What Drove Black Charlotte Voters to the Polls

On West Fifth Street in Charlotte, funnel cakes and cotton candy sweetened the air on Election Day. Children darted through the crowd while grown-ups sipped lemonade. Black Lives Matter T-shirts and Black Fathers Rock hoodies were on display, and people posed for photographs, holding signs that read “VOTE ON” and “VOTING IS A FLEX.”

The Urban League of Central Carolinas was hosting a nonpartisan block party to celebrate months of work to bring more Black voters to the polls in North Carolina’s largest city and home to its largest population of Black residents.

“It’s almost like a thank you for going out and exercising your right,” said Henry Beards, the Urban League’s chief operating officer. 

Voter turnout in Charlotte-Mecklenburg has lagged in recent elections, something that has frustrated state Democrats. In 2018, 47.3% of registered Black voters cast ballots. Four years later, during the next midterm, participation fell to 37.5%, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections. 

A breakdown of this year’s votes by race is not yet available. But an Assembly analysis of provisional data found that urban counties with larger Black populations generally saw greater increases in turnout than rural counties. Mecklenburg led the way, casting 22% more ballots this year than in the 2022 midterm election.

“What we’ve seen in the South for early voting, not just North Carolina, is heavy African American turnout,” said Eric Heberlig, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Like most midterms, turnout in this year’s election was driven by voters’ unhappiness with the Trump administration, Herberlig said. But voters also rejected state lawmakers’ decision to redraw the state’s congressional districts last year in what turned out to be a failed effort to net Republicans an additional seat. 

 In addition, an April U.S. Supreme Court ruling weakened federal protections against racial discrimination in redistricting. Heberlig suggested that some Black voters believed their political rights were threatened and responded at the polls.

In a district that includes part of Charlotte, Democrat Lakesha Womack defeated U.S. Rep. Tim Moore, North Carolina’s longest-serving state House speaker, on a congressional map Moore helped draw.

Herberlig said grassroots organizing also helped drive turnout, citing the longstanding influence of Black churches, historically Black colleges and the Black Political Caucus of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. 

“We know that having those types of mobilization contacts increases turnout as well,” Heberlig said. Measuring their impact is harder when voters are already motivated to cast ballots.

Putting in Work

In Charlotte, outreach began months before Election Day. The Urban League, the North Carolina Black Alliance, Advance Carolina, and other groups knocked on doors and met voters in their communities. 

“Instead of inviting them to us, we went out to them,” said Beards, a former UPS executive.

Beards grew up in Brooklyn, where his mother raised three sons alone. She taught them that generations of Black Americans had fought and died for the right to vote. He and his adult children began voting as soon as they were eligible.

Beginning in August, canvassers from the North Carolina Black Alliance knocked on the doors of an estimated 50,000 residents in Black and Latino neighborhoods across Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.

Maysieo Tanks, a Charlotte native, leads the county effort for the Black Alliance and Advance Carolina. He entered politics through a youth employment program at the Charlotte mayor’s office, studied political science, and organized voter drives on college campuses. 

On Election Day, canvassers worked Charlotte’s west and east sides and Steele Creek in the city’s southwest, checking registrations and helping residents find their polling places. By the time Tanks reached the block party, they had made roughly 150 contacts.

Some residents greeted them enthusiastically, joking that the canvassers were already a week late. They’d cast their ballots during early voting. Others seemed surprised anyone had come knocking at all.

“I haven’t been visited by a canvasser in like five years,” one man told Tanks.

“Yeah, that’s why I’m here,” Tanks replied.

‘My Daddy Made Me Come’

The Urban League and the Black Alliance also focused on young, first-time voters, many of them college students. The Urban League worked with historically Black colleges and universities to hold voter education events at coffee shops, and both organizations helped students get to early voting sites. 

Beards said he didn’t see that level of student activity a couple of years ago.

For young voters, he said, the election’s stakes were personal. Many college graduates wondered if financial independence was within reach. 

“The economy is wild,” Beards said. “The promise of graduating with a four-year degree or an MBA and having a job lined up is no longer a given.”

Organizers used those concerns to show students how decisions made in Washington could affect their lives.  

When The Assembly spoke with Black voters at polling places across Charlotte, many voiced the same concerns about jobs and the cost of living. They questioned whether either political party was doing enough for their communities. 

Trey Sherwood, 42, who voted in Steele Creek, said he worries about economic uncertainty and the threat artificial intelligence poses to jobs. He also wondered whether elected officials would address longstanding racial inequities.

Asked whether he believed his vote could make a difference, Sherwood didn’t hesitate. “I believe it does,” he said.

Students took the initiative themselves, too. At Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, they organized a “Stroll to the Polls,” marching alongside university leaders to cast their ballots. About 90 miles northeast, in Greensboro, hundreds of N.C. A&T State University students followed their marching band on a 40-minute walk to an off-campus polling location. 

Others voted for personal reasons tied to family and a belief that voting was both a right and a responsibility.

At Berewick Recreation Center in southwest Charlotte, John Floyd, 34, laughed when asked what brought him to the polls. “My wife,” he said.

Jessica Newman, 38, had an equally simple answer, delivered with a broad smile. “My daddy made me come,” she said. Like Floyd, she’d voted in the last midterm. Her father pushed her to return. “It feels good to vote. It feels great.”

What Now?

Beards, the Urban League leader, did not sleep until 2 a.m. Wednesday. He watched returns at home for hours after the block party wound down. Getting voters to the polls, he said, was only part of the work. He wants the Urban League to keep reaching young people, including 16-year-olds who will be old enough to vote next time.

“It’s not over. Communication doesn’t stop,” he said.

Tanks wants elected officials to match organizers’ commitment. He recalled the enthusiastic welcome former Gov. Roy Cooper, now the state’s U.S. senator-elect, received at N.C. A&T’s centennial homecoming a few days before the election. Tanks hopes that the attention from Cooper and other elected officials extends beyond the campaign.

“I would love to see him march with the students on a regular Tuesday and to see him in our church communities a little bit more,” Tanks said.

At J.H. Gunn Elementary School in east Charlotte, Lakisha Allen, 44, ran through her doubts about the country’s direction.

“Times are really hard,” she said. “There’s a lot going on. An unnecessary war. We don’t have enough roads or schools. The whole system is corrupt. It’s a lot right now.”

Asked whether either party was doing enough to earn Black voters’ support, she responded, “No, they’re not doing enough, but we’re still going to vote.”

She’d brought her daughter, Danielle Reid, 18, to cast her first ballot. The teenager beamed while taking selfies with her “I Voted” sticker.

“I just hope she realizes how important this is,” Allen said.

Her daughter quickly set things straight: “Mom, I’ve been waiting to vote since I was 14.”

Matt Hartman contributed to this story.