Less than 100 days out from midterm elections, faith leaders across the nation are hitting the pavement with their own campaigns to mobilize ahead of what many consider far more than a political vote.
As the nation marks a series of grassroots efforts through Election Day, and 61 years of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on Aug. 6, the fall election season is unfolding with various approaches to chart the path to the ballot box this November.
“It really is about strategizing how to use our strength in this particular moment,” the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, founder of Repairers of the Breach, told The Informer. “This moment and the level of authoritarianism we’re seeing — attacks on voting rights, refusal to pass living wages, immoral war — this is not just a midterm election. It is a time for the electorate to say what kind of America we want to keep pressing towards, or whether or not we want to keep going backwards.”
July 27 officially marked the 100-day countdown to Nov. 3, and with it came added pressure to perform what Barber calls a massive movement vote across civic campaigns nationally.
In the Second Episcopal District, encompassing D.C., Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, presiding prelate, the Rev. Harry L. Seawright, has launched a robust voter empowerment and education campaign, which includes emulating some of the roots of mobilization pre-Aug. 6, 1965.
Much like the 1964 Freedom Summer project, which was organized by groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Churches around the region are working to educate voters, host events and communal partnerships, and serve communities with resources now through Election Day.
Black Church PAC has been working to boost education alongside other African American faith leaders by organizing Freedom Summer Justice Revivals nationally; while Community of Hope AME Church lead pastor, the Rev. Tony Lee, goes beyond his Maryland pulpit to serve as a Virginia coordinator for Poll Chaplain/Peacekeepers Training.
“Some people talk about voter turnout, but it’s voter security in this season,” Lee told The Informer. “Election protection from the standpoint of protecting people, but [also] from the standpoint of protecting systems, protecting ballots, all of those kinds of pieces that are necessary if we’re really going to talk about what’s at stake in securing democracy.”
Meanwhile, the National Action Network (NAN) partnered with the Drum Institute and family of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to host a transformative revival of the Aug. 28, 1963 demonstration that once took over the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Marching to the beat of “Defund the Vote,” and honoring the anniversary of the historic 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the 2026 demonstration amplifies the parallel of King’s battle cry that he dreamed into a demand.
“We stand on the same ground because the work is not finished. The right to vote, the very foundation of our power, is being chipped away in statehouse after statehouse,” said global civil rights activist and NAN founder the Rev. Al Sharpton. “When the vote is weakened, every other right grows fragile with it. That is why we march. That is what we mean when we say ‘Defend the Vote.’”
According to Barber, election year 2026 should also reflect more of what was seen in 1964.
“In ’64, they marched to the polls,” Barber reminded, emphasizing the focus of “vision-forward” voting.
On July 27, the bishop hailed the call for 100 days of action planning to commence nationwide, calling on churches, synagogues, college campus groups, street corners — “everyone” — to mobilize with 1,000 marches to the polls, beginning the first day of early voting.
At the Aug. 3 edition of his weekly Moral Mondays Movement, he was joined by hundreds of protesters, and thousands virtually, in delivering letters to Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s office, demanding a halt to the “more than 87 various forms of suppression bills” that have recently passed in Southern states, including Barber’s North Carolina home turf.
Among various examples, and beyond the redistricting ploy threatening at least a third of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), is the GOP-led Safeguard Voter Eligibility Act (SAVE) Act, which, if passed in the Senate, could threaten votership for 66 million Americans who would fail to meet the limited documentation requirements needed for first-time registrants or U.S. citizens looking to update their voter registration.
Nearly 61 years to the exact date of fruition, Lee says, the idea of voters turning out in droves this November to be met with suppressive tactics like “snatching and questioning ballots” is not that far-fetched in a time when the 1965 legislation has been proven all but disposable.
“We’ve seen it coming out of Reconstruction, we’ve seen it coming out of Civil Rights, and we watched it coming out of the election of the first Black president,” Lee told The Informer, sharing some of his priorities ahead of the midterm election. “Some people talk about voter turnout, but it’s voter security in this season. Election protection from the standpoint of protecting people, but [also] from the standpoint of protecting systems, protecting ballots, all of those kinds of pieces that are necessary if we’re really going to talk about what’s at stake in securing democracy.”
With the Louisiana v. Callais decision in April of this year, the Supreme Court gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act — the clause that protected voters of color from racial discrimination in congressional apportionment or legislative mapping.
