Sojourner Ahebee / NBC NewsĬheck out the Into America podcast series on “The Power of the Black Vote.” Ahead of the 2022 midterms, host Trymaine Lee visits some of America’s most prominent HBCUs to understand how the next generation of Black voters are shaping America’s future.
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So providing access to campuses is a very big deal.” Clark Atlanta University students dance at a voter registration drive Sept. “That’s super important because when you think about students, you think about their course load and work schedules, and oftentimes they’re not able to go to the precinct designated for them from 7 a.m. “We’ve been working to get early voting sites on campuses,” Ciarra Malone, the Georgia coordinator for the Campus Vote Project, said. Along with voter registration events - filled with games, prizes, food and music - and online engagement, organizers have also bolstered more practical outreach, working to make voting more accessible for students. In response to the report, organizers began speaking to young Black voters with a targeted approach, through social media challenges, livestreams with Black leaders, campus tours to encourage voting and voter drive events at HBCU homecomings. These included a lack of funding and administrative support for civic engagement efforts, inconsistent outreach from political parties, and misinformation among students. The Campus Vote Project, through its HBCU Legacy Initiative, partnered with the NAACP Youth and College Division to publish a 2022 report that identified multiple barriers that stood in the way of Black students at HBCUs voting. To start, voting rights advocates needed to understand why Black students weren’t going to the polls.
It’s been no easy feat to get Black youth voter numbers up.
That’s the message we’re giving young people in Georgia.” We try to let students know the importance of this time. “Oftentimes people don’t understand that their frustrations in the primaries and in the presidential elections come from not paying attention to the midterms. “Organizing around the midterms has been a bit difficult, due to people not understanding the importance of the midterms,” she said. Every generation is going to be the next set of leaders, but I think my generation brings something different,” Henry said, acknowledging that ensuring voter turnout for midterm elections comes with challenges. Now, student-led groups are continuing these efforts as the Georgia midterms approach, keeping the momentum through everything from social media challenges to voter events at HBCU homecomings and more. That win can be credited, in part, to grassroots organizations like the Campus Vote Project, Rise, the New Georgia Project and others that focus on galvanizing young Black voters. Georgia’s youth voter turnout was among the highest in the south, and the young voters helped turn the historically Republican state blue. Between 20, Black student voting dropped by 5.3%, with young voters historically accounting for some of the lowest turnout in the country.īut in 2020, young voters accounted for 20% of the state’s votes, according to NBC News exit polls, with 90% of Black youth casting ballots for Joe Biden, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, or CIRCLE, at Tufts University’s Jonathan M. After Stacey Abrams’ failed bid for Georgia governor that year, Black college students knew they had to do something to improve Black voter turnout in the state - especially with the 2020 presidential election right around the corner. Henry, 20, said she has been supporting civic engagement since she was 13 years old, and she couldn’t have imagined just how much young Black voters would step up to transform Georgia’s political position. “We were able to register over 500 students and got them to pledge to vote!” “We were educating them on the midterm elections and ensuring they were able to vote in the state of Georgia,” she said. Clark Atlanta University is one of several historically Black colleges and universities in Georgia. The group partnered with Greek fraternities and sororities and local nonprofit organizations for the voter registration event on National Voter Registration Day.
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