{"id":7459,"date":"2022-03-08T04:31:21","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T21:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/?p=7459"},"modified":"2022-04-21T01:52:15","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T18:52:15","slug":"black-voters-matter-tour-visits-acc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/black-voters-matter-tour-visits-acc\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Voters Matter Tour Visits ACC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On February 16, 2022, organizers from Black Voters Matter visited Austin Community College\u2019s Highland campus as part of their Campus Blackout Tour. The outreach tour across Texas aimed to educate and register young voters ahead of the recent March 2 primary election. The weeklong bus tour began in Houston, Texas on February 14 and ended in Tyler, Texas on February 18.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Story by Ky Duffey<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edited by Pete Ramirez<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre y\u2019all registered to vote yet?\u201d Black Voters Matter senior organizing manager, Dionna La\u2019Fay said to two ACC students as they walked by.
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La\u2019Fay and her colleagues stood in the breezeway outside ACC\u2019s Highland campus engaging with students and handing out flyers with instructions on how to register to vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Black Voters Matter organizers set up in the breezeway at Austin Community College\u2019s Highland campus. \nPhoto by Ky Duffey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A non-profit organization that focuses on voting rights and community empowerment, Black Voters Matter stopped in Austin on the third day of their bus tour. While in town, the tour made stops at ACC\u2019s Riverside campus and Huston-Tillotson University, a historically black college.
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Traveling around the state in a bus wrapped in the photos of members of the Freedom Riders movement of 1961<\/a>, which includes the late congressman John Lewis, the organization also held voter registration events in San Antonio, Dallas and Fort Worth.
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\u201cWhile these conversations are necessary for traditional 4-year university students, the 2-year college students are the folks that will be engaging the workforce sooner,\u201d La\u2019Fay said. \u201cSo it\u2019s better for us to educate them and teach them how to advocate for themselves now while we still have their attention.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While the non-profit organization was on campus, they engaged with students using Black Voters Matter branded gear to start conversations and ask them if they were registered to vote.\nPhoto by Pete Ramirez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Black Voters Matter was founded in 2016 by LaTosha Brown and Cliff Albright with the goal of increasing power in communities by focusing on voter registration, getting out the vote, independent election-related expenditures, and organizational development and training for other grassroots groups. The organization bases itself in Atlanta, Georgia, yet as of 2020 has expanded to Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Alabama and Mississippi. 
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The bus tours were created to allow the organization to travel across the Southern United States in order to galvanize voters and stop voter suppression, especially in swing states.

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During the 2018 elections, Senator Ted Cruz narrowly defeated Democratic favorite, Beto O\u2019Rourke, by less than 3%. Last year during the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump won Texas by a 5.58 point margin, the narrowest for a Republican presidential candidate in the state since 1996. 
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Political experts see this as an indicator of Texas edging closer to becoming a swing state. Black Voters Matter view it as an opportunity to challenge more Texans to become engaged in the political process and vote.
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The Black Voters Matter tour bus during their visit to Huston-Tillotson University. Photo by Ky Duffey
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\u201cOur goal with the bus tours is to remind students how important and easy it is to vote and engage before the primaries,\u201d La\u2019Fay said. \u201cVoting is one aspect to building power.\u201d
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With the recent implementation of the controversial new Texas voting law, SB 1<\/a>, voting rights organizations like Black Voters Matter are galvanized in their efforts to expand the electorate in the state.
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\u201cOrganizations like the Texas Civil Rights Project have been amazing with making sure that we\u2019re educated on the changes,\u201d says La\u2019Fay. \u201cIt\u2019s not stopping anything we had already planned.\u201d
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For ACC students who want to get more involved with the electoral process, La\u2019Fay recommends a few things:
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