While the move simultaneously obliterated six decades of precedent, Barber said it also reinforced the strength in the late King’s “Our God is Marching On!” speech, the culmination of a 54-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, that ultimately catalyzed the passage of the 1965 legislation now ceasing to exist.
“On Aug. 6, we have to remember the legislation that was signed. What was signed as part of the rationale behind fighting for it, Dr. King and us [Black civil rights activists] saying, ‘Give us the ballot,” Barber said. “People don’t know the power they have. They don’t know these margins…that Trump only got elected by a couple of million votes. They don’t know that in some of the states that were won, over 7 million people didn’t vote.”
From a new national Voting Rights Act to restructuring the focus on state-wide action, Barber said the push means nothing if it’s not strategic, united, and focused on avenues that can actually affect change.
“If they are cynical enough to work together to hurt, harm and suppress people’s humanity and votes,” he said, “we ought to be courageous enough and loving enough to come together and focus heavily at the state level, if you want to change D.C.”
Engage, Empower, and Equity: Priorities for Nov. 3
With early voting as early as mid-September in certain states, the midterm election signifies the potential for a major political shift.
All 435 districts are up for election in the United States House of Representatives, along with five of the chamber’s six non-voting members. Meanwhile, constituents will vote on more than a third of the Senate, while the National Governors Association maps 39 gubernatorial races slated for Nov. 3, ousting 21 incumbents who are term-limited or not seeking reelection.
In the meantime, record-breaking numbers of Black women candidates turned out in primaries across the nation, showcasing a slew of platforms poised to address some of the new-age attacks on healthcare, living wages, and other safety net protections on the ballot for voters like Holli Holiday, president of Sisters Lead, Sisters Vote.
“I would say, if you are a person who’s running for office and you want Black women…to be how you attract voters, you better be talking about economic issues,” Holiday said during the “Black Women’s Equal Pay Day Virtual Media Briefing” on July 21. “Not just cost of living, but … quality jobs…that allow us to pay for our families, benefits that allow us the security for when we are ill, and issues that protect not just today, but allow us to grow and experience growth in our future.”
The Black Women’s Roundtable (BWR) and the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation (NCBCP), in partnership with The Root, released the 10th Annual Power of the Sister Vote Poll findings [uncoincidentally] on the day of celebration for African American women’s progress in advancing pay equity.
Powered by Oxfam America and SEIU, Holiday sees the results as a guidepost to where Black women stand and how they might vote in November, coupled with insights on the wage, economic, and, “let’s face it, survival issues” predicted to tip the scales.
“In [North Carolina’s primary], we saw well over 100 Black women running for office…and guess what their issues are? They’re fighting for Medicaid…they’re fighting for Social Security. They’re fighting for living wages,” Holiday said. “They’re basically fighting for their own survival and for the survival of their families.”
As the largest voting demographic and deemed matriarchs and influencers of their families, Black women’s role in civic engagement remains the most crucial, yet they’re one of the most targeted groups when it comes to economic and social disruption.
Aside from the more than 300,000 Black women who lost their jobs in early to mid-2025 — a direct result of the infamous 43-day federal government shutdown — African Americans are combating administrative acts all too determined to regress decades of advancements in healthcare, academic literature, environmental policy, and more.
“This generation is fighting a fight that none of us have had to fight…where you have a government that has been taken over by fascists,” said NCBCP President and CEO Melanie Campbell on July 21, “it’s a different moment for us, but it’s also a moment of opportunity.”
According to the Power of the Sister Vote Poll, target policies within or close to the 90th percentile include protecting voting rights, reducing Black maternal deaths in childbirth, and lowering taxes for working families, while protecting Social Security and Medicare and reducing the cost of living come in at 92 and 91 percent.
Ninety-one percent of the 1,000 Black women registered voters surveyed outline fighting discrimination and racism, reducing healthcare and prescription costs, and the cost of living as core priorities, ostensibly when 38% say their pay does not align with rising prices.
Notably, Gen Z, despite struggling the most with meal fulfillment and rent payment, deem themselves “very hopeful” of the future, at least that’s the case for 32% of the Black women surveyed.
“They’re not excited about democracy as it was, but they are excited about democracy as it could be, they are excited to be engaged in democracy as it could be,” Halliday explained. “As we continue to reach those voters, what we can do quite specifically is to join them in reimagining what’s next and what we can build together.”
