PHILADELPHIA — For 30 years, the Rev. Alyn E. Waller has led his flock at Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, the city’s largest Black congregation. But on Saturday, the good pastor led another kind of assembly: 100 Black men, mostly clad in leather, astride a pack of snarling motorcycles.
“Here we are in Philly, 100 fellas on bikes in the city and the police are helping us, not chasing us,” Waller said, a chorus of hogs, trikes and slingshots rising around him. “At the end of the day, we know that we have done some good, not just for us, but for everybody.”
Just days ahead of Pennsylvania’s voter registration deadline and weeks before Election Day, this Harley-Davidson-riding pastor and a collective of some of Philadelphia’s Black motorcycle clubs, along with two nonpartisan voter engagement groups, are encouraging men in some of the city’s historically Black neighborhoods, where voter turnout and political engagement has been low, to register and to show up at the polls.
“We’ve got Black Bikers Vote, Black Men Vote and then just people who care about democracy getting together on a beautiful day to ride bikes through some of the areas in Philadelphia that need to be reminded to exercise their franchise,” Waller said.
Joe Paul, executive director of Black Men Vote, doesn’t ride motorcycles. But he did dress the part on the unseasonably warm day in a black moto jacket while emphasizing the need to engage a demographic that has often felt overlooked.
“If we’re revving up these engines, we know brothers are going to pay attention, and it’s important for them to see themselves riding through the neighborhood,” he said.
This election cycle, Black Men Vote set a goal of registering 100,000 Black men across the country. Paul said it has hit about 95% of that goal, with 60,000 of those registered Black men coming from Philadelphia.
This local effort to organize and energize Black men comes as the race for the presidency is a dead heat, according to recent national polls, with both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump zeroing in on key battleground states and vying for Black male voters who could help either win the election. While a vast majority of Black voters, including Black men, support Harris, an increasing number of young Black men are lining up behind Trump.
According to a recent Howard University poll of likely Black voters across seven key states, including Pennsylvania, 84% support Harris, while 8% said they will back Trump. Another 8% are undecided. But the poll also revealed age and gender gaps among likely Black voters. Among Black men under 50, support for Harris drops to 68%, while 81% of Black women in the same age group said they would support Harris.
Both Harris and Trump have since gone on media blitzes in battleground states aimed at Black men. In recent weeks Harris has stormed Black-oriented national media, with high-profile interviews with Charlamagne Tha God, Roland Martin and The Shade Room, while launching “huddles” with Black men across the country hosted by high-profile surrogates. Her campaign has also released an “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men,” which includes forgivable loans for entrepreneurs, education and mentorship programs and legal reforms, including the legalization of recreational marijuana and inroads into the cannabis industry. At the same time, Trump has leaned on his own Black male supporters, including controversial former NFL standouts Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell.
In addition to the bikers all across Philly, a host of organizations pushed into traditionally Black neighborhoods to rally voters, especially Black men.
On the corner of North Broad and York streets, the heart of North Philadelphia, a swarm of volunteers, organizers and passersby bopped to the sounds of hip-hop blaring from a DJ’s speakers. A mural by artist Chuck Styles was unveiled on the side of a building showing a Black father with his little girl hoisted on his shoulders, heading off to vote.
“I’m a father and a husband, father of three beautiful girls. So I wanted to have an image of a father and a daughter. Him inspiring her to just, you know, press forward and think about the next generation,” Styles said. “It is very important for us young Black men to step up and vote, and not just vote, but vote for the right things, vote for the right causes and vote for what’s going to help you and your community and your family.”
Andrea Hailey, CEO of vote.org, stood near the mural as two women in T-shirts that read “voting is hot” worked a taco truck sponsored by the organization.
Haley said young Black registrations are up this election cycle.
“I think that this idea that people aren’t plugged in, that they’re not paying attention — all that is not true,” Haley said. “I think we’re going to see high turnout.”
Waller said he’s finding “that there are a lot of brothers that want to be involved.” And they want to be engaged on issues that matter deeply to them.
“As Black men, there are other issues other than criminal justice reform. I think both parties make the mistake of assuming that when you talk to Black men about criminal justice reform, you’ve answered our questions. But we are entrepreneurs, and we are businesspersons, and we are homeowners, and we are people with student loans because we graduated from college, and we want some real discussions around economic matters in the community.”
Among those who showed up on that corner in North Philly, were a pair of city legends, the rappers Freeway and Beanie Sigel, who performed a few songs before they urged the throngs gathered around them to “Go VOTE!”
“I feel like, first and foremost,” Freeway said, “young brothers want to know that their voice counts and that their vote counts. A lot of them confused. Don’t even think it matter, you know, and when we, when we as Black men, when we in a position where we feel like things don’t matter, then don’t pay no attention to it. So that’s the mission we’ve been on. We’ve been trying to encourage people and let them know their voice definitely matters and it definitely counts.”
Beanie Sigel chimed in: “We’re just bringing that awareness out there to the young youth that your voice counts, and it’s bigger than just this election.”
As far as how they will vote, the pair were still split.
“I haven’t made a decision yet,” Beanie Sigel said. “Honestly, I don’t know.”
Freeway said: “It’s tough. We’re both Muslim men. There’s a lot of other issues that’s going on that need to be addressed. So it’s tough. I know where I’m leaning towards, but it’s still tough. I know what I got to do. But it’s not, it’s not easy, man. God willing, the person that we want to get in office gets in office and starts doing the work.”
About an hour after Waller and his caravan of Black motorcyclists pulled away from his church in the city’s Mount Airy section, they roared into an open-air Black business hub in the city’s West Philadelphia neighborhood. At Container Village, business owners sell everything from sweet potato pies to handbags out of reconfigured shipping containers.
Organizers said the ride was a success, their message as loud and clear as the roar of their two- and three-wheeled machines.
“We ride for all kinds of good causes,” said the Rev. Mark Tyler, founder of Black Bikers Vote. “But this one is deeply personal to us. A lot of the guys in our network have given up on voting. A lot of people living in despair. We want to renew that hope in them, and we hope that by doing this, we can do it.”
CORRECTION (Oct. 23, 2024, 4:45 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of vote.org’s CEO. She is Andrea Hailey, not Haley.
