NAACP Urges Black Athletes to Boycott 8 States

The NAACP launched a campaign Tuesday urging Black athletes and fans to withhold financial support from public universities in states that are working to “limit, weaken, or erase Black voting representation” in the wake of last month’s Supreme Court ruling that narrowed the Voting Rights Act.

In announcing its Out of Bounds campaign, the NAACP named eight states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Since the Supreme Court decision last month, many of those states have launched efforts to redraw congressional maps or made other moves critics say will dilute Black voting power. (Texas passed a redistricting effort before the Supreme Court’s ruling.)

The campaign calls on Black athletes and recruits to withhold commitments from programs in targeted states, to ask athletic personnel about university stances on voting rights and to consider signing with historically Black colleges and universities. It also calls on current college athletes to use their platform to raise concerns and press leaders to speak up on voting issues. The campaign asks fans, alumni and others to stop buying tickets and merchandise and to redirect their support to HBCUs, including donations to athletics, scholarship funds and bands.

“What these states have done is not a policy disagreement. It is a sprint to erase Black political power. These actions happened in days, in some cases in hours, of a Supreme Court ruling that gives extremist lawmakers a playbook to erode Black representation,” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement. “The NAACP will not watch the same institutions that depend on Black athletic prowess to fill their stadiums and their bank accounts remain silent while their states strip Black communities of their voice. Out of Bounds is our answer: we are naming the contradiction, and we are calling on Black athletes, families, fans, and consumers to act on it. The same power that built these programs can be redirected. And it will be.”

The NAACP said in the announcement that the Out of Bounds campaign will “remain in effect until targeted states adopt state-level voting rights protections, repeal maps that dilute Black voting power, restore congressional and judicial districts that reflect the Black population’s actual strength, and commit to transparent and community-centered redistricting processes.”