Rampant voter suppression post Shelby County v. Holder has targeted Black southern voter turnout. Despite these deterrents, Black voter turnout remains consistently high. I posit that these outcomes remain unaffected due to the countermobilizing efforts of Black Socio-cultural Institutions like the Black church and Black civic and community organizations. I explain that Black socio-cultural institutions employ culturally relevant messaging and programming that changes the perceptions of the costs and benefits of the extensive actions required to overcome voter suppression.

 

To investigate this, I ask two research questions: 1) What factors influence the effectiveness of Black socio-cultural institutions in mobilizing Black voters against suppressive electoral policies? and 2) To what extent do Black socio-cultural institutions influence Black voter turnout in jurisdictions implementing suppressive electoral policies, ceteris paribus? I answer these two questions with a mixed methods approach, utilizing the state of Texas and a prominent political mega-church in North Texas, as a case study.

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The project is currently supported by the Eugene V. Cota Robles Fellowship, the Marvin Hoffenberg Fellowship in American Politics & Public Policy, and the UCLA REPS Lab.