CNN
—
Jotaka Eadie was sitting on the porch of her parents’ South Carolina home on Sunday afternoon when she received a text message from an activist friend with a link to a letter announcing that President Joe Biden was withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race.
Edie said she began texting with other black women political activists in a group chat, where she learned Biden was endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
Eadie, founder of the grassroots group Win With Black Women, quickly got to work organizing and said she wanted to do her part to support Harris if she had a chance to become the first black woman president of the United States.
“It was time to get to work,” Eadie said. “It was clear that it was time to make it 10 times louder.”
The women in Eadie’s group chat began discussing how they could mobilize as many Black women as possible around Harris, she said. They agreed to spend the next five hours spreading the word about their weekly Sunday night Zoom calls.
About 44,000 people ultimately tuned in to the call, with another 50,000 tuned in on other platforms after Zoom reached capacity, and Eadie said it raised $1.5 million for the Harris campaign.
Activists said the call was the start of a rapidly growing movement of Black women banding together to help Harris win a historic victory in November. Thousands of Black women activists across the country are planning voter registration drives and organizing conference calls, campaign events and fundraisers. Harris’ sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, announced Monday that it was partnering with other Black Greek-letter organizations to launch a massive, nonpartisan voter mobilization campaign.
Such collective efforts have helped Democrats win past elections, and many black women activists believe they can do so again this time.
Black women are the Democratic Party’s most loyal voting bloc, with 90% supporting Biden in 2020.
Harris herself has been appealing to black women voters in recent weeks, stopping by black sorority conventions. She spoke at AKA Boulevard in Dallas earlier this month, before Biden dropped out of the race, and on Wednesday she addressed the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc. conference in Indianapolis.
Both AKA and Zeta Phi Beta are part of the National Panhellenic Council, commonly known as the Divine Nine, which is made up of nine Black sororities and fraternities. AKA has more than 360,000 members and Zeta Phi Beta has more than 125,000 members.
“So much is at stake in this moment,” Harris said in her address to the Zeta Phi Beta Conference, “and our country is counting on you to continue to galvanize, organize, mobilize, register people to vote, get people to the polls, and fight for the future that our country and our people deserve.”
While many black women are ready to support Biden for reelection, the news that Harris is likely to replace Biden as the top Democratic candidate has energized many black female voters, said Shavon Earline Bradley, president of the National Council of Black Women.
Arlyn Bradley said Black women are excited to have a candidate they can identify with and believe will fight for the issues they care about, like health care, education and economic development.
“People who represent your community, who look like you, who have the same experiences as you, who are HBCU graduates. “Some of the Divine Nine members go to church with their families on Sundays,” Arlyn Bradley said. “These are black women’s values.”
Harris is a graduate of Howard University, a historically black college.
Several prominent lawmakers and activists said they attended the “Win With Black Women” conference call on Sunday and vowed to join the movement to rally around Harris.
That includes Texas Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who said in a statement to CNN that Black women will be crucial to Harris’ victory over former President Donald Trump.
Crockett said Harris is “qualified, capable and qualified to lead the country as our next president.”
“Black women are strong advocates for her as an icon for breaking down barriers and promoting diversity in leadership,” Crockett said. “Her leadership is not just because of her accomplishments, it’s because of what she represents: progress, equality and opportunity for all.”
Activist Tamika Mallory told CNN that while black women congratulated Harris on her presidential candidacy, many also hoped she would in return address the issues they care about.
Key concerns include inflation, the need for well-paying jobs, police violence and a ceasefire in Gaza.
“The euphoria of this moment will pass,” Mallory said, “and we must get to the work of getting Kamala Harris to commit to adopting the goals of our movement. There is work to be done. People in communities across this country are suffering.”
Political experts and organizers acknowledged that Harris’ path to victory will not be easy.
According to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS and released Wednesday, Trump has the support of 49% of registered voters nationwide, compared with 46% for Harris, within the poll’s margin of sampling error.
President Trump and other Republicans have already launched racial and gender-based attacks against Harris.
Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett, in an interview with CNN’s Manu Raju, suggested Harris was a “DEI hire” chosen by Biden simply because she’s a Black woman, and in an interview with Fox News, Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, criticized Harris for not having children, saying the country is run by “childless catwomen.”
Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, in an interview with CNN’s Jim Acosta, called the attacks on Harris “completely ridiculous.”
“If your goal is to piss off everyone who isn’t straight white male, I don’t know what your election strategy is,” Bottoms said.
Eadie said black women had expected this type of “dog whistle politics” and were ready to defend Harris.
“We condemn platforms that promote racism and sexism and we will shut them down,” Eadie said.
Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University, said Harris will also face the challenge of winning the support of voters who supported Biden in 2020 but are not satisfied with his performance.
In national polls conducted between July 1 and July 21, Biden’s average approval rating was 37%, with 58% of respondents disapproving of him.
“If people are unhappy with Biden’s policy response, Harris is going to be held accountable,” Gillespie said. “Harris has to craft her message to address that dissatisfaction.”
But Eadie said he believes the Biden-Harris administration’s investments in HBCUs and small businesses, making insulin price caps available to more Americans and working to advocate for Black maternal health have helped it maintain support among most Black voters.
She said she expects Black women to have a big impact on voter turnout in November.
“When we go to the polls, we’re not just dealing with ourselves,” Eadie said. “We’re dealing with our families, our communities, our churches, our sororities, our community groups, our brothers, our sons. And that’s what we’ve seen and that’s what we’re going to continue to see.”
