From attempts to disenfranchise Black voters to giving AI companies free rein to pollute low-income Black neighborhoods, President Donald Trump’s second term has seen pronounced, overt attacks on the Black community. So it should come as no surprise that the NAACP has announced that it will spend more on the upcoming midterms than in any other election in its history.
The Hill reports that the NAACP plans to invest $20 million in its get-out-the-vote campaign. The decision was spurred by the Supreme Court’s decision to gut Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which was designed to prevent racial gerrymandering. That decision has led states such as Tennessee and Louisiana to pass new congressional maps that eliminate majority-Black districts. While Alabama tried to pass a new map that was previously found to be racially gerrymandered, a panel of federal judges found that it was still racially gerrymandered under the new map.
So it’s abundantly clear that the GOP is doing everything it can to disenfranchise the Black community, which makes the NAACP’s efforts all the more necessary.
“By turning out the vote, we can all help put an end to Donald Trump’s assaults on our communities and the rights we’ve secured through immense struggle and begin to build a future that actually serves our needs — from having accessible health care, affordable housing, and getting a good education,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement to NBC News.
Johnson added that the campaign will include 20,000 volunteers and focus on 33 congressional districts across 14 states. The goal is to reach 6.5 million Black voters across radio ads and other means. The effort is intended to target infrequent voters to maximize turnout in places where Black voter power is under attack.
The NAACP understood the stakes of this year’s midterms before the Supreme Court undermined the Black vote. The NAACP began a series of town halls last year as part of a voter outreach effort in the lead-up to the midterms, and has called on Black athletes to boycott colleges in states that have passed maps to undermine Black voting power.
In addition to its voter outreach efforts, the NAACP has regularly fought back against the Trump administration and its allies in court. Last week, a federal judge sided with the NAACP in a case against the United States Postal Service (USPS). The case focused on a proposed rule that would’ve required postal workers to verify mail-in ballots with a list of approved voters provided by the federal government.
The NAACP also filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk’s xAI over data centers throughout the Memphis area. The suit claimed that xAI’s data centers are operating 27 gas turbines “without an air permit or regard for the health and safety of people living nearby.” xAI responded to that lawsuit by nearly doubling the number of gas turbines at its Memphis data centers, undoubtedly encouraged by the Department of Justice intervening in the case on its behalf.
So yeah. The federal government is blatantly attacking Black communities under Trump, but thankfully, the NAACP has been doing its best to counterpunch whenever possible.
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