An avid advocate for intergenerational collaboration, Lee reminded that many of the household names that came out of the Civil Rights Movement were nothing short of fearless pupils who “didn’t ask for permission.” Be it rallying in arms across state landmarks or driving direct action through boycotts, sit-ins, and organizations like the SNCC, youth resistance historically responds to a need in the world, says Lee, and he sees that call still brewing in the young minds today.
“They just went, and they did the daggone thing,” Lee said, reflecting on the work of leaders like King and former Congressman John Lewis – both of whom were no older than college-age when they entered the movement.
“If there’s room for more collaboration, I do think it’s intergenerational, but I also think it’s us being able to share the reality of history,” Lee continued, “that a younger generation doesn’t need to wait on it.”
At the historic intersection of religion and politics, he says he considers the role of the Black Church the same as it has always been: to keep on “fighting the good fight of faith.”
“It’s a job of education, it’s a job of mobilization, it’s a job of protection, and it’s a job of continuing to keep hope alive,” said the Community Hope A.M.E. lead pastor. “The scripture talks about faith being the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. We expect people to be faithful, yet we send them to hopeless school systems, hopeless healthcare systems, hopeless criminal justice systems and governmental systems.
“It’s the church’s role to be able to keep hope alive, and sometimes that means to fight against institutions that are shaped intentionally to tear people’s hope down.”
100 Days, 1000 Marches: Barber’s Plan to ‘Change D.C. from the States Up’
As Lee calls on the church to put faith in the forefront of the voting rights fight, Bishop Barber echoed one call-to-action to leaders across all denominations: mobilize nonpartisan strolls to the polls.
“Think about what it would look like for people to see 1,000 of these marches; it would have a magnetic impact on drawing people out,” Barber told The Informer. “Jesus did his miracles based on what he met on the road, right in his immediate space, and pastors need to be mobilizing right now in their immediate space.”
Barber pointed to evidence in North Carolina, where, back in 2008, faith activists rallied for early voting registration to the beat of a million new voters. They never endorsed a candidate, but instead endorsed principles, he added, establishing a moral movement strictly to uplift democratic promises and ensure all American voices are heard through the power of a vote.
That same election would go on to see the first Black President of the United States.
“If we look through history, you change D.C. from the states up––from Birmingham up, from North Carolina up,” said the bishop. “Maybe next year we need to have a massive agenda around particular pieces of public policy, but right now, many of us believe we need to say to everybody: organize your state, organize your local community, your city––that’s where the power is.”
Moreover, the senior lecturer said it’s not enough to rally in arms, but rather to delve into a principle-based plan that he calls “the Acts One mobilization.”
In other words, advising faith leaders to:
- Start with their institution and make sure everybody there is registered and mobilized.
- Make sure congregants know what the issues are, and
- Then mobilize the two-mile radius around it.
“And after you get that, then go out a little further, but start right where you are,” he said.
Piggybacking off the push for a “movement vote,” the Moral Mondays Movement founder highlighted a timely note of why voter education and empowerment are crucial in any election––and especially at the state level.
“In North Carolina, we found out that when they gerrymander some districts, they gerrymander those districts based on 41% turnout. Those districts don’t work if 45% of people turn out, if 48% … if 70% of Black folks — not even 100 — turn out,” Barber explained to The Informer. “Right now, over 60% [of people] stay home, and 40% don’t vote. But if you flip that by just 20%, everything shifts — or it’s possible. And that’s what gives me a great deal of hope.”
Dr. Katrina Gamble, a Sojourn Strategies pollster and one of the guest speakers at the July 21 media briefing, said years of research show voter mobilization can thrive through passed-down stories where risk meets reward. In other words, she’d like to see the 90 million who chose not to vote two years ago find their “power in our democracy” in 2026.
“When people say voting is not important, it’s because they feel powerless…[it’s] a characteristic of people feeling hopeless,” Gamble said, offering parting advice for participants. “If you can, have a conversation with someone and help them understand their power in our democracy…showing examples of when people came together, [and] they had an impact, even if it’s a small impact.”
In the meantime, CEO Campbell finds solace in knowing that the journey ahead is a collective effort, and the American people have God on their side.
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” Campbell admitted. “I’m on the hope side of what is being said, and believe that ‘what the Devil meant for bad, our God is going to make it good.’
“God is still in control…and we have all we need. It’s a battle, [but] it’s a battle we win.”
