Black churches in Georgia are uniting to mobilize voters in a key battleground

Two of Georgia's largest black church groups are formally uniting for the first time to mobilize black voters in the battleground state ahead of November's presidential election.

The two congregations, the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, plan to pool their resources and their more than 140,000 parishioners in the state for the get-out-the-vote program, which they launched Monday at will announce at 1 p.m. the Capitol of Georgia.

Their efforts, which for now will be concentrated only in Georgia, are aimed at reviving the Black Church as a powerful driver of turnout at a time when national polls show lagging political energy among Black Americans — and waning enthusiasm for president Biden, who owes his rise to the White House in 2020 to their support.

The two churches have long pushed to expand and protect civil rights and voting rights across the country, but generally have not aligned their messages or shared resources.

Now, however, their leaders, Bishops Reginald T. Jackson and Thomas L. Brown Sr., say they view the stakes of this year's elections, as well as recently passed laws restricting voting rights and restructuring Georgia's congressional districts, as compelling reasons to work towards a common goal.

“This is serious and critically important,” said Bishop Brown of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, which presides over Georgia's approximately 300 churches. “We have to take leadership, and we have to make sure that our people are empowered, and especially in rural Georgia, we have to make sure that we are on the ground.”

He said at another point that “in the civil rights movement, at least in the late 1960s in particular,” there was more “solidarity between churches across denominational lines.” He added, “I think we've slowed down a little bit after some of those advances were made.”

The push from churches, whose congregants lean heavily Democratic, comes as Mr. Biden struggles to rebuild his support among Black voters. Donald J. Trump won just 11 percent of the black vote in Georgia in the 2020 election, according to exit polls. But in October, a New York Times poll showed Trump drawing 19 percent of these voters in the state.

“Given the importance of this election, and as we hear across the country that Blacks are not motivated to vote, and some Blacks have decided they are not going to vote, we felt it was important to formally do something together,” Bishop said Jackson, who presides over the more than 500 African Methodist Episcopal churches in Georgia.

The budget for the voting program is modest — between $200,000 and $500,000 — but church leaders say the goal is to give the two churches one leading voice.

Other black faith groups are also trying to sway voters this year.

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II of the Poor People's Campaign, the economic justice coalition inspired by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on Thursday announced a 30-state voter engagement campaign that will launch next month. .

In December, the National Action Network and the Conference of National Black Churches announced a joint get-out-the-vote campaign that will also seek to address urgent needs, such as vaccinations, in many communities.

Black churches have played a crucial role in turning out black voters for decades, often fueling Democratic victories. In Georgia, they turned out in droves in 2020 and helped Biden turn the state blue, and they did so again in Senate campaigns in 2021 and 2022, with Democrats also winning.

In part, the partnership between the two churches serves as a response to an established political network of predominantly white, conservative evangelical churches in Georgia and beyond. Their congregants form an important Republican constituency that has helped shape the party's policy goals for decades. In Georgia, evangelical denominations make up more than 50 percent of all Christian churches, while the share of historically black churches is 16 percent. according to a Pew Research Center study.

“Unfortunately, over the past thirty or forty years, the Black Church has not been as persistent or consistent in motivating and educating our community on issues that affect them,” Bishop Jackson said. “And what has happened, which to me is really frustrating, is that the white evangelicals have used that as an opportunity to send a lot of people into what we believe is an unchristian mentality.”

During the 2020 election, Bishop Jackson led a program called Operation Voter Turnout, which focused on voter education, registration drives, absentee ballot assistance and coordinated Sunday voting.

Now the lessons from that effort will be spread across the congregations of both churches. Their program includes regular listening sessions on politics and workshops on voting; creating “personal voter plans” for congregants to cast their ballots and convince their families to do the same; and weekly voter registration efforts.

“Voter registration will take place every Sunday in our churches,” said Cheryl Davenport Dozier, who helps coordinate civic engagement efforts for the AME Church of Georgia. “And in rural communities that are still reeling since Covid, we continue to have reach.”

She added, “Sometimes a hundred people come by, and we have voter registration forms there so we can reach people.” Even though some of those who show up are homeless, she said, “they still have the right to vote.”

Bishop Brown said the listening sessions would be especially important in helping church leaders understand why some Black voters in the state are feeling apathetic.

“It's one thing to read about the apathy and dissatisfaction with the Biden administration or anyone else,” he said. “I think we need listening sessions where we can talk to people on the ground about what's going on, what the dissatisfaction is, what the disappointments are, and where we can work with facts and solutions as much as possible.”

Leaders in both churches believe there is still time to revive one of the most influential voting groups in Georgia.

“No matter what anyone says, Black people believe in the institutions that are there to protect our rights,” said the Rev. Willie J. Barber II, who also works on community engagement efforts for the AME Church in Georgia and the same name as Mr Barber of the Poor People's Campaign. “One of the concerns is that they feel like this could easily go away. And how are we going to prevent this from happening? How am I going to keep democracy alive so that we can continue to live?”