White House Launches Summit Series to Connect Black Community With Education Resources As Biden Sees Lagging Support with Key Voter Group

The Biden administration is looking to shore up support within the Black community leading into the 2024 election after polling this past summer has shown him slipping among Black voters. 

The Education Department has launched a new initiative series called "Power Up," which focuses on connecting local officials with federal resources that are specific to helping the Black community. The inaugural event for the series took place on Thursday and Friday in Georgia, a key battleground state that helped Biden win the presidency in 2020. 

The two-day summit provided a career fair for students as well as a second day of panels with key administration officials and local officials, such as Calvin Watts, superintendent of Gwinnett County Public Schools in Georgia, where officials discussed resources for mental health in the Black community, why representation matters in science and technology jobs and addressing student loan debt.

The series will hit several other states, with the next summit in South Carolina in February, and other locations likely to be in Denver and Philadelphia.

“We know that there is a concerted assault on representation and the policies that are necessary to insist that representation is salient,” Stacey Abrams, a voting rights advocate and former Georgia House of Representatives Minority Leader, said in an interview with The Messenger. 

Education has become a key issue leading into the next election, as issues such as school choice, LGBTQ+ rights, book bans and curriculum have become leading topics within the Republican presidential primary. Most recently, Florida also set a new standard on Black History, which states that enslaved people gained "personal benefit" through slavery.

Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris, have repeatedly criticized Florida’s curriculum standard.

Abrams said the new initiative shows the White House is willing to “highlight the importance of being seen, of being included,” and fosters opportunities for people of color and Black Americans.

“The power of representation is real,” she said. “(The initiative) is standing in the spaces that say that we deserve to have more as a nation and we cannot do that unless everyone is included.”

Dip In Black Voter Support

The summit follows several months of polling that shows Biden has seen a dip in support from Black voters. 

An NBC poll last month found Biden’s job approval rating among Black voters was 63 percent, down from 80 percent in 2021. Biden still holds a majority of support from Black voters, at 76 percent, compared to 14 percent who support former President Donald Trump in a likely match-up. The poll was consistent with several other polls that were released through August and September that showed Biden still held a majority of Black voters over Trump, but it was down from the percent of Black voters that cast a ballot for him in the 2020 election.

An overwhelming majority of Black voters – 92% – voted for Biden in 2020. The president will likely need that amount of support again in what is anticipated to be another close election in 2024.

Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, chair of Biden’s Advisory Council on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Black Americans, said right now the administration’s focus is on “connecting the dots” for people on what it has done.

“2024 will take care of itself,” Kenyatta added.

Officials said the summit is also a way to have a conversation with local communities on what the administration is doing, but also what it could improve upon.

Alexis Holmes, executive director of the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Excellence, Equity, and Economic Opportunity for Black Americans, said the summit series came out of an executive order Biden previously signed and a desire to engage in authentic conversation on what the administration is doing for the Black community.

“We're bringing the resources of this administration directly into the Black community as well as spending time in the community, gaining some feedback around what's working and quite, exactly what's not working,” she said.

A Local Tie

The administration is also heavily relying on local organizations and officials to help facilitate the conversation with voters and students as to the different initiatives and programs available to the Black community.

But there’s an information gap that Biden has struggled to break through.

Erika Alexander, an actress and founder of Color Farm Media, which partnered with the administration for the summit, said it’s part of the job at a local level to showcase what resources have been made available through the federal government. 

The Living Single actress said oftentimes people don’t know the difference between what the federal government controls, and what is on the onus of the local government.

“If we can really show people how government works, it starts with us,” Alexander said. “How can you be responsible to your household, by being responsible to your family, by being responsible to the community that is responsible to the nation that eventually answers to the world? That's America.”