Column: Don’t wait for an election year to listen to Black men

Heading into the final stretch of the 2024 election, it seemed every cable news program had a segment dedicated to this one question: What will Black men do?

Progressives on the ground were voicing concerns about Black male voter turnout long before the 2022 midterms. But because the overturning of Roe vs. Wade enabled Democrats to avoid a “red wave” then, the urgency regarding Black men was muted. That quickly changed once former Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive nominee and media personalities such as Stephen A. Smith and Charlamagne tha God began questioning her qualifications without a hint of irony.

In the end, nearly 75% of Black men voted for Harris, and all of those cable news segments about the concerns of that voting bloc went away. That’s unfortunate because in many ways the question at the center of it all — “What will Black men do?” — is more relevant today than it was seven months ago. Since President Trump has retaken office, federal civil rights offices have been gutted, grants for minority business programs canceled and the names of enslavers are making a comeback on military bases. Cable news may be waiting until the next election to talk about the concerns of Black men, but the Black community can’t wait that long. Khalil Thompson and Bakari Sellers agree.

The pair are part of the leadership team for Win With Black Men, a political advocacy group that began in 2022. Thompson said he was inspired to start the group by Win With Black Women, which started after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Both organizations were key to jump-starting the enthusiasm for Harris, especially financially, with each raising millions of dollars within days of her campaign’s launch.

Now, with the election behind us and three years of a hostile White House administration ahead of us, Thompson’s group has announced an 18-city listening tour starting in July to strategize about ways to help the community outside of the political system. The goal is to reach 3,500 Black men in person and another 25,000 through a national survey in hopes of building a database to better serve the community. Thompson said it’s particularly important to keep people engaged now that the election is over because of how the White House continues to test the limits of both presidential power and the support from his party.

“There has to be a moment where right is right,” said Thompson, a former operative for President Obama. “We raise our children to understand the basic tenets of being a good person. … We need to build a system that can adequately accommodate and support the vast majority of people in this country who just want to enjoy this small amount of time we have on this planet. I see the protests happening and the raids and I’m reminded of Ruby Bridges or the lunch counter in Greensboro. What is happening now in our cities — ripping parents away from their children — doesn’t speak to our better angels.”

Sellers added: “Democracy is participatory, and a lot of time people forget that. The choices are to be on the sideline or get engaged — either way, you are involved.”

He made that choice at a young age, becoming the youngest Black person in elected state office across the country in 2006, as a 22-year-old state representative in South Carolina. His early social justice work echoes that of his father, Cleveland Sellers, who was part of the leadership for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the civil rights movement.

“I’d rather get in the fight, be knocked around a little bit, face terror head on, knowing I’m doing it for a just and righteous cause,” Sellers said.

Thompson said that in addition to engagement, Win With Black Men is looking to be a vessel for helping people financially with their utility and grocery bills, as the steep federal cuts and job losses threaten to send millions of Americans into poverty. The current fundraising goal is $2.5 million. And while the organization is nonpartisan, Sellers said a prominent Democrat is the unofficial North Star: “We need to get back to the politics of Jesse Jackson. Meet people where they are, focus on the working class and facilitate conversations that uplift people, not demean them.”

Few things are more demeaning than feeling like your voice matters only once every four years. If nothing else, this upcoming listening tour is a reminder to Democrats that Black men are more than a vote.

@LZGranderson