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BlackPAC: The Rise of Black Political Engagement and Changing the Nation’s Corrupt Economic, Justice, and Political System Once and for All

Written by Leneve Mellow / May 19, 2021/

 

 

BlackPAC is a black-led organization that continues to make a difference in encouraging more people of color to vote in the United States and continues to find strategies that can potentially empower the US government to change its poor and corrupt economic, justice, and political system for the future of African Americans and the US.

 

 

At the start of the post-2016 election, a new advocacy group emerged known as BlackPAC. BlackPAC is a black-led organization founded by executive director, Adrianne Shropshire in 2016 with the partnership of other Black active leaders from across the country. BlackPAC aims to improve the overall organization of more Black political engagement in the United States. Adrianne Shropshire focuses on the formation and political strategy it takes to further spread the political word to more Black communities and encourage others through electoral campaigns by creating programs, research, and just developing all in all ideas that Black community cooperation makes a huge difference in our current political system.

 

Adrianne Shropshire is also known as the affiliated nonpartisan of the sister organization Black Progressive Action Coalition or BPAC, which is an independent progressive coalition of individuals who are committed to empowering Black communities through campaigns and civic engagement that can potentially shift Black oppression into policies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first out of their three main agendas are to fight towards making policies for African-Americans in which the key to fully improving our broken political system all starts from electing candidates who are truly committed and serious about making real changes to the issues aiming towards Black people. This includes our current poor incarceration system towards mainly Black men, police brutality, overlooked Black creators, and so many other issues. This tactic will start with growing voting rights and Black Americans gaining more access to the ballot by  creating stronger policies that could support Black needs. Secondly, they strive for more civil and real justice within the justice system. Time and time again, Black communities are continuously exposed to foul incarceration and an unfair judicial system, not only due to the color of their skin, but because they don’t have enough of the right reforms and resources to fight back nor the right support from police departments, courts, and local government. The Black Progressive Action Coalition focuses on solutions like ending over-policing, military tactics, racial profiling, qualified immunity and to redirect resources towards social and mental services and investment in community public safety. Their last method drives from entirely flipping the economy as a whole. Due to the current pandemic, it has become a larger challenge to reach economic equity within the Black community especially. The main objective is to find methods that completely put an end to race, gender, and wealth gaps in the US and create a wider range of opportunities that can potentially allow more housing, work ethic, and economic equality. The organization also supports economic legislations such the American Rescue Plan, American Families Plan, JOBS Act, Paycheck Fairness Act, the Thrive Act, and the Comprehensive Paid Family Leave which is for students in debt who can’t afford to pay them off on their own.

 

Headshot of Adrianne Shropshire that can be downloaded on Adrianne Shropshire's LinkedIn

 

Adrianne Shropshire originally started her political work as a community organizer in the state of California in which she organized accountability, economic justice, and youth empowerment in South Los Angeles neighborhoods. Shropshire continued her advocacy and leadership through economic justice campaigns, labor, community, and hope, once she spread her spoken work into New York City. In a recent interview with Shropshire, she was asked exactly what inspired the start of BlackPAC. “BlackPAC really is a combination of the need for us to advocate on our own behalf, wherever that might be and also the importance of our community to have a place to come together to figure things out” says executive director, Adrianne Shropshire. “In 2015, as President Obama was about to exit the stage, myself and few other people began to have some conversations about what it would mean for our communities’ participations in our elections once he leaves the scene.” Shropshire stated that there was this question of what was there? Did we have what we needed to be able to sustain participation? Could we bring young people in? and could we bring in the people who have decided elections don’t matter?

October 18, 2018, Adrianne Shropshire tells Ali Velshi in an MSNBC interview that the early voting is growing across the country, and by the looks of it, Black voters "determine to get the job done”

Needing to think about questions like these not only stirs up the right conversation about political topics that shape the way Black people live but, leaves room for possible inspiration for more and more individuals and leaders like BalckPAC to make change and pass on their ideas and solutions from one person to the next.

Since 2015, BlackPAC has raised over 44 million dollars in donations with 23 million dollars of that from individual donors who support from all over the country. They were able to spend over 42 million dollars in more possible programs, campaigns, ads, and promotions in order to spread their vision and get more votes out there. BlackPAC was known for bringing forth the attention by organizing black voter events such as the organization of black voters for Doug Jones during the 2017 Alabama senate election. BlackPAC has always been behind huge campaigns for the senate and other racial groups in states being North Carolina, Michigan, and Georgia. Their independent expenditure in advocating for the defeat of certain candidates went up to about 31 million dollars in donations spent. In greater news, according to OpenSecrets, 18 million dollars in 2020 federal elections were spent on supporting seven candidates that ended up winning, 2 million spent on opposing two candidates who lost, and 22 million total spent in general elections on eighteen candidates with a success rate of 50.0% by candidates and 89.1% by money raised. Amazing right.

BlackPAC has continued to become one of the number one Black-led groups in the US that has shared millions of stories across the nation in creating the greater impact in engaging Black voters. However, there are still many hardships that came and continue to come into play with the BlackPAC organization due to the simple and known fact that they’re still black people. For years, any Black individual that has tried to make change can still be teared down due to racial and political oppression. “There is a reason why there are so few black-led organizations that specifically focus on making sure people get elected and that’s because the political side of the equation doesn’t support the evolution of political organizations that are led by Black people” says executive director, Adrienne Shropshire in a recent interview. Shropshire mentions that externally, the hardest part in the startup of the organization was the past four years of being led by a racist President such as Donald Trump himself. This put many of their allied communities as risk that created an environment that made them really question whether or not their democracy could survive. Leading to the exposure of a spread in police brutality than in the end, could leave the overall Black community extremely vulnerable especially within a country that has a long history of discrimination. Shropshire describes the country’s racial discriminations as being overly “exacerbated” over the last four years of our political system.

 

Adrianne Shropshire taking a photo with BlackPAC volunteers and Governor-Elect Ralph Northman in Virginia in November of 2017.

 

In the upcoming future for BlackPAC and many organizations like it, they hope to continue their goals in reaching a much broader Black and even non-black audience that has the means to encourage more Black voters that can potentially volunteer to change the political system for years to come and give people a “political home” according to Adrianne Shropshire. Teaching the community and our very youth that their vote will always matter; regardless of the disappoint the US may bring at times, brings forth to the stronger message that allocates what it means to show progression and have faith in what the community can accomplish with the right backbone.

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