From his 2012 tweet that declared #WeAreTrayvonMartin to his shirt reading I CAN’T BREATHE before a 2014 game to his opening of a public school in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, LeBron James has positioned himself as one of the nation’s most prominent athlete advocates over the last decade.
Now James, arguably America’s most prominent athlete, is seeking to galvanize black voters during nationwide unrest over the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The Los Angeles Lakers star is forming More Than a Vote, a group with current and former basketball players aimed at protecting voting rights of Black Americans and bolstering voter turnout. According to the New York Times, James and business partner Maverick Carter will reportedly provide the initial funding for More Than a Vote and the group will organize as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, meaning it will not engage in any candidate advocacy.
The nascent organization begins in the same week that Georgia endured hours-long wait times, malfunctioning voting machines and a shortage of poll workers during its primary. James quote-tweeted a Politico article about the enormous lines, which advocates argue is disproportionately affecting African-American voters.
LeBron James
(@KingJames)Everyone talking about “how do we fix this?” They say “go out and vote?” What about asking if how we vote is also structurally racist? https://t.co/GFtq12eKKt
June 9, 2020
Joining James are Atlanta Hawks star Trae Young, Phoenix Mercury standout Skylar Diggins-Smith and former NBA player Jalen Rose. James told the New York Times “I’m inspired by the likes of Muhammad Ali, I’m inspired by the Bill Russells and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbars, the Oscar Robertsons – those guys who stood when the times were even way worse than they are today. Hopefully, someday down the line, people will recognize me not only for the way I approached the game of basketball, but the way I approached life as an African-American man.” James hopes to use his extraordinary media influence – he has 66.1m Instagram followers, 46.4m Twitter followers and multiple digital platforms – to help boost voter turnout. Young said that he hopes to be an influence to other young black men, a group whose turnout declined in the 2016 presidential election.
Since the Supreme Court partially repealed the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the 2013 decision Shelby County v Holder, voter disenfranchisement has become one of the nation’s most urgent political issues: Michelle Obama launched the voting rights organization When We All Vote in 2018 and Georgia politician Stacey Abrams launched Fair Fight Action after she narrowly lost the gubernatorial election to Brian Kemp, who oversaw the election as the presiding Secretary of State and was widely accused of rigging the election (Abrams sued Kemp through Fair Fight Action and the case is pending). More Than a Vote is expected to join forces with both organizations, though neither When We All Vote nor Fair Fight have confirmed any partnership with James’s group.
It’s yet another bold undertaking from James, who has gone beyond the standard calls for change and charity donations. The LeBron James Family Foundation has spent millions underwriting college scholarships for low-income students to attend the University of Akron and his elementary school, I Promise, posted excellent performances in its first district assessments. James did not explicitly reference US president Donald Trump, whom James once called a bum”, but his move into the voting rights debate is direct action against a president who has linked higher voter turnout to increased likelihood of Republican losses in elections.
The debate over voting rights is already one of the nation’s most intense: The Trump administration adamantly opposes any expansion of vote-by-mail despite the public health threat of Covid-19 and Georgia’s debacle during Tuesday’s primaries was just one instance of voters facing long lines and faulty machinery to vote. In April, the Supreme Court reversed a decision to postpone the forthcoming election in Wisconsin by a week to assure that its residents could safely vote. The ruling forced thousands to go to the polls at the height of the pandemic. A report from the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research indicates that voter registration is down 70% across 11 states compared to 2016, largely due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Judging by his public comments, James envisions his foundation doing more than mass voter registration. “Yes, we want you to go out and vote, but we’re also going to give you the tutorial,” James told the Times. “We’re going to give you the background of how to vote and what they’re trying to do, the other side, to stop you from voting.”