At Cleveland’s Diamond Cut Barbershop on Superior Avenue and East 52nd Street, the focus is on more than haircuts.
As barber and shop owner Asu Mook Robinson worked his shears and clippers on clients’ hair on a recent afternoon, he preached civic responsibility and political engagement. This election season, Robinson, who is also a Richmond Heights council members, is making a hard sell trying to get his mostly Black clientele to vote in November.
“My whole conversation is about not disrespecting the people who gave the ultimate sacrifice for us to be able to vote,” Robinson said, referring to the generations of racism and violence Black people have faced fighting for voting rights. “I want it to resonate, especially with all the young Black men who sit here, that voting is a serious situation.”
We knew that African American women were going to be OK. It was going to be up to us to try to galvanize African American males.”
Kenn Dowell, executive director of Voices for a Better Future PAC on why the political organization is focusing on Black male voter turnout
That’s what attracted Robinson to a new political group, Voices for a Better Future PAC (VFBF). It’s trying to persuade Black men to not only vote but also get in the ongoing political fight for issues affecting the Black community. Like many political action committees, VFBF can raise unlimited money to advocate for or against political candidates.
VFBF has Cleveland Democratic political roots. Former U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, who served as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Biden administration, co-founded the organization in 2023. Its executive director and other co-founder is Fudge’s longtime political advisor, Kenn Dowell, a political consultant and podcast host.
The PAC recently attracted icons of Cleveland’s political class. At its September fundraiser, “Brothers, Get in the Game,” former Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White gave the keynote address. Former Mayor Frank G. Jackson and former City Council President George Forbes were among the attendees.
VFBF has also held voter mobilization events, including two titled “Boots on the Ground With 1,000 Black Men.” The first, held in September, included a rally on the city’s East Side attended by Mayor Justin Bibb and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown. Volunteers, City Council President Blaine Griffin among them, fanned out to door-knock in several neighborhoods in hopes of increasing voter turnout. Others worked a Get Out the Vote phone bank set up under a tent in Luke Easter Park.
The second “Boots on the Ground” was held this month at Gardenview Hill Park in Glenville.
Could long-ignored Black men be key to victory?
When President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump were their party’s presumed nominees, some pundits initially saw it as a potentially close race. But that changed after Biden’s disastrous performance in the first presidential debate, which led to his decision to drop out. Vice President Kamala Harris’ nomination has since boosted excitement among voters, including Black women, who already are a leading bloc of voters in the Democratic Party.
This excitement has tightened the race for the White House. As a political consultant, Dowell said, he believed that in close races candidates often appeal to overlooked political constituencies in hopes of finding new supporters. He saw Black men as a prime target because they have lower voter turnout rates than Black women, according to several studies, including one by Rutgers University. This is why VFBF, which is designed to serve both Black men and women, is focusing on Black men this election.
“We knew that African American women were going to be OK,” Dowell said. “It was going to be up to us to try to galvanize African American males.”
Black men indeed have become a key target of both campaigns as well as third-party candidates. The Democratic Party has been focusing on Black male voters over concerns about polls showing Trump eroding this historically Democratic base. On Oct. 12, former President Barack Obama accused some Black male voters of not supporting Harris’ run for the White House because “you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.”
Critics viewed the comment as condescending, saying that proposing specific policies for Black men was the best way to win their vote. A few days later, the Harris campaign released “Kamala Harris Will Deliver for Black Men,” a policy agenda that includes 1 million loans aimed at Black entrepreneurs that would be forgivable up to $20,000.
“I guess you could say I was a visionary in the fact that it has turned out that African American men are starting to get a lot of attention,” Dowell said.
He said before then, he, like many Black men, often felt neglected – even by the Democratic Party.
“It made you think, ‘Hey, do they need us?’” he said. “Do they want us?”
As Democrats focused on Black women, candidates from other parties saw the opportunity
It’s accurate to say that the Democratic Party hadn’t been courting Black men, according to Brianna N. Mack, an assistant professor of politics and government at Ohio Wesleyan University. Her expertise includes Black political behavior.
“Since the end of the Obama administration, it seems the Democratic Party’s appeal to African American voters has not been towards the racial group as a whole,” she said. “It has implicitly referred to Black women.”
Mack said Democrat Doug Jones’ defeating Republican Roy Moore in a 2017 Alabama race for the U.S. Senate cemented this concept. Exit polls showed 98% of Black women voted for Jones, which guaranteed his win. In the following midterm elections, throughout the United States, Democrats often were counting on Black women voters to bring home the win.
