of Black women voters? A new, nonpartisan poll by The Highland Project and brilliant corners Research and Strategies that surveyed 700 participants found the answer is “overwhelmingly no.” The report focused on what researchers define as “the fulfillment gap,” whether Black women […]
Posted inElections, Politics & Policy, Voting
How the Congressional Black Caucus Is Organizing to Protect Black Voting Power
WASHINGTON — There’s a heaviness hanging over this year’s Congressional Black Caucus conference, as U.S. Rep. Troy Carter of Louisiana and other caucus members talk strategy ahead of the midterms just months away. “Be angry enough to fight. Angry enough to vote,” Carter said Wednesday, the first day of the annual convening in the nation’s […]
Posted inElections, Politics & Policy, Voting
Black Voters in Georgia Are Mobilizing as Voting Rights Face New Threats
Decisions made in courts across the country are changing the rules of voting and shifting Black political power. Capital B is tracking the fight for voting rights to show who is affected, where power is shifting, and what the changes mean for Black communities nationwide. For voting rights stories from across the country, visit our […]
Posted inElections, Politics & Policy, Voting
Black Voting Power Is Under Attack, So Thousands Came to D.C. to Fight Back
WASHINGTON — Shirley Lee traveled nearly 1,500 miles from Houston to the nation’s capital. Wearing a cowboy hat emblazoned with an American flag, she said that she wasn’t going to miss this year’s March on Washington. “It’s my 70th birthday on Sunday, so [being here] is my birthday present to me,” Lee told Capital B. […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
Delaware Gives Black Voters New Protections Against Election Discrimination
WILMINGTON, Delaware — Wearing his Sunday best, Corey Gordon Jr. drove 30 minutes to Shiloh Baptist Church in Wilmington, Delaware, to witness a historic event that would impact his fundamental right to vote. The 22-year-old graduate of the University of Delaware saw firsthand how anti-diversity backlash could unsettle a campus. Over the past year, the […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
What Lindsey Graham’s Death Means for Black South Carolina Voters
South Carolina native Lawrence Moore remembers when he saw his father cast a ballot for the first time in 1968. It was a few years after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law. Black voter registration was surging across the South. Those years taught Moore, now 70 and a […]
