Black women - Game changers in the 2020 US election

NBC News estimate that 91% of Black Women voted Democrat. Their powerful influence was also seen on the campaign front line too. Guiding voters to assume their right to vote, advising on the ways how to assert your eligibility to vote and showing all voters what their vote means and that their will count.

Stacey who?

Enter, stage left Stacey Abrams. Candidate for Governor of the state of Georgia in 2018. Her loss at this election was the catalyst for some even more wonderful achievements moving forward.

She went on to change the focus of her voting rights organisation Fair Fight. The New Georgia Project Abrams started in 2013 to foster voter registration, expanded in 2018 after the loss of the Governor race. The emphasis was now to include schooling on voter participation and education regarding elections and voter rights.

As a direct result of Fair Fight’s efforts 800,000 more voter registrations have been recorded since 2018, significant numbers of young people and people of colour making up that total.

Fellow fighters

The 'Black Voters Matter fund' does similar work and is again co-founded by a Black Woman, LaTosha Brown - another incidence of an election defeat that has spawned great change.

LaTosha Brown the founder of the Black Votes Matter fund, was another activist that has made her mark.

Brown believed her loss was the consequence of voter suppression. A loss by 200 votes was even more crushing when it was revealed after the call that 800 votes were ‘found’ in a safe.

The percentage of Black Women that vote is greater than many groups. In 2016 when the Democratic nominee was Hilary Clinton, 94% of black females voted blue. They are seen as the most loyal of supporters for the Democratic Party’s cause.

Fruitful

This is the first time that Georgia has backed a Democratic presidential nominee since 1992, and then it had taken 12 years from 1980, 40 year ago to make it so. What a phenomenal record to help break.

The way forward

Today, Brown, like Abrams, works to ensure voting policies are fair, inclusive of;

• Advocating for early voting
• Challenging unnecessary voter ID laws
• Suring-up voting changes approval processes in the Voting Rights Act of 1965

If this is the result of two Black women losing an election, imagine their might were they to have a win.

Sandra Stewart

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A call to action...

For 24 years OBV have fought to ensure black and minority ethnic participation and representation in civic society. Efforts in continuing to do so though, relies on your help. That way we can continue this fight for greater race equality. What would give us a tremendous boost is if today, you made that small donation yourselves, but even more importantly if you encouraged others to do likewise.