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Monday is a glorious day for sports fans and particularly, NBA fans, as the league starts the first round of the NBA playoffs later this afternoon down in the Disney World bubble. But with a day that sports fans have been waiting for for a long time, also comes attention. And with that in mind, LeBron’s ‘More Than A Vote’ nonprofit, created to fight suppression of Black voters in the United States ahead of the 2020 general election, wrote a call to action for their fans to help beware of the voter suppression that has long limited the potential impact of Black voters on ESPN’s The Undefeated.
The most important thing you all need to know is Black voters matter more than ever. The biggest cities in the most critical states in this election have incredible, vibrant Black communities. Detroit, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Miami, Milwaukee, Atlanta. Not surprisingly, because these Black voters have so much influence, they will be more aggressively targeted by forces of suppression. Many in power who oppose our fight for change believe it is easier to cancel one of our votes than to find a new vote of their own. You need to know this and understand how it works.
One critical and immediate threat to our vote is COVID. Black communities are overwhelmingly more vulnerable than white communities. In counties where Black people are the majority, death rates are 3.5 times higher than the national average. Our voting locations must offer safe, socially distanced voting. If we don’t address this now, no joke, many Black people will be forced to put their health at risk just to cast a ballot.
“More Than A Vote” has worked on crucial initiatives to get out the vote, including getting teams in both the NBA and MLB to use their sports stadiums as polling places across the country.
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