BALTIMORE (November 6, 2019) – Following the 2019 elections, the nation’s leading civil rights organization issued the following statement:
Communities of Color and the Civil Rights movement won big on Election Day. The NAACP is extremely proud of our Civic Engagement campaign on getting out the vote during the 2019 electoral cycle. Victories in Virginia, Kentucky, and across the country show that we made our voices heard and the power of our vote. Our goal was and is to increase voter turnout through relational organizing in targeted states (Kentucky, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia). Through our partnership with GSSA, LLC Data Analytics group, we received mapped out metrics for the Black community across the targeted states, which allowed us to test a new approach through relational organizing.
In 4 weeks we engaged over 740,000 volunteers, frequent, and in-frequent black voters. Through a direct mail program we sent 234,000 pieces of mail across the targeted states to a group of black voters who were both our GOTV targets and potential advocates as relational organizers. We sent 180,000 thousand frequent black voters peer to peer text messages on the Hustle platform across the four states powered by over 150 volunteers. Our youth and college members at Hampton University, Norfolk State University, and Old Dominion University made us all proud by organizing campus and community events to mobilize their peers and neighbors to go vote. Our volunteer members also led a range of GOTV activities including Souls to the Polls, Rides to the Polls, and even voter protection programs. Every phone call, text message, and knock on the door concluded with historic election results and voter turnout across the country on Election Night, and it wouldn’t have been possible without support from activists like you. We have the momentum and the power going into 2020 as we begin to organize and mobilize for Census 2020 and the 2020 Presidential Election.