“In 2018 and again in 2022, it’s like the resounding cry [was] that ‘Black women will save us,’” she said. “Not, ‘Black people will save us,’ but Black women.”
While Democrats were focused on Black women voters, candidates from other parties saw the opportunity, at least months ago, to message to Black men. This not only included Trump, but some of the third-party candidates.
One example is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former independent presidential candidate who has since joined the Trump campaign. Mack points to a song, “Standing on Bidness,” RFK Jr. cut with rappers Drumma Boy, Boosie Badazz, Hot Boy Turk, Jazze Pha and conservative activist Angela Stanton King. (Bidness is slang for business.)
“While it was clearly lambasted – a lot of people thought it was pandering – in the Black male internet spaces, they appreciated the whole idea about this presidential candidate actually reaching out,” Mack said.
🗳️For more on this year’s November election, visit our Election Signals 2024 page.
Trump makes gains among Black men as Harris pushes back
Polls suggest that making overtures to Black men is working for Trump. A NAACP poll released in September found that 26% of Black men under 50 supported Trump. (The poll found that 49% of this age group supported Harris, while 77% of Black men over 50 supported Harris.) Black voters, in general, are considered the Democratic Party’s most loyal constituency. In 2020, for example, 92% of Black voters cast ballots for President Joe Biden, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. There was a gender difference: 95% of Black women voted for him vs. 87% of Black men.
In addition to the Black men’s agenda, Harris is attempting to appeal to Black male voters by appearing on platforms with large Black male audiences, such as the “All the Smoke” podcast. She also did a town hall with Charlamagne Tha God, co-host of the popular nationally syndicated radio show “The Breakfast Club.”
“I think it is a wonderful thing that Black men are now starting to get some attention,” Dowell said.
He doesn’t view Black male voter participation solely in a Trump vs. Harris context. He emphasized that most polls show the overwhelming majority of Black men supporting Harris, even if it is less than what other Democratic presidential nominees have tended to receive.
“The scare of Trump isn’t as big as some may think it is,” Dowell said. “The scariest thing is, ‘Are you going to vote at all?’”
He said there is a generation gap between younger Black men and their older counterparts, which often shows up in voter participation rates. Dowell said those 50 and older are more motivated to vote because they have a better understanding of hard-won voting rights that have seen erosion in recent years. He wants VFBF to work on bridging this gap between younger and older men.
Why some Black men don’t vote
Antonio Curtis is in his late 20s and has never voted. This year will be no exception. He said he is skeptical about the voting process, given how it has historically excluded Black people.
Black people have been denied the right to vote throughout U.S. history. First, they legally couldn’t vote. Then their right to vote was subjected to restrictive voting laws, such as poll taxes, which were meant to disenfranchise Black voters. Now, Black and other voters of color disproportionately face practices that many consider to be forms of voter suppression. They include voter photo ID requirements, which are in place in Ohio. Voting rights advocates, including the League of Women Voters, say voter ID laws disproportionately impact Black and other minority voters because they are less apt than their white counterparts to have such IDs.
“I’ve always been anti-government,” Curtis recently said after a haircut at the Diamond Cut Barbershop. “I don’t trust them to count all Black votes.”
It is not only his skepticism about the voting process that has turned him off from voting. Curtis said he doesn’t trust politicians, including this year’s presidential candidates, to take issues seriously that affect the working poor and the working class.
“Can Kamala and Trump truly see what we go through and really understand the everyday struggles of inner-city poverty?” he said.
How one non-voter was persuaded to vote
On a recent busy Saturday afternoon at the Diamond Cut Barbershop, owner Robinson and barber Leonard Church were stationed next to each other with clippers in their hands and clients in their chairs. Working side by side for years, the topic of voting often came up in between banter about sports and what was going on in Cleveland.
Robinson consistently stressed the importance of voting. Church said he hadn’t voted since 2012, when Obama ran for re-election.
“I had lost faith in government,” he said. “It was so many times that we would continuously fight for certain things and we wouldn’t see any change, or what I thought should be the change.”
Ironically, voting rights were among them. Church had grown disillusioned that Black people, because of such things as voter suppression, are still fighting for voting rights decades after civil rights leaders lost their lives so that Black people could vote. Martyrs include Medgar Evers, who was assassinated in 1963 in Mississippi for his civil rights activities, including getting African Americans to register to vote.
