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.” […]
Voting
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 […]
Posted inVoting
NAACP Launches $20 Million Plan to Mobilize 6.5 Million Black Voters
As Black voters stand to lose representation, one of the oldest civil rights organizations in the U.S. is leaning on a playbook that allowed it to radically increase Black political participation at the height of Jim Crow. Thirty-three congressional districts. Twenty-thousand volunteers. A $20 million investment. Those are some of the details behind what the […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
Black Organizers Are Preparing for a New Era of Voting Rights Battles
The mobilization effort was swift once it became clear that Black Georgians stood to lose political representation. LaTosha Brown and other voting rights advocates sprang into action after Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp on May 13 called a special session to redraw the state’s congressional and legislative maps in ways that could erode Black voters’ […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
The Plaintiffs Behind Alabama’s Voting Rights Case Are Ready to Fight Again
This story first appeared on For the Record: A Black Oral History Archive. The archive is a collection of over 100 firsthand stories of Black life in America. MONTGOMERY, Alabama — Evan Milligan was visiting Berlin when he learned that he had won a voting rights case against the state of Alabama at the U.S. Supreme […]
