DNC snub of Atlanta for 2028 convention is a slap in the face to Black voters
Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said the “next presidential race in 2032 … will run through the Sun Belt of the South.”
On Aug. 16, Martin touted that DNC was “investing in our Southern state parties and campaigns.”
Then the committee eliminated Atlanta, the only Southern city in consideration for the Democratic National Convention.
That means Martin has acknowledged the party stopped investing and building there and the work needed to compete and win here.
The Democratic National Committee continues to find ways to screw things up.
Black voters show up for Democrats
This is not about if Atlanta can host a convention (it can) or if Atlanta deserved to win the bid (it did). It is about the contradiction and strategic failure of eliminating the South from consideration and, at the “same damn time,” (in the voice of Future) declaring the South essential to the party’s future.
Let’s be really clear, the South cannot be separated from Black voters. The majority of Black Americans live in the South, and Black voters are foundational to the Democratic coalition. Claiming to prioritize the South while failing to invest in it is not a strategy. It is a contradiction.
The Democratic Party relies on Black voters, and we are expected to turn out when the presidency is at stake (and do). We are expected to rescue competitive Senate races (and did). We are expected to provide the margins in battleground states (and have). We are expected to stand as a firewall against Donald Trump and the movement he represents.
What if we don’t? Who benefits? Where is our return on that investment?
Black voters have invested our votes, our money, our organizing power, our political labor and our political capital for generations. We have helped elect presidents, deliver Senate majorities, win battleground states and sustain this party.
2018 and 2022 gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and Georgia organizers built the infrastructure that delivered the state’s electoral votes for then-Vice President Joe Biden and a victory for Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.
They proved what was politically possible with the right investment. The house that Stacey built is the foundation from which Democratic Southern building should grow. But what have y’all done with it?
The DNC convention in Atlanta could have built directly on that infrastructure, energizing the electorate, bringing national resources into Georgia and throughout the South while placing the region at the center of the Democratic presidential campaign.
Did the committee even contemplate the harvest that continued investment in Georgia could reap not just here but throughout the South? That is the opportunity the DNC discarded.
Yet the party behaves as if it owns Black political capital rather than appreciating that it was entrusted with it.
Where is the return on investment for us?
Before the political realignment, the Democratic Party was an owning-class party that valued what Black people could produce while denying us power and an equitable return.
Today, the currency is political, but the extractive relationship is the same. There’s a historical indictment the Democratic Party cannot escape.
You want Black votes, Black organizing and political labor to provide the electoral margins necessary to win. But when the election is over, political priority flows elsewhere.
Black contribution creates a reciprocal obligation. The question is no longer whether Black voters remain loyal to the party. The question is whether the party remains loyal to Black voters, and the answer is playing like Chris Brown singing “Loyal.”
Black voters and organizers have invested in this party until we changed what was politically possible. We have every right to ask: Where is our return on investment?
So, Ken Martin, I return to your words: If the road to the White House runs through the South, why did the DNC block that road on the way to convention?
Atlanta, stand up. Birmingham, Alabama, stand up. Charleston, South Carolina, stand up. Charlotte, North Carolina, stand up. Dallas, stand up. Houston, stand up. Jacksonville, Florida, stand up. Jackson, Mississippi, stand up. Little Rock, Arkansas, stand up. Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee, stand up. New Orleans, stand up. Richmond, Virginia, stand up. Savannah, stand up.
In the words of André 3000, “The South got something to say.”
We been saying it. We been organizing. We been voting. We been building. We have delivered.
How dare you mute our voices! The South shall rise again. But this ain’t ya mama’s Dixie.
Kristal Thompson is a Georgia voter and a fed-up 92 percenter, referring to the approximately 92% of Black women who voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
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