How Black women organized voters to secure Joe Biden’s victory

On Dec 2, 2020

One hundred years after passage of the 19th Amendment, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris honored Black American women who “so often prove they are the backbone of our democracy.”

About 90% of Black women voted for President-elect Joe Biden over Donald Trump, making them Democrats’ most loyal bloc. For the past five presidential cycles, they have shown up to the polls at higher rates than any other group.

This year, experts say their nationwide voter mobilization efforts led to the historic turnout that secured Biden’s victory and that of the first Black, female vice president in the nation’s history.

But being the “backbone” of American democracy, an identity activists say is rooted in a history of racial oppression and gendered disenfranchisement, comes at a cost.

“It is a tremendous, magnanimous burden to bear,” said Black Voters Matter Fund co-founder LaTosha Brown. “There is a major price to pay there. While we are strong in the world — and I consider myself powerful — I have felt this culture doesn’t give me the grace or space to be weak, to be delicate.”

Black women have been the spearhead of social justice movements throughout American history. Although largely ignored in history books until the late 20th century, Black women were a driving force in the abolitionist movement in the mid 1800s.

Then, they led the fight to pass the Voting Rights Act in 1965, helping to abolish tactics of voter suppression that targeted Black Americans.

Since the 1940s, after Recy Taylor spoke out against the white men who kidnapped and sexually assaulted her, Black women have also led the charge in addressing sexual violence, paving the way for the #MeToo movement.

“The biggest barriers in this country are rooted in racism and sexism,” Brown said. “Black women sit at the intersection of that.”

As America’s most consistent voters carried on this legacy of organizing to a record number of Black American voters this election, leaders in the movement reflect upon a history of gender and racial oppression, attributing much of their success as activists and organizers to the strength and resilience borne from that shared lineage.

“Black women are acting at the intersection of so many different types of injustices that particularly affect them and their children,” said Alaina Morgan, an African diaspora historian at the University of Southern California.

“We never had the opportunity to be anything else but forward thinking survivors,” Brown said. “If we were not, we could die, our families could die, our children could die. Part of the culture of how we show up in the world is in response to our history.”

Brown, who sings soul music and is releasing her first album, Songs of the Souls of Black Folk, later this year, says she finds solace from the strain of the constant fight for justice through her art.

“If I didn’t have my own voice to soothe my tired soul, I don’t know what I would do,” she said. “For Black women, womanhood was never about being delicate, or soft, or being kept. Womanhood always meant work, and protecting your families, your communities.”

History drives activism

Black women’s hard history, the activist said, is part of what makes them successful organizers: “There is something about our humanity. Out of this pain comes a deep, deep sense of empathy and determination.”

“Black women are nurturers. We’ve been nurturers during slavery. We nurtured other children that did not belong to us,” said Brittany Smalls, Black Voters Matter’s Pennsylvania state coordinator. “It’s tiring, but I get my strength when I think about my family members, when I think about my great grandmother who actually picked cotton.”

Since March, Black Voters Matter Fund has partnered with more than 600 grassroots organizations to get-out-the-vote among the Black community in swing states and vulnerable counties, providing supplies, funding and strategic guidance.

In Pennsylvania, Smalls saw the direct impact of her team’s efforts when officials finished counting ballots in Philadelphia, which is 42% Black, and clinched the Biden-Harris victory.

“Women, but especially Black women, have a tendency to coalesce and rally around each other,” Brown said. “I’ve never seen the level of collaboration within the way that Black organizations worked together, even more than with President Obama.”