Pastors’ First Ladies, Other Black Church Leaders Organize Support for Harris

(RNS) — Between President Joe Biden’s campaign exit and Vice President Kamala Harris’ decision on her running mate, Black church leaders were busy whipping up support for the Democratic presidential hopeful with a series of virtual events.

Last week, about 750 “first ladies,” mostly wives of pastors leading Black churches, convened to talk about Harris and strategize ways to mobilize voters in their congregations and communities.

On Monday (Aug. 5), more than 16,000 people attended a “Win With the Black Church Kick-Off Organizing Call,” which fundraised for Black Church PAC, an organization that encourages individual Black church leaders to influence the outcome of national, state and local elections.

In the two calls, both sponsored by the Black Church PAC, the primary goal was to secure votes for Harris. Substantial time was devoted to discussing policies embraced by the Biden-Harris administration that oppose Republican proposals, including Project 2025, a series of conservative proposals that some worry will form the foundation of a potential second Trump administration.

“We’re getting behind her, not just because she’ll be the first African American woman or first woman to be president in the United States, but she’s the best candidate to be president of the United States, and she can lead, and she’ll lead with authority and strength and with intelligence and integrity,” said Shawna Watley, the co-host of the First Ladies of Faith United for Kamala Harris National Organizing Call, in a Monday interview. “And she’s a woman of faith, which is important to many of us.”

The “leading lady” of The Park Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, Kimberly Alexander, led the call with Watley.

The calls are part of a cascade of campaign-related events that have become part of what Watley called a “very organic” movement with similar branding or aims, starting with Win With Black Women, which said it raised $1.5 million on July 21, the day Biden stepped aside and endorsed Harris, and followed the next night by Win With Black Men, which raised $1.3 million.

The first ladies’ event was not a fundraiser, but it featured speakers working to engage women and Black faith leaders for the Harris campaign as well as other political activists. Watley, a strategist at a multinational law firm, used her moment to speak on the broader call involving a range of Black churchgoers to encourage first ladies like herself.

“If you want to be engaged, we have the opportunity for you to be engaged and for us to get out of the shadows and be in the forefront and on the front line of working on behalf of this country to save our democracy and put a black woman in the White House,” Watley said on the call, accompanied by her husband, the Rev. Matthew Watley of Kingdom Fellowship African Methodist Episcopal Church in Calverton, Maryland.

Listeners on the first ladies’ call were given a number to text so they could be contacted for future volunteer activities, especially in the battleground states expected to figure prominently in the outcome of the presidential election. They also were asked to record and post videos encouraging congregations and community members to vote.

“While we pray and after we pray, we’ve got to knock on doors, we’ve got to make phone calls, we’ve got to send smoke signals, we’ve got to send text messages,” said Antjuan Seawright, a strategist who has advised Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. “We have to make sure our congregants are registered.”

The events demonstrated that women who hold the “first lady” title do not necessarily or solely hold to the tradition of sitting in a front pew as their husband preaches or on an organ bench accompanying a choir but instead have a range of roles, including supporting the first woman of color to lead a major party ticket.

Watley emphasized that her actions were separate from tax-exempt organizations and reflect only her personal views. Likewise, the phrase “as individuals” was reiterated during the almost-three-hour call with Black church leaders.

“We are organizing ourselves around the institution of the Black church, not around the organizational 501(c)(3) of the Black church,” said Pastor Mike McBride, a co-founder of the Black Church PAC, in a July 31 interview. “So in this way we want to continue to keep alive the institutional Black church as a movement, as a container for how we continue to hold and build political power in this country.”

On the Win With the Black Church call, co-hosted by gospel artist Erica Campbell and the Rev. Jamal Bryant of Atlanta, a cross-section of dozens of Black leaders from different denominations and organizations took turns on their online microphones to urge people to get involved in the campaign.

McBride said the $500,000 raised on the call would help the PAC with online and on-the-ground get-out-the-vote initiatives.

“We’re going to have a number of trainings, a number of opportunities, for phone banks, for text-a-thons,” he said at the opening of the call. “We’re going to have lots of opportunities for us to target our swing states.”

“We can’t do it by ourselves,” McBride added. “We need you to help us figure out, how do we crack the code of disengagement and get folks activated at the polls.”

Some of the speakers, just as on the women’s call the week before, spoke of the need to push back against attacks or negativity that may be spoken about Harris and the chances for her campaign.

“You’re hearing on the street, some folks were saying, ‘I’m not going to vote because white people, because America is not ready to elect a Black woman,’” said the Rev. Tony Lee, pastor of Community of Hope African Methodist Episcopal Church of Temple Hills, Maryland. “But we’ve got to remind them, in faith, that America wasn’t ready to elect a Black man and we got him elected twice.”

Others directed their focus on Harris’ opponent.

“I think we’ve got to make this less about history and more about necessity, because if we keep trying to make this simply about making history, we will miss the forest for the trees,” said Bishop Rudolph W. McKissick Jr., senior pastor of The Bethel Church in Jacksonville, Florida. “The hurricane called Donald Trump is trying to make the eye of the storm D.C., but the Outer Banks will be state judges, circuit judges, school board members.”

Bishop Leah Daughtry, a Pentecostal leader and Democratic National Committee leader, closed out the call, saying: “Jesus is not on the ballot, but Jesus’ values are and that’s what we’re here to fight for.”

Outside of the sponsored calls, the Black Church PAC said it has collected 8,000 signatures on petitions urging legislators to support Harris. The PAC also helped hundreds check their voter registration status, dozens register to vote and more than 50 people request absentee ballots.