{"id":22544,"date":"2024-09-24T09:57:42","date_gmt":"2024-09-24T13:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/multi.nycnewsnetwork.com\/brooklynbuzz\/?p=22544"},"modified":"2025-02-13T09:40:24","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T14:40:24","slug":"black-male-voter-engagement-discussed-at-medgar-evers-college-election-panel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nycnewsnetwork.com\/brooklynbuzz\/black-male-voter-engagement-discussed-at-medgar-evers-college-election-panel\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Male Voter Engagement Discussed at Medgar Evers College Election Panel"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Richard Burroughs<\/a><\/p>\n

Men of color\u2013 young and old\u2013 gathered on Thursday for a frank conversation on voter apathy and the power of the Black male vote as the presidential election heats up.<\/p>\n

Are You Listening?,\u00a0<\/em>an all-male 2024 election panel discussion at Medgar Evers College, City University of New York, brought\u00a0together young, voting-age students and local politicians. It was produced in part by\u00a0MEC Male Development & Empowerment Center<\/a>, the\u00a0Brooklyn NAACP<\/a> Youth Chapter, Office of Student Success\u00a0and Office of Communications.<\/p>\n

In attendance for the discussion, moderated by GRAMMY-nominated\u00a0poet, activist and author\u00a0Kevin Powell<\/a>, was New York City\u00a0Public Advocate Jumane Williams<\/a>,\u00a0Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso<\/a>,\u00a0and former Congressman Edolphus “Ed”\u00a0Towns Jr.<\/p>\n

The 93-year-old Towns gave a history lesson, recounting\u00a0the story of how his grandfather’s voting rights were\u00a0denied\u00a0in North Carolina. After walking 15\u00a0miles to the nearest\u00a0polling site, the elder Towns was given a rigged exam to test his worthiness of voting. The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 and Towns’ grandfather passed a few years later, never casting a vote in his country.<\/p>\n

Audience members took turns posing\u00a0questions to\u00a0the speakers in the EOJ Auditorium, and the students’\u00a0prevailing consensus was\u00a0that voting doesn’t count.<\/p>\n

Williams talked about the Electoral College and how it helps select\u00a0the president, calling it a holdover from slavery and mentioned the\u00a0Three-Fifth Compromise<\/a>, which said three out of every five slaves were counted when determining a state\u2019s total population for legislative representation and taxation in 1787.<\/p>\n

“You can’t end it on the vote, but they take the Black vote for granted,” Williams said.<\/p>\n

Williams also cautioned the students about\u00a0Project 2025<\/a>,\u00a0a political initiative organized by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation that\u00a0looks to restructure<\/a>\u00a0the executive branch with right-wing, conservative policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s what these folks (planners) have wanted to do for a long time, it’s as destructive as you can get, but they\u2019ve now found the vehicle in Donald\u00a0Trump and the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement to get that through,” Williams\u00a0said.\u00a0\u00a0“Your vote is precious and a way to make a complaint.”<\/p>\n

The meeting also had the full support of Antonio Reynoso, who spoke of his colorful collegiate experience at Syracuse University and how he came from poverty to become the current borough president.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlack people have been the foundation of the Democratic Party for quite some time now. They vote at the highest clip of any demo in the U.S., so their interest is my interest,” Reynoso\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

High voter turnout is a must, he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn’t matter what party it is, we need high voting populations across the board, and we are seeing a disconnect with young people, and we want to reinvigorate them and explain to them the power that they have to change the outcomes that they see at the moment,” he added.<\/p>\n

James Viafara, a student at Medgar Evers studying public administration, told BK Reader that he was concerned with follow-through from legislators.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that regulating our policy implementation is important, making sure that our legislators are following through, once they pass a bill at the state, local, and federal level we need to make sure there is a task force to assess compliance,” he said.<\/p>\n

Viafara also said income equality across the country is too wide.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of people who are losing housing and employment opportunities and educational attainability,” he said, noting that the eligibility for the Tuition Assistance Program and other college grants need\u00a0to be fixed.<\/p>\n

Powell\u00a0and the students promised to meet on a regular basis\u00a0through\u00a0next year’s mayoral race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Richard Burroughs Men of color\u2013 young and old\u2013 gathered on Thursday for a frank conversation on voter apathy and the power of the Black male vote as the presidential election heats up. Are You Listening?,\u00a0an all-male 2024 election panel discussion at Medgar Evers College, City University of New York, brought\u00a0together young, voting-age students and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5904,"featured_media":22545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,2717,2866],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-whats-buzzin","category-bk-news","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nBlack Male Voter Engagement Discussed at Medgar Evers College Election Panel - Brooklyn News and Events<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nycnewsnetwork.com\/brooklynbuzz\/black-male-voter-engagement-discussed-at-medgar-evers-college-election-panel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Black Male Voter Engagement Discussed at Medgar Evers College Election Panel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By: Richard Burroughs Men of color\u2013 young and old\u2013 gathered on Thursday for a frank conversation on voter apathy and the power of the Black male vote as the presidential election heats up. 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