With 2022 completely wrapped, what

still remains evident—as it pertains to

Black men—is a deeper commitment from

funding sources that support programs

explicitly designed to enhance civic and

electoral engagement beyond the typical,

traditional and transactional programs

that yield little to no permanent progress.

If we are not only to duplicate but expand

on the result of 2020 and 2023, adequate

investment is no longer a casual idea. It is

the necessary position for those concerned

with the progressive participation of Black

men. The record number of Black men who

participated in the last two federal elections

in our 17 priority states provides the perfect

case study for early investment in programs

that center the needs of Black men and

our communities instead of focusing on a

political party or candidate.

We should define Black Male Voter

Project’s impact over the last two federal

(2019-2022) election cycles as nothing

less than an innovative, poll-defying,

badass rethinking of how we run eective

additory campaigns in this country. With

multi-modal programs that all include

direct voter engagement but never stop

there, the organization has reached every

Black man registered to vote in our priority

states. This heavy lifting and level of work

could never be successful if it began after

Labor Day; instead, Black Male Voter

Project got to work at the end of 2019 and

continued through all of 2022. As a result,

we saw increased participation across the

board in a demographic that pundits and

pollsters said would sit this election out. We

prioritized what we knew was important to

Black men and built programs responsive

to those issues.

And while 2020/2022 was

wildly successful for progressive

issues and candidates beneficial

to Black men, our work is

nowhere near a space qualifying

Black men as politically

comfortable or safe. Because this

is so, 2023 [for its elections and

in preparation for 2024] requires as much

eort as 2020 in our eort to continue to

erode the harms and distrust associated

with more than 152 years of voter

suppression aimed squarely at Black men.

This work requires us to expose and do

away with the invisibiling that prevents

Black men from being heard and seen in

civic spaces. The hard truth about this point

is some of the programs doing significant

harm to our communities are from folk that

look like us but aren’t doing the bidding of

our communities. Instead, they prioritize

securing contracts because of relationships

with political organizations and the donor

class. This unspoken tactic of centering the

“shiny new thing” has and is causing long-

term distrust in the very demographic we

need to win at every level.

CHALLENGE

IN PREPARATION FOR 2024

Black Male Voter Project

CHALLENGE

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