By Catherine Fleming Bruce, special to Statehouse Report | Following last year’s stunning electoral victory of Democratic candidate Doug Jones in Alabama, led by black women, South Carolina organizers with Black Voters Matter have committed to a similar outcome in 2018.
Black Voters Matter has pledged to collectively build black power in the South for the long run, leading to electoral victories. The Black Voters Matter South Carolina Initiative launched its 2018 effort with a Black Love and Political Power Palmetto State tour, held Feb. 11 to Feb. 14.
The tour was a first step in hearing from black people and black organizations working on the ground in citizen engagement, electoral politics, health, voter registration and community development. It was organized by Tnovsa Global Commons, a charitable organization in South Carolina which trained leaders in over 16 counties through the Just Democrats initiative. Its emphasis is not on *votes* but on *voters*, and on their improved quality of life.
Black Voters Matter, the organization that worked side by side with black Alabamans to topple Roy Moore and bring the Doug Jones win, was co-founded by strategists LaTosha Brown and Cliff Albright in 2016. It is a nonpartisan effort committed to strengthening networks that will lead to political victory in 2018 and social change beyond.
Brown and Albright, at the invitation of Tnovsa Global Commons, led S.C. listening sessions with participants against the backdrop of the new Orangeburg Massacre exhibit at S.C. State University’s I.P. Stanback Museum; in Columbia at Second Calvary Baptist Church, home of the charitable foundation named for NAACP leader James M. Hinton; at the Mary McLeod Bethune Park, operated by the Lee County National Council of Negro Women in Mayesville; the C. Williams Rush Gallery/Museum of African-American History and Culture in Kingstree; the Ronald E. McNair Life History Center in Lake City; and the ‘Friendship Nine’ McCrory Five and Dime in Rock Hill.
Close to 100 participants, including students, current and former elected officials, political party leaders, health care workers, community activists and organizers, religious leaders, established statewide entities and new resistance groups joined in the discussions. Feedback from the tour demonstrated a strong appetite for building black capacity for political engagement, a sense of urgency to engage for the upcoming primary and general election races, and fighting for long term as well as short term electoral victories.
In addition to these stops, the Palmetto tour visited Greenville, Winnsboro, Florence and Cheraw. The opening Sunday evening event in Charleston County was dedicated to carrying on the freedom dream of Muhiyidin Moye, the Charleston-based racial justice activist murdered on Feb. 6 in New Orleans.
Over the next few weeks, the Initiative will reach out to additional organizations and counties in South Carolina with large black populations. The Black Voters Matter South Carolina Initiative is also committed to supporting an end to police, gun and domestic violence.
The Black Voters Matter South Carolina Initiative plans to be a support that maximizes cooperation between existing groups, increasing long term the number of black people who are politically engaged and working together across class/age/gender and other divides to win elections, impact policy and improve social and economic conditions. The group will also focus on:
1) The critical need to protect democratic institutions and values that are being systematically destroyed by the current White House administration;
2) The need to engage black and brown South Carolinians in successful strategies to address poverty and economic inequality, to provide economic opportunity and full engagement and inclusion in an American society that is free of racism and bigotry;
3) The need to build a permanent statewide force of black and brown South Carolinians (black, Hispanic and native Americans) who vote, and are civically engaged for electoral wins in 2018 and beyond;
4) The need to bridge the ‘progressive – establishment’ divides in order to win elections together in 2018 and beyond; and
5) The need to combine electoral action with grassroots and movement politics to change the balance of power in D.C. and S.C.
Catherine Fleming Bruce is author of the award-winning book, The Sustainers: Being Building and Doing Good through Activism in the Sacred Spaces of Civil Rights, Human Rights and Social Movement and director of the Black Voters Matter South Carolina Initiative. She can be reached by email at tnovsacfb@gmail.com.
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