Robinson’s message to Church was clear: By not voting, you are disrespecting martyrs such as Evers. As the message sunk in, Curtis considered his eight-year-old daughter, including what role his not voting could play in governmental actions that could potentially affect her future.
“I started thinking about the future and also the past,” Church said. “The people that sacrificed their lives for us, the people that fought hard for us.”
Church said he will be voting this year, most likely for Harris.
Robinson showed off the counter of a display case stacked with Democratic campaign literature and information about in-person and other voting options. A pile of absentee ballot applications was once on the counter. Robinson was delighted that they had been taken and made a mental note to get more.
In the weeks leading up to the Oct. 7 voter registration deadline, Robinson practically drilled everyone who came into the shop about their voter registration status. Ohio sought to remove more than 158,000 inactive voters from the rolls, including 14,000 in Greater Cleveland, which some voting rights activists saw as a form of voter suppression.
“Make sure you’re still registered to vote, because if you haven’t voted in the last couple of elections, you may be purged,” he would tell them. “They’re looking to purge over 150,000 people – a lot of them are African American. That’s ludicrous.”
Barbershop discussions reveal Black men’s views about voting
Robinson got involved with VFBF this past spring when he was introduced to Dowell, who had a request. Dowell wanted Diamond Cut to be included in a series of discussions he was holding. He was looking to gauge the collective pulse of Black men’s views on voting in general and specifically on Election 2024. He knew the best place to find it: Black barbershops.
Mack, the professor, said there are few better places to go to find a cross section of Black men, who are often open to expressing their views. She’s even relied on barbershop discussion as part of the research she has done on police brutality.
Though the barbershop discussions were held in Cleveland, Akron and Columbus – Dowell has hopes of expanding VFBF statewide – the men expressed similar concerns.
The discussions often focused on economic issues, such as persistent high prices even as inflation eases, the looming affordable housing crisis and creating more jobs and job training programs that would benefit Black men. Discussions also included criminal justice issues, ranging from police brutality to employing the formerly incarcerated. The men discussed making many predominantly Black neighborhoods more viable without gentrification’s displacement of longtime residents.
Participants often expressed concern about what they believed was the tendency of many politicians to ignore the Black male voting bloc. Some said they didn’t vote because they didn’t believe voting led to policy changes, their lives getting better or the condition of the masses of Black people improving.
Robinson didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation for Diamond Cut to participate in the videotaped barbershop political discussions, which included his clients as well as others Dowell brought to the event.
“I am ready to help preach the gospel of the election in any way that I can,” Robinson said.
Will Black voters be forgotten again after November?
The PAC won’t wither after the election, Dowell said. He hopes to build upon the relationships that were formed or strengthened during Election 2024 activities. These include those with the politically disengaged as well as with politicians and community leaders.
Pastor Aaron Phillips of Sure House Baptist Church in Cleveland said one reason he is attracted to VFBF is that the organization sees voter engagement and political community building as ongoing ventures.
“We are building a platform to engage brothers in a very strategic and purpose-focused way on a consistent basis,” he said. “We want to keep brothers engaged and informed, not only on social and political issues but also economic issues, spiritual issues, mental health issues — issues that impact us as Black men and our families.”
In September at the “Boots on the Ground” rally at Luke Easter Park, Phillips engaged in an intense conversation with non-voter Solomon Burks, who mows lawns for a living.
Phillips, who had spent weeks trying to convince Burks to vote for the first time, was pleased to see him at the rally. The pastor believed he had swayed the non-voter into voting. Burks said he attended to support Phillips, whom he respects for his extensive community involvement. Burks also attended because he was intrigued by a group of Black men organizing with the intent on effecting change – even though he was skeptical that they could.
“I’m 44 years old and have never voted because it won’t make a difference,” Burks said, later alluding to the racial wealth gap and persistent high poverty rates in the city.
“I ain’t got time to be debating with politicians about something that should be done, but at the end of the day, they ain’t going to get done,” he said. “I don’t want to be a part of it [voting].”
Phillips tried to convince him otherwise, including telling Burks that he “was already part of the system” since he paid taxes. He might as well vote as a way of having an impact, the pastor reasoned.
Burks wasn’t budging from his position. Phillips was undeterred.
“We’ll keep working on him,” he said.
