{"id":2455301,"date":"2020-03-03T13:48:56","date_gmt":"2020-03-03T20:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=321947"},"modified":"2020-03-03T13:48:56","modified_gmt":"2020-03-03T20:48:56","slug":"black-voters-seek-to-flex-political-power-on-super-tuesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/black-voters-seek-to-flex-political-power-on-super-tuesday\/","title":{"rendered":"Black voters seek to flex political power on Super Tuesday"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Supporters cheer for Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden during a campaign stop in Dallas, Monday, March 2, 2020.<\/strong>
AP Photo\/Eric Gay<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Martha Whiting-Goddard believes there\u2019s power in voting \u2014 she\u2019s seen it firsthand.<\/p>\n

Her great-grandfather, the Rev. John Henry \u201cJack\u201d Yates, was one of a handful of freed slaves who founded Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in 1866, Houston\u2019s oldest African American Baptist church. The church has historically helped shape the city\u2019s political discourse, ushering powerful African American political leaders through its doors such as Booker T. Washington and women\u2019s suffrage movement organizers.<\/p>\n

Parishioners here are planning to band together again Tuesday to shape the course of American history. They are heading to the polls to decide which Democrat should take on President Donald Trump in the fall in what many black voters say is the most important election of their lifetimes.<\/p>\n

The Super Tuesday contest in Texas and a swath of other states with substantial black populations are the biggest opportunity yet for minority voters from coast to coast to weigh in on the tumultuous Democratic primary. And for people like Whiting-Goddard, it\u2019s a reminder of their power.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor black people, we have someone in power that\u2019s kind of put us back in time and so we need to look to the future,\u201d the 70-year-old said. \u201cVoting was the one right that we recognized long ago that we had that was important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Black voters have already helped transform the Democratic race. Nearly two thirds of non-white voters in South Carolina backed Joe Biden on Saturday, according to AP VoteCast, a wide-ranging survey of more than 1,400 voters in the state\u2019s Democratic primary. They revived what had been a lagging campaign into one that has quickly emerged as the leading moderate alternative to progressive Bernie Sanders.<\/p>\n

Biden is looking to Houston to help keep the momentum going.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision Democrats make tomorrow and the next few weeks will determine what we stand for, what we believe, and where we\u2019re going to go,\u201d he said Monday at the historically black Texas Southern University.<\/p>\n

But activists caution against assuming that black voters in Texas or elsewhere will follow South Carolina\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n

Cliff Albright, the co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund, said he believes African American voters nationally are split into three groups: Those who are concerned about electability, voters who want progressive policies and individuals who are agnostic and prepared to vote regardless of who advances to November.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be interesting to see some of the other states that have a different culture than South Carolina that might separate out black voters in some of these Super Tuesday states,\u201d Albright said.<\/p>\n

Houston resident Linda Nwoke said she\u2019s most familiar with Biden, who spent eight years as Barack Obama\u2019s vice president. But she has yet to decide who to throw her support behind among the crowded field.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to see who can we trust with our vote and not let it be wasted again,\u201d Nwoke, a 72-year-old retired history teacher, said. \u201cA lot of them don\u2019t have a history with us yet they always come after our vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five presidential hopefuls remain after three candidates, Amy Klobuchar, Tom Steyer and Pete Buttigieg, dropped out of the race before Super Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Black Lives Matter Houston founder Ashton Woods, a 35-year-old millennial who is running for the Texas House District 146 seat, said the organization decided in February to officially endorse Sen. Elizabeth Warren.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer and Bernie have been the two people who have talked about issues that affect black people but affect everyone else with a special recognition that we are marginalized and that it hits us a little harder without pandering,\u201d Woods said.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks to supporters during a town hall Thursday, Feb. 29, 2020, at Discovery Green in Houston. (AP Photo\/Michael Wyke)<\/strong>
Election 2020 Elizabeth Warren<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Voters like Houston resident Natasha Turner, 45, said candidates must realize that African American voters are not monolithic and are concerned about a myriad of issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are looking for a candidate who will center African American concerns for once,\u201d Turner said. \u201cWe want our just due. This nation was built on the backs of African Americans and yet we have not seen any of the benefits of that. As a matter of fact, at every turn, we are seeing ourselves being deterred from making any strides economically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas resident Josie James-Hamilton has identified as a Republican her entire life until she cast a vote for President Barack Obama in 2008. James-Hamilton, 62, said that changed when Trump was elected.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil recently, I did have a lot of conservative views that I agreed with because many black voters are a lot more conservative than you think,\u201d she said. \u201cThe problem I\u2019m having right now is that I don\u2019t see a Democratic candidate that I feel has the ability to unseat Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Adams, Texas Southern University\u2019s political science department chair, said he believes older black women will show up as expected to the polls but he believes younger voters could shake up the election.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn both Texas and in California right now, there\u2019s a progressive element and African Americans of course have been a very loyal constituency and part of the Democratic Party base, both nationally and here in Texas,\u201d Adams said.<\/p>\n

The 2020 election will be the first one that University of Houston junior Kenneth Davis III will cast his vote in. The 20-year-old said he plans to vote for Sanders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe laws that are being passed affect real people and we have to have a seat at the table, especially millennials, Gen Z and the generation behind us,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n

Veteran Tashandra Poullard, a Texas Southern University senior who served 10 years in the U.S. Navy, said Democrats are potentially alienating younger black voters who are frustrated that the field went from the most diverse to an all-white slate, with the exception of U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who is polling near or at zero among black voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of them are saying they wanted Cory Booker and they were even willing to back Kamala Harris but they said there\u2019s no one that looks like us up there now,\u201d Poullard, 42, said. \u201cThey don\u2019t have that warm and fuzzy feeling that they did when Barack Obama was running for office because they feel there\u2019s no representation for us as a people.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supporters cheer for Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden during a campaign stop in Dallas, Monday, March 2, 2020.AP Photo\/Eric Gay HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Martha Whiting-Goddard believes there\u2019s power in voting \u2014 she\u2019s seen it firsthand. Her great-grandfather, the Rev. John Henry \u201cJack\u201d Yates, was one of a handful of freed slaves who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2455301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 12:31:45","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}