This is WESA Arts, a weekly newsletter by Bill O'Driscoll providing in-depth reporting about the Pittsburgh area art scene. Sign up here to get it every Wednesday afternoon . Author and activist Bakari Kitwana, who’s 58, says he’s never seen Black and brown male voters courted as they have been during this election cycle.
Republican nominee Donald Trump has sought, with some success, to shift those voters away from their longtime loyalty to the Democratic party . Democrats have responded with events like former President Barack Obama’s visit to Pittsburgh to encourage Black men to vote for Kamala Harris. Black voters are not a monolith.
But they do make up about 13% of the population in crucial swing state Pennsylvania, and Kitwana thinks more needs to be done to reach not only Black men who are considering Trump but those who might not vote at all. On Tuesday, the co-founder of the Hip-Hop Political Education Summit joined groups including Pittsburgh’s own 1Hood Media to host “US: A Summit on Black & Brown Men and the Vote,” a star-studded and hip-hop-themed event at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater. “This was an opportune moment for hip hop to step in with some political education, ’cause there’s a lot of misinformation,” said Kitwana, who’s based in Cleveland.
1Hood CEO Jasiri X says he was concerned by a September NAACP poll that indicated 26% of Black men under 50 supported Trump for president — more than twice the percentage that voted for Trump in 20.