Black and Brown voters powered Biden-Harris ticket

FROM THE PULPIT TO PUBLIC SQUARE

By Marvin A. McMickle, Ph.D.

There are two things that must be pointed out as we look back on the 2020 presidential election. First, black and brown voters from all across the country were the driving force in the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It is clear that Jim Clyburn of South Carolina rescued Joe Biden’s campaign from potential obscurity after Biden lost primaries in Iowa, Nevada, and New Hampshire. Biden was considered to be “down and out.” Then came the South Carolina primary and Clyburn’s endorsement, and black voters (especially black women voters), set the Biden campaign on a path to the White House. That journey was greatly assisted by President Barack Obama who campaigned for Biden in crucial swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia. Donald Trump won in 2016 largely because black and brown voters in those and other states did not come out in high enough numbers. That mistake was not repeated in 2020. There should be no doubt that black and brown voters made the difference in the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. 

There is no doubt that two United States Senate seats are within reach in Georgia because of a black woman named Stacey Abrams. The election of Joe Biden will be frustrated by Mitch McConnell who is the Senate Majority Leader and the other Republican Senators who have stood in the way of progressive policies for the last ten years. Abrams has worked to register so many new voters in Georgia that those two Democratic Senate candidates are positioned to win. One of those candidates is my long-time friend Raphael Warnock who is the Senior Pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta where Martin Luther King, Jr. had been co-pastor. 

One of the historic consequences of black and brown voter turnout is the election of Kamala Harris who will bring her African American and South Asian sensibilities to the table. It is clear that black and brown voters drove the Biden/Harris campaign to victory. A graduate of Howard University (an HBCU) and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha) is now the Vice-President-elect of the United States. Fifty-five years after the adoption of the Voting Rights Act, the power of the black vote was flexed in a substantial way. As Jesse Jackson said in 1984, “hands that once picked cotton now pick Presidents.” 

It is regrettable that voter turnout was not equally large here in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County. There were precincts in Cleveland where voter turnout was around 30% of the eligible voters. Black political leaders in Cleveland and the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party must do better if Ohio is to remain relevant in national and statewide politics. 

I use the word relevant, because there is a second lesson that must be learned from last week’s election. Over 70 million people voted for Donald Trump. That is the second highest number of votes given to a presidential candidate in the history of the United States. Joe Biden beat Trump by more than four million votes. Are we really the UNITED States of America? It seems as if the voting patterns of many white Americans were the exact opposite of black and brown voters. In Ohio, Trump won 81 of the 88 counties, including nearby Lake and Mahoning. The same was true in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and even in New York State. Needless to say, that pattern was repeated in states across the country from Missouri to Mississippi and from Texas to Tennessee. Nearly one-half of the population of this country is not rejoicing over the results of this election cycle. Many of them still believe that Donald Trump actually won the election and is being denied that victory due to voter fraud. 

It will take a long time and a lot of work and prayer if this nation is ever to be UNITED again. 

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The Rev. Marvin A. McMickle, pastor emeritus of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, retired last year as president of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, New York, where he had served since 2011.