“Our politics will not save us. Our humanity will,” says Black Voters Matter co-founder LaTosha Brown. “In a moment that we’re seeing this fear and these attacks on us individually, what it’s going to take is we got to push back with collective power.”John Bazemore/AP
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One of the defining issues heading into this year’s midterms is how redistricting has rapidly reshaped electoral maps across the country. When the Supreme Court gutted much of the Voting Rights Act earlier this year, a number of states redrew maps eliminating majority-Black districts, weakening Black political power potentially for years to come.
But what does this shift feel like for someone working on the ground to expand voting access for Black communities when the promise of equal representation itself is under assault? Ask LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter Fund, a group that’s been working to increase voter participation within minority communities in the rural South, especially where turnout is low.
“There are people who are openly white supremacists that are consolidating power at record speed in such a way that they are stripping away all of the rights, opportunities, and access points for you and your family,” she says, referring to communities of color in the South. “If that don’t move you, it ain’t nothing that I can say that can move you.”
On this week’s More To The Story, Brown talks with host Al Letson about her winding path into politics, her fight against ongoing voter suppression efforts in the South, and why it’s important to mobilize Black voters now more than ever.
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