The NAACP says hard-fought voting rights are being dismantled and the time for action is now.
The Civil Rights organization issued a call on Tuesday, May 19, for Black athletes, their families, and fans to boycott public universities in Southern states that “have moved to limit, weaken or erase Black voting representation.”
Called an “Out of Bounds” campaign, the effort targets athletic programs in eight states — Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Georgia — where the group says flagship college sports programs generate more than $100 million a year in revenue, thanks in large part to Black athletes.
“The NAACP will not watch the same institutions that depend on Black athletic prowess to fill their stadiums and their bank accounts, and remain silent while their states strip Black communities of their voice,” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement. “Out of Bounds is our answer: we are naming the contradiction, and we are calling on Black athletes, families, fans, and consumers to act on it.”
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The campaign calls for football and basketball players who are currently being recruited in the targeted states to withhold their commitments until political leaders “restore fair congressional maps and meaningful Black representation.”
“What these states have done is not a policy disagreement. It is a sprint to erase Black political power,” said Johnson, who suggested Black athletes “seriously consider HBCUs.”
During a news conference on Capitol Hill earlier today, Johnson noted “fifty five percent of African Americans live in the former confederate South.”
The NAACP’s call to action follows last month’s 6-3 Supreme Court ruling on Louisiana v. Callais, which gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. According to the Associated Press, the court’s conservative majority found a Louisiana district represented by Democrat Cleo Fields “relied too heavily on race.”
“That map is an unconstitutional gerrymander,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote on behalf of the six conservatives.
Over the weekend thousands of Black voters and elected leaders descended on Selma and Montgomery, Alabama, to take part in protests against redistricting by Republicans targeting Black Democrats in Congress.
Bernice King, daughter of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, urged attendees to remember the past.
“Today we return to the very grounds where my parents and freedom families stood, when Black voter registration was scarce, when discrimination was the norm, and when violence was the price for seeking dignity. Their sacrifice opened the door to the Voting Rights Act,” King said, according to the nonprofit Alabama Reflector news outlet.
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