The First Church of God in Columbus. (Photo by Nick Evans, Ohio Capital Journal.)

Campaigns up and down the ticket are looking for ways to reach Black voters, and with less than two weeks until Election Day and early voting already under way, they’re running out of time to make their case. For Democrats, they’re trying to shore up one of their most reliable constituencies, while for Republicans earning the support of Black voters bolsters their position while undermining their opponents.

In national and state level polling, Black and other minority groups may not back Democrats quite as strongly as they have in previous cycles. The vast majority still lean to the left, but Republicans appear to be making gains. In races where margins could be close, like Ohio’s U.S. Senate contest and a handful of toss-up congressional races, those votes could be decisive.

Among Black voters in particular the church is an important vehicle for organizing and activism. Pastors are hearing all the concerns you’d expect from parishioners — how am I going to make rent? Or cover my kid’s tuition? Or get to that next doctor’s appointment? — and they’re encouraging members not just to vote, but to really consider how their choice could impact their community.

First Church of God

On a recent Sunday in Columbus, Senior pastor Timothy Clarke delivered a sermon on the temptation of Christ. He’s a big man with close cropped hair and beard whose presence is only magnified by his robes — billowing sleeves and dark red accents. He speaks so fast and so forcefully his voice cracks, and he prods the congregation playfully when he doesn’t get quite the response he wants.

“OK, y’all aren’t gonna help me preach,” he said putting his glasses back with a flourish, “so I got to preach it by myself.”

Speaking in his office after the service he was subdued — voice soft, words deliberate — but still always seemingly on the verge of cracking a grin.

“I tell everybody in this church — it’s a running joke, but I mean it — if you’re not registered to vote, don’t tell anyone you remember this church,” he said with a chuckle. “And I mean that, you’re a member this church, you must be registered to vote. I don’t tell you how to vote, but you should vote.”

He explained that although the congregation is predominately African-American, it’s large enough to offer a kind of microcosm for the state. “We have everything from people on public assistance to people who are in the C suites of corporations in this city,” he said, “We got the whole gamut here.” It’s part of the reason why the church can be such a powerful institution for driving political action.

Bishop Timothy Clarke, senior pastor of the First Church of God in Columbus, praying with a churchgoer after a service. (Photo by Nick Evans, Ohio Capital Journal.)

Clarke described hearing from members facing economic struggles and those who are grieving loved ones lost due to inadequate health care or violence. But he also regularly hears from parishioners concerned about the tone and tenor of our politics. He compared their reactions to the stages of grief.

“There’s disbelief that we’re going through this again,” he said. “The stuff about the dogs and the cats in Springfield, the utter disbelief, then there’s anger, and there’s frustration and there’s fear.”

During his sermon, a passage about the dehumanization of Haitian migrants drew one of the strongest reactions from the congregation. Clarke insisted Haitians, migrants at the southern border, Palestinians in Gaza and people living through a civil war in Sudan are all “equal in the sight of God.”

Speaking afterward, he explained that kind of rhetoric cuts deep because of the country’s history of treating Black people as less than.

“In a strange way, it has often resulted in activism,” Clarke said. “The people say, but I’m not going to lay down and roll over and play dead. I’m angry, I’m frustrated, I’m concerned, I’m surprised this country hasn’t moved past some of this foolishness.”

Still, he expressed deep concern about how the Republican Party seems intent on sowing mistrust in the election by singling out specific groups or hijacking critical oversight positions like Georgia’s election commission. It’s “throughout the warp and woof of the system,” he argued.

Clarke acknowledged former President Trump appears to be making inroads, particularly with Black men, but he was left scratching his head. “He doesn’t have a very good record,” Clarke said pointing to Trump being sued for housing discrimination, calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, and holding a bible upside down outside a church after forcibly removing George Floyd protestors.

Clarke said he advises those who come to him for guidance to consider the candidates’ vision for the country, and he argued the distinction hasn’t been this stark in decades.

“So you have to ask, whose vision most aligns, first with what I believe is the final authority, which is scripture, and then my vision,” Clarke explained. “What kind of country do I want to live in? And do I want to live in a country like this person or this person? Listen for the vision.”

Springfield’s Haitian community ready for attention to move elsewhere

Antioch Baptist Church

In Cleveland, Senior pastor Napoleon Harris leads Antioch Baptist Church, and like Clarke, he’s troubled by attacks on “human dignity and decency.” His concerns were clearly directed at the Trump campaign, but he declined to name the candidate, he said, “in the interest of non-partiality.”

“So, every time that that particular individual and those like him stand up to talk, that dignity is under attack, so that’s a huge stressor,” Harris said. “We wear that in our bodies and our psyches, mentally, emotionally and even spiritually, and that is regularly, one of the things that in consultation, that we encounter.”

He added that the sweatshirt he was wearing was a response to some of that rhetoric. It read “my black job is voting” — a dig at Trump’s assertion on a debate stage that illegal immigrants were taking “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs.”

Harris said within his own congregation parishioners aren’t confused about their choices, but he worries a bit about the broader community. Antioch is part of a nonpartisan group called Greater Cleveland Congregations which organizes for social justice causes. He explained part of the work when he’s speaking to people is just going over the basics of how government functions, like the roles of federal officials and who sets policy.

“And that, of course, is some of the great work that Greater Cleveland Congregations does,” he explained, “Ongoing voter education, ongoing education of policies, of positions and how government actually works, and unfortunately, there isn’t enough conversation about that. There’s more go vote, go vote and get out the votes, but not so much on an informed electorate.”

While the presidential campaigns work on reaching Black voters, GCC senior organizer Khalilah Worley explained their efforts are more interested in local organizing. “They’re always targeted,” Worley said of Black voters, but getting hung up on national races doesn’t always translate to the changes voters want to see in their communities.

“It matters nationally what’s happening, but if we don’t get what’s happening locally together, if we’re not sure how we can organize our power locally, it put us in a position to always being targeted but never listened to,” she explained.

To that end, they’re putting far more of their energy into supporting the anti-gerrymandering amendment Issue 1 and first-time voter outreach with a program they’re calling “voter virginity.”

“And so for us, turnout is really important no matter how they vote,” she said, “because that is when we see our ability and leverage around having the ability to change, no matter who’s in office.”

Harris echoed those concerns. Asked about the Trump campaign’s comments about Haitians in Springfield, he was worried less about how the episode made the state “a laughingstock,” and more about the people for whom it didn’t resonate at all.

“There’s a level of political disengagement,” he said, “where, people are not engaged at all in the political theater, because there’s no evidence that it makes any difference.”

“And that is perhaps the scariest thing, right?” he added. “Because you either do politics or politics does you.”

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