Voting Rights
Black Solidarity Day and the General Election – Vote Your Interest
By Nayaba Arinde
Editor at Large
Two upcoming events etched into local Black history are observing Black Solidarity Day and participating in the General Election a day later.
With presidential candidates Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump still virtually neck and neck in recent polls, this year Election Day is on Tuesday, November 5th.
As well as the presidential and vice presidential races, there are a number of elections from Congressional, Senate, State Senate and Assembly offices, judges and 6 proposals for the City Charter.
Prof. Carlos Russell founded Black Solidarity Day in November 1969. The late Panamanian-Brooklynite was inspired by Douglas Turner Ward’s play Day of Absence, where Black people stay away from work, school, and shopping to illustrate this underserved demographic’s economic and political power.
Black Solidarity Day is scheduled annually, but always the Monday before a general election.
“Several community groups will be continuing our organizing and coming together to see how we can help each other in our collective missions,” Dr. James McIntosh, co-founder of the Committee to Eliminate Media Offensive to Afrikan People, as a pre-Black Solidarity Day rally takes place at Bethany Baptist Church (460 Marcus Garvey Blvd., Bed Stuy, Brooklyn), 3 pm, on Sunday 3rd, November, 2024.
“Unity in the community,” as the tagline, the event, coming together will be organizations including CEMOTAP, the December 12th Movement (D12), Hood Therapy, the Nation of Islam, NAKO, the Universal Negro Improvement Association-ACL, WADU, the African American Association of Coop City, the Uhuru Movement, and the William Mackey History Club.
“We know the urgency of organizing on different fronts to reach the similar goal of social, economic, and political self-determination.”
This Sunday, October 20, 2024, grassroots groups like D12 and CEMOTAP will organize an event at Sista’s Place.
“As we acknowledge electoral politics as a tool to address issues and gain resources and leverage, we want our community, especially our young people, to come out and join the conversation as we build Black resistance and proactive agendas, discussing realistic solutions to racist and fascist enacted policies and ideologies–which have historically impacted our people,” D12 Chair Omowale Clay told Our Time Press. “Black Solidarity Day on Monday, November 4, is the annual reminder that we can each exercise individual self-determination as a collective. Simply removing ourselves from the workplace, from unnecessary shopping, and even school – particularly for that one day, shows the world our collective force by the numbers – financially and by our absence by choice. We use this time to realign ourselves to our purpose of building our local, national, and international Black community.”
As the country heads into the final two weeks before the General Election, some people are out here talking about how they are disillusioned with all candidates and parties. Others counter that it is all a means to an end.
“This is one of the most important elections we will have an opportunity to participate in,” Rev. W. Taharka Robinson, founder of the Brooklyn Anti-Violence Coalition, told Our Time Press. “The balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives can shift to the Democratic Party, bringing the leadership to Brooklyn and making Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, Speaker of the House. On Tuesday, November 5th, 2024, Get Out And Vote!”
While hundreds of thousands of votes have already been cast in states such as Georgia, in New York in-person early voting begins on Saturday, October 26, 2024, and runs every day 8am to 5pm through to Sunday, November 3, 2024.
The Electoral College has 538 selected electors. Out of that number 28 electors will be translating New York’s millions of votes for the president and vice president.
The electors are supposed to adhere to the candidate who carries the majority vote for the state.
“As we continue to fight for a fairer criminal justice system, i.e. reforms, every ballot most definitely can reshape the path of justice,” Casilda Roper-Simpson, Associate Adjunct Professor, Molloy University, told Our Time Press. “When you choose not to vote, you allow others to decide your future.”
“Start local, and do local, that is the foundation,” Wilmon Cousar, founder of The Council, a Bed Stuy-based community support group. “The main national selection is already made. But, there are federal, state, and judicial elections for New York representation that we can definitely influence.”
As the fight for the battleground states heats up, last week, speaking in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, while campaigning for Kamala Harris, President Barack Obama returned to his familiar role of chastiser-in-chief. He admonished Black men for not enthusiastically rallying around the Harris presidential campaign, as they had him in 2008. He said, “It makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”
Those Obama remarks may have backfired somewhat in some circles, with some Black men saying that their political analysis is more astute and considered and dismissed any Democratic expectation of an automatic “obligation” of the Black male vote.
“Simply put, a man cannot chastise another man,” Prof. Walter Beach told Our Time Press. “Obama is just a man. I do not walk in any man’s shadow.”
“This presidential election is a gamble for Black people,” said Cousar. “Neither candidate appears to have our particular issues and concerns front of mind or policy; then again, what have we asked for? Reparations should be at the top of our list. Still, we are fighting for our uncontested voting rights. We are still subjected to Black voter suppression. Why is our undisputed right to vote not written into law without it having to be revisited every election?”
“The question relative to the General Election in November, as to whether one should vote requires little rational consideration for me,” Professor Walter Beach told Our Time Press. “Voting is a binary choice, and not voting for any or either candidate is absurd, asinine, and stupid.”
Professor Beach, the former CEO of Amer-I-Can of New York added, “In consequential matters such as political policies, when evaluating the higher benefits for humankind, political parties must be the first consideration. One should at least get close to the values that benefit themselves. There is no difference that does not make a difference.”
For more information log onto https://www.vote.nyc/
Or you can contact the Board of Elections – 212-487-5400
Cemotap – 347 907 0629
December 12th Movement – 718 398 1766