Young Black voters see hope and representation in 2024 election

This story is published in partnership with WVUE and Pack News, journalism students at Loyola University New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - As she enters the polling booth on Election Day, 21 year old Louisiana native, Breanna Crain said she will be voting for the future of America. As a young Black voter, Crain said this election is going to be an election that will change everything.

After former President Donald Trump won the 2016 election, Crain said she was terrified for her future as a young Black person in America. According to Crain, this was a pivotal moment in her life and she made a deal with herself: to vote as soon as possible.

“Seeing [Trump’s] policies, the things he talked about, it always terrified me,” Crain said. “I was just like, a little scared for my future, what was gonna happen to me and people like me? And so I always told myself, as soon as I was able to, I would get in those polls.”

According to the Pew Research Center, the Black American population is estimated to make up 14% of eligible voters in the U.S. for the 2024 elections, an estimated 7.1% growth from the 2020 election.

According to the data, 32% of eligible voters in Louisiana are Black.

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Crain said her parents were never lucky enough to grow up with an education like her. Her dad dropped out of school in eighth grade, and her mom didn’t start voting until the 2020 election.

Unlike Crain’s family, Leah Clark, also 21, says her parents would bring her to the polls every election day.

She says voting is important to her as a Black woman from Mississippi because she has seen what not voting does to her community. Her parents made it a priority to bring her to the polls, involving her in the process, showing her the piece of paper and having her point to who she would vote for.

“It was, like, always a running joke when I was younger because they’d say, ‘Who are you going to vote for?’” Clark said. “And then I’d point to a random person on the ballot.”

Clark said those moments shaped her understanding of how important it is to vote.

For people like Crain, without parents teaching them the importance of voting, it is harder for them to learn to vote, according to Robert Collins, a professor of urban studies and public policy at Dillard University in Louisiana.

Collins said just because someone is eligible to vote does not mean that they will vote. He said the percentage of Black voter turnout has decreased significantly since the ’70s and ’80s because the community doesn’t see any change.

“It’s not just enough to tell people they need to vote because they have the right to vote or because someone died for their right to vote,” he said. “But that doesn’t motivate any people anymore.”

JT Smith, a 21-year-old from Kenner, said his grandparents and parents made it a priority for him to read up on political issues and base his own opinion on them. He said this is not the case for everyone in his community. A lot of people in Smith’s community didn’t finish high school.

“If you don’t read up on things, or even have the education to know why you should read up on it,” he said. “I think that’s what’s causing a lot of this, you know, pull in the black community.”

Like Clark’s family, Smith said his mom would take him to the polls at 6 a.m. growing up. He said this helped shape his understanding of the importance of his vote.

“I see why they took us because they want us to get used to voting so that you know we’re never discouraged to not use our vote,” he said.

For 20-year-old Zamariah Strozier, voting is something she says excites her. For her, voting is more than just casting a ballot on Election Day. It’s about being as informed as possible so she can make the right decision.

She said it is important to her not just to vote, but to make sure the candidate she votes for aligns with her beliefs and helps lift her and her community.

“[Voting] comes with adulthood. It comes with, you know, doing your research, having responsibility, accountability, and just making sure that you do your due diligence,” she said. “To not only yourself, but to your community, to your people.”

Strozier says this election in general is special to her because Vice President Kamala Harris is on the ballot. She says, having a black woman on the ballot makes her feel represented, something she hasn’t always felt growing up.

“Black girls who were once black girls and who are black women. Now we could tell you that, like, we never saw a lot of representation in like power and authority roles,” she said. “It was always someone else. And so seeing somebody in that role now, it gives you, like, hope.”

Come Nov. 5, these four Black voters are excited to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.

“There’s the saying that voteless people are hopeless people, and I find that to be very true,” Clark said. “I find that people sometimes, whenever they say that, Oh, voting doesn’t really matter, it comes from a place of, frankly, ignorance, because of the fact that they have a certain privilege to say that voting doesn’t matter.”

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