During this weekend's Congressional Black Caucus festivities in Washington, D.C., black women gathered from states like Ohio to fight voter suppression. Instead of waiting for someone else to make sure they were registered and possessed the proper ID to vote in November, according to the Associated Press, these women took to the streets to register one another and make sure that 2012 will see a repeat of high black female voter participation numbers — they were the largest voting group in 2008.
"We've forgotten our mothers went to three jobs, picked us up from school, put the macaroni and cheese on the table, got up and got somebody registered to vote," said actress Sheryl Lee Ralph, one of several women who participated in a strategy session this week during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual legislative conference in the nation's capital. Ralph is married to Pennsylvania state Sen. Vincent Hughes …
Turnout among women of all races is generally higher than for men. In 2008, about 69 percent of eligible black female voters went to the polls, an increase of 5.1 percentage points over 2004, according to a study of census data on 2008 voters by the Pew Hispanic Center. That compares with 66.1 percent of white women.
African-American women, who number about 20 million in the U.S., have long been the largest group of Democratic voters in the country, said David Bositis, senior research associate with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
Read more at the Associated Press.