ARKANSAS, USA — Almost 100,000 Black people across the country joined virtual calls early this week to strategize ways they can increase voter turnout in their community.
On Sunday, "Win with Black Women" hosted a Zoom call with about 44,000 Black women while "Win with Black Men" followed right behind them, organizing a call through political commentator Roland Martin's broadcast that garnered almost 54,000 Black men.
Chapter presidents of two local Black Greek Letter Organizations, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, inc. (AΦA) and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, inc. (AKA) were also in attendance.
President Myra McKenzie-Harris of AKA says leaders emphasized the importance of motivating your own network of family and friends to vote.
"The speakers that I saw were there to encourage black women to get involved at the local level and to engage in the electoral process," McKenzie-Harris explains.
President Alex Peoples of AΦA says his organization will be using this momentum to bring education and awareness on the importance of the young voter getting registered and going to the polls.
"I think there is a buzz, and there should be a buzz about voting," Peoples says. "It's such an important thing and a lot of work has went into the ability for people to vote."
But they're not the only ones.
"We were on a call just earlier this week with almost a dozen other leaders in this community working under Alex's leadership to put together a plan to really engage voters across the Northwest Arkansas community. And that's something that our organizations are excited about," McKenzie-Harris adds.
Some of those groups include local chapters of the NAACP, Jack and Jill, and the NWA Council of Martin Luther King Jr. among many others. They intend to use the power of social media to get out the word.
"We have a number of different multimedia and media streams to reach people. Be that social media, news outlets, television or in person. The intention is to spread the word, and the word that we want to spread is your voice is important. Democracy is important," Peoples concludes.
More information on voter registration can be found here.
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