The last time I saw a huge gathering of Black men was the Million Man March in 1995. They came to the nation’s capital to voice their concerns. Voting was one of them. Within a year of The March, over 1.5 million Black men registered to vote for the first time.

On Tuesday, October 29, a week before Election Day, a brotherhood of black men gathered again. BET Media Group premiered the “BET Black Men’s Summit,” and comedian, actor, and radio host D.L. Hughley hosted it. It was streamed on BET+, BET.com, and across the BET social media platforms. Again, they came to voice their concerns on topics important to them. They addressed seven topics:

• Harris’s record

• Protecting our community

• Confronting sexism

• State of the economy

• Economic opportunity

• Protecting Black women

• Call to action

Also, the brotherhood gathered to dispel, categorically, the disinformation that Black men would not vote for V.P. Kamala Harris for president because she is a woman.

 

Jockeying for Black Male Votes

“This is the first time black men’s votes are coveted,” renowned Civil Rights attorney Ben Crump told the audience at The Summit. Both Republicans and Democrats are vying for their votes. But many black men contest that both political parties court them only during election time, with Democrats overwhelming expecting their votes. While it’s true that black men are a vital voting bloc, they are not a monolith.

“My vote is transactional,” Hughley told the audience. However, Stanley Campbell of Albuquerque told The Washington Post what most Black men feel about the Democratic Party. “It has long been a saying among Black men and nonvoting Black communities that Democrats show up only when they want your vote.”

When early national polls revealed that Black male votes had increased for  Donald Trump in this presidential race from his last run for the presidency, and Harris’s numbers were lower in this race than Biden’s run in 2020, the assumption was solely because of sexism. However, Democrats forgot that Black men had overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton (81 percent) for president in 2016, albeit Hillary Clinton in 1996 called black boys “super-predators,” and Bill Clinton’s 1994 “Tough-on-Crime” Bill contributed to the mass incarceration of Black men. According to a Black Male Voter Study by BET Consumer Insights, 89% of Black men intend to vote in this election.

Since the Voting Rights Act in 1965, African Americans have been voting in large numbers, even though we are still confronted with the various machinations of voter suppression on state and local levels. The strength of the Black male vote has been disenfranchised consistently, with mass incarceration as one of the reasons.

 

Confronting Sexism

Former President Obama’s “tough talk” to Black men concerning their hesitancy to cast their ballot for Harris opened Pandora’s Box.

“I’m speaking to men directly - part of 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,” Obama told a group of black men at a Pittsburgh campaign field office. “That lack of enthusiasm for Harris seems to be more pronounced with the brothers.”

None of the black men at The Summit denied that sexism isn’t an issue. “There are men who don’t want to see a woman become president, especially a Black woman. However, that isn’t an accurate representation of OUR entire community,” Actor Michael Ealy shared with the audience and on X (formerly known as Twitter).

Several brothers clapped back, stating it’s more complicated than simply sexist attitudes. Sexism easily masks and oversimplifies issues troubling them like employment, providing for their families, childcare, health care, mental health, policing, and mass incarceration, to name a few.

Because Black men are persistently policed, the misperception many of them held for decades until recently concerning Harris was fromwhen she was a California prosecutor from 1990 to 2004. Hughley falsely claimed Harris sent thousands of Black men to prison for marijuana offenses. Actually, during her tenure, there were 1,956 convictions for misdemeanor and felony marijuana offenses, where 45 were sent to state prison, and many of whom weren’t Black. Hughley gave both a public apology and an endorsement of Harris at the DNC.

The men at The Summit unanimously concurred that voting for Harris for president will not be a problem. “When you look at Kamala Harris, who’s been a public servant basically her whole life, she is the most qualified candidate to run for president,” Ealy stated.

 

Meeting the moment

Harris has traveled around the country talking to black men. She has sat for an interview with Charlamagne tha God on The Breakfast Club. Harris realized Black men’s concerns had been neglected for too long. Harris’s “Opportunity for Black Men” agenda aims to remedy the persistent challenges Black men face. This will be the first time any president has devised an agenda that speaks specifically to Black men.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

member and Columnist, The Reverend

Irene Monroe is an ordained minister,

motivational speaker and she speaks for

a sector of society that is frequently

invisible. Rev. Monroe does a weekly

Monday segment, “All Revved Up!” on

WGBH (89.7 FM), on Boston Public Radio

and a weekly Friday segment “The Take”

on New England Channel NEWS (NECN).

She’s a Huffington Post blogger and a

syndicated religion columnist. Her

columns appear in cities across the

country and in the U.K, and Canada. Also

she writes a column in the Boston home

LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows and

Cambridge Chronicle. A native of

Brooklyn, NY, Rev. Monroe graduated

from Wellesley College and Union

Theological Seminary at Columbia

University, and served as a pastor at an

African-American church in New Jersey

before coming to Harvard Divinity School

to do her doctorate. She has received the

Harvard University Certificate of

Distinction in Teaching several times

while being the head teaching fellow of

the Rev. Peter Gomes, the Pusey Minister

in the Memorial Church at Harvard who is

the author of the best seller, THE GOOD

BOOK. She appears in the film For the

Bible Tells Me So and was profiled in the

Gay Pride episode of In the Life, an

Emmy-nominated segment. Monroe’s

coming out story is profiled in “CRISIS:

40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social,

and Religious Pain and Trauma of

Growing up Gay in America" and in

"Youth in Crisis." In 1997 Boston

Magazine cited her as one of Boston's 50

Most Intriguing Women, and was profiled

twice in the Boston Globe, In the Living

Arts and The Spiritual Life sections for

her LGBT activism. Her papers are at the

Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College's

research library on the history of women

in America. Her website is

irenemonroe.com. Contact the Rev.

Monroe and BC.