But this time Black women aren’t just organizing for any Democratic candidate. There will likely be a Black woman — Vice President Kamala Harris — at the top of the ticket.

‘Cleanup crew’

Clarkston Councilwoman Y.T. Bell, who is Black, said she sometimes feels like she’s part of a “cleanup crew” when Democrats need a boost in support.

“While I know that we are tired of being the cleanup crew, I often feel pride in being able to adequately fix things holistically,” Bell said. “With Kamala, she’s coming in and you saw just 24 hours after her announcement, this coalition of folks ... all coming together. It’s an opportunity to fix (policy) from a co-governance perspective, which is only going to correct things that have been done just enough to get by.”

Stacey Abrams, a former Georgia House minority leader and two-time Democratic nominee for governor, said it’s more than galvanizing Black women to vote. It’s about building coalitions and creating campaign strategies when they may not have the connections that people in other communities have.

“It’s not just about what we do, it is how we do it,” she said. “It’s that Black women are the leaders of the coalition building. We are the leaders of innovative engagement, often because we are the most under-resourced. That is a political strength, as opposed to simply being a burden.”

The day President Joe Biden announced he was giving up his reelection bid and endorsed Harris, more than 40,000 Black women joined a Zoom video call to share their excitement, strategize and raise money for the vice president. Participants reportedly raised $1.6 million within three hours.

Since then, other demographic groups have held similar online meetings.

Gwinnett County Chairwoman Nicole Hendrickson said she’s happy to see other groups mobilizing support for Harris. Hendrickson is the first Black woman to lead the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners — and the first Democrat to lead the county in 30 years.

“Many other communities have benefited from Black women’s fight and we’re still fighting,” Hendