National organizations are ramping up efforts to register, motivate and turn out Black voters in the November election.

The NAACP, National Urban League and Al Sharpton’s National Action Network have all announced such plans and have already begun acting on them. They are partnering with many other civic organizations to get the job done—protecting Black officeholders and electing more of them and enlightened allies to limit how much more damage President Donald Trump can do to Black aspirations and the country’s democracy in his last two years in office.

To protect their nonprofit status, the NAACP and Urban League must undertake their GOTV (get out the vote) campaigns without explicitly urging the election of a Democratic Congress to hamstring Trump. But the National Action Network, with its tax status as a social welfare organization, is not so constrained.

“All roads lead to the South” is becoming a catch phrase of the multi-pronged campaign. The geographic focus is the southern states that, enabled by a decision of the Trump-made majority on the Supreme Court, have erased majority Black congressional districts originally drawn under a full-strength Voting Rights Act.

That decision reversed decades of precedent by ruling that deliberately drawing majority-minority political districts violates the Constitution. Under that logic, Antonesia “Toni” Wiley, senior director of congressional advocacy at the Urban League, says 16 congressional seats and 153 state legislative seats occupied by Black officials are at risk in eight southern and border states: Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Florida and the Carolinas.

The seats at risk in those states amount to about a quarter of the Congressional Black Caucus, whose numbers only recently reached rough parity with the Black population. A wise Black professor in St. Louis is known for observing, “Whenever we get close to power, the rules change,” as the Supreme Court has done in this instance. It’s Jack Kirkland’s longstanding definition of “institutional racism.”

The NAACP, which announced its get out the vote effort a month ago, says it will focus on 14 states and 33 congressional districts. The country’s oldest and largest civil rights organization says it will devote $20 million to recruit 20,000 volunteers and mobilize 6.5 million Black voters. Providing technical and political expertise will be GSSA, a Colorado-based data and election strategy group founded by an African American.

The NAACP says to fight “attempts to erode Black political power – especially in southern states – we are building a mobilization engine to turn out votes in massive numbers ahead of the November midterm elections.”

The Urban League unveiled its “Reclaim Your Vote” campaign in March.

The organization is partnering with 35 other organizations, including Black fraternities and sororities. No dollar amount has been placed on anticipated spending.

Wiley says a demographic focus will be first-time voters between 18 and 30. Almost half of Black voters that age didn’t cast ballots in 2024, when Trump was reelected, the Urban League reports.

As part of its “Defend the Vote” campaign, the National Action Network has scheduled a march in Washington, D.C. on August 28. Despite its roots in New York City, the organization has more than 30 chapters in southern and border states.

The goal of stimulating a massive Black turnout on November 3 resonates beyond the three national organizations.

Nicole Austin-Hillery, president and CEO of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, urged leaders at the Global Black Economic Forum in New Orleans to be “surgical” in identifying unregistered voters in their communities and persuading them to sign up.

“We can overcome the shenanigans,” Austin-Hillery said, referring to the Supreme Court decision and subsequent mid-term redistricting.

This is not the first time these and other Black organizations have aimed to stimulate Black turnout, which did help elect Barack Obama president twice.

Two years ago, the NAACP spent another $20 million to turn out Black voters. Still, Trump was elected again. Spending the same amount on a midterm election, when overall turnout is lower than in a presidential election, could have a greater impact. The NAACP says it has never devoted this much money to a mid-term election.

With more money and more volunteers, the NAACP, Urban League and National Action Network can have an even greater impact. This is where conscious and resourced Black folks in northern and western states come in.

About half of African Americans live in the South. The Supreme Court decision involved a case from Louisiana, but it applies to the entire country. Democratic-controlled legislatures in northern states like Massachusetts may not be inclined to erase Black and Hispanic majority districts, but those districts are vulnerable to legal challenges. States could argue, though, that they are preserving those districts to protect incumbents, which the Supreme Court has allowed.

Missives are circulating to chapters of the Greek-letter organizations urging their members outside the South to donate to support the Urban League’s Reclaim Your Vote campaign with donations and volunteers. Those who are able heeding those calls will boost that effort and those of the NAACP and National Action Network.

Wherever African Americans live, we are all in this together, to prevent Trump and his crew from pushing us down and keeping us out of power.

Ronald Mitchell
Editor and Publisher, Bay State Banner