Charlotte’s Black female voters are ‘excited’ about Kamala Harris. They’re also concerned

Christine Edwards pulled her car over when she first learned President Joe Biden abandoned his 2024 reelection bid Sunday.

“I didn’t believe it at first,” said Edwards, who read Biden’s announcement on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I had to get to a place where I was safe to actually look at my phone and read the announcement. And I was pretty shocked.”

Edwards is a Norfolk, Virginia, native who grew up in Charlotte and the founder of Civility Localized , a consulting firm that works with local governments to increase community engagement.

She’s excited for Kamala Harris to likely be the new Democratic nominee; Harris already secured the support of enough delegates to get the nomination at the Democratic National Convention next month. But Edwards has some concerns.

“I was pretty fearful because of the state of our country,” Edwards said. “There’s this phenomenon of Black women being brought in to fix things when they’ve gone horribly wrong, rather than people just believing in us and hiring us and electing us in the first place. I think there’s a lot of deep-seated misogyny and racism in this country.”

Still, she felt a palpable, newfound excitement.

“I think we’re feeling this new shift toward positive energy, and it almost feels like 2008,” said Edwards, who was in college during the 2008 presidential election. “It feels like that same kind of energy.”

The Charlotte Observer spoke with local Black female voters ranging from elected officials to small business owners about Kamala Harris as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Several described a similar ambivalence: hope mingled with fear.

“I do have some safety concerns,” said Charlotte Councilwoman Tiawana Brown. “There was an attempted assassination on Donald Trump. We have a history of assassinations and assassination attempts on presidents, but then a Black woman being in that position will really be very scary for a lot of us.”

Still, Brown is excited at the possibility of making history.

“First, she’s the first African-American vice president, but now she could also be the first woman to be president, particularly as a Black woman,” she said. “It made me think about what it could do for women in general in elevating our role.”

Harris fundraising helped quell fears

Harris raised $81 million within the first 24 hours after Biden announced his endorsement for her as the Democratic nominee, the largest 24-hour sum reported by either side in the 2024 presidential race. By Tuesday, that total reached $100 million.

She also secured the backing of more than 1,976 delegates in the first round of voting, The Associated Press reported late Monday , effectively clinching the nomination.

Edwards said the fundraising numbers quelled her fears about whether Americans would support Harris.

“Trump has a lot of Silicon Valley billionaires backing him, so being able to get those donations and be aligned with people that have deep pockets, especially right now, is so important,” she said.

Edwards joined a Zoom call Sunday night organized by WinWithBlackWomen, a coalition of Black women leaders and organizers around the country. Nearly 44,000 other people joined the call, which raised $1.5 million for Harris in three hours.

“It made me feel a lot more energized,” Edwards said. “Just knowing that Black women are organizing, it gives me a lot of hope for these next 100 days.”

Corine Mack, president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg chapter of the NAACP, says she was already planning on voting in this election, but she’s feeling reinvigorated.

“The fact that we have the opportunity to have an African-American, Asian-American woman running for president is a wonderful feeling because we can see ourselves through her,” Mack said. “Our young girls will feel like they, too, can strive to be whatever they want to be when they look at her.”

What matters to voters

The women shared a number of diverse issues that matter most to them this election, from reproductive rights to climate change to access to education. More than that, though, they say voters are sick of politicians prizing partisanship above people.

“People want leaders who are more concerned about people than politics. That goes for national and local leaders,” said Alesha Brown, a civil rights attorney and executive director of local nonprofit For the Struggle.

“There’s this deep party allegiance going on within Congress and state legislatures and even the Supreme Court, which is supposed to be a neutral institution. We want to see leaders who are actually representing our best interests.”

Councilwoman Brown said she’d heard the same from her District 3 constituents.

“What people want is for us to get into office and not forget them,” she said. “People want a person who is going to do exactly what they tell us they’re going to do. People want someone who will be truthful when they’re out on the campaign trail.”

Terese Hutchinson is the owner of The Dooby Shop, a cosmetology school with an enrollment of 20 students on Beatties Ford Road. Hutchinson has been in the community for nearly two decades.

She is optimistic about the opportunity of having a Black woman on the November ballot for president.

“This is a huge stride in progression towards equal opportunity for all,” Hutchinson said in an email to The Charlotte Observer.

Among the things concerning her is the direction of the election — whether the Democratic Party has enough time to “properly prepare” to run with another candidate and how small business owners will be affected.

She is not convinced that she and other small businesses run by Black women would have the same grant opportunities if Donald Trump wins the election.

“The economic development for small business owners (are) being overlooked is my concern with (President Joe) Biden dropping out,” she said in her email.

Get out the vote

Councilwoman Brown is confident women, and Black women in particular, will mobilize in November.

“Black women have always carried the vote. We always are at the polls,” she said. “We have the ability to organize, mobilize and make things happen, so do not take the woman vote for granted, particularly the Black vote.”

She cited Harris’ membership in Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, one of nine historically Black sororities and fraternities in the National Pan-Hellenic Council, known as “the Divine Nine,” as potentially drawing more voters to her corner.

“There’s going to be a ripple effect with all of the Divine Nine,” said Brown.

Presidents of each of the Divine Nine announced a coordinated voter mobilization campaign Monday.

“This campaign will activate the thousands of chapters and members in our respective organizations to ensure strong voter turnout,” the organization said in a news release.

Edwards says it will come down to everyday people deciding to cast a ballot.

“A lot of times, people get di senfranchised or feel like they don’t have to participate because someone else will do it for them,” she said. “But we’ve seen how these elections can come down to a few votes.”