On a rainy Saturday at Luke Easter Park, Delta Sigma Theta sorority sisters stood at a picnic table covered in flyers urging Black men to vote. In a few hours, volunteers would fan out into Cleveland’s East Side neighborhoods to knock on the doors of people who didn’t cast ballots last year.
“I’m praying people in Cleveland show up and vote,” said Tracie Potts, one of the Deltas working under a gazebo at the park. “I’m praying people in Cleveland – Ohio, but definitely Cleveland – hoping they understand the importance of this election.”
Saturday’s event – titled “Boots on the Ground with 1,000 Black Men” – was part concert, part election rally and part neighborhood canvassing effort. It drew elected officials and many others sporting hats, shirts or jackets representing the historically Black fraternities and sororities known as the Divine Nine.
Cleveland’s voter turnout typically lags Cuyahoga County’s as a whole. In the last presidential election, 71% of registered voters cast ballots countywide. Turnout in Cleveland was 56%. Organizers believe Black men could help get those numbers up.
Several prominent Cleveland-area Democrats made appearances, among them U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, Rep. Shontel Brown, Mayor Justin Bibb and Cleveland City Council President Blaine Griffin.
“Black men have always protected this democracy,” Bibb said. “We don’t have a registration problem in Cleveland. We have a participation problem in Cleveland. In less than 40 days, let’s put our boots on, let’s knock on some doors, let’s text our friends, let’s show up in our barbershops, grocery stores, our places of worship, and let’s get the vote out to meet the moment.”
Raindrops pattered on the roofs of Luke Easter Park’s gazebos while volunteers readied maps for the afternoon’s door knocking. On the bandstand, Ken Bell and the Blackvitaminz played Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?” Vocalist Reagan Gray kept the energy up, even in the downpour.
“Rain or shine, we out here,” she said.
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Finding Cleveland voters who sat out the last election
Officially nonpartisan, the “Boots on the Ground” project is the work of Kenn Dowell, a political consultant who has advised numerous local Democratic candidates. He’s running the effort through his political action committee, Voices for a Better Future.
“When we set out to do it, It was all about the fact that Donald Trump and Joe Biden were running,” Dowell said. “So African American men had a choice: Which one of these old white dudes are we going to trust?”
Black voters by and large pick Democrats in presidential races, although Trump has made small but notable gains, especially with Black men. Now that Vice President Kamala Harris is the Democratic nominee, Dowell expects Black men to break largely for her.
In a Pew Research Center national survey in August, 73% of Black men registered to vote said they supported Harris and 16% backed Trump. The numbers for Black women were 79% for Harris and 10% for Trump.
Volunteers on Saturday went out to knock on doors in several East Side neighborhoods across five wards, from Central to Lee-Harvard. They targeted 12,000 addresses belonging to Black men who voted in 2020 but not 2023, according to Eugene Miller, a former Cleveland City Council member who organized the canvassing work.
Miller also set up a phone-banking operation in the park. Callers worked through a list of 44,000 Black men across Ohio’s 11th Congressional District, he said.
Canvassers and callers weren’t talking about candidates on Saturday, Miller said. Instead, they focused on a few basic questions: Are you registered to vote? Will you vote early?
Although Miller put together the data for Saturday’s work, he said he couldn’t say for sure why some people stay home on Election Day.
“We have people that got to feel engaged,” he said, “and some people don’t feel engaged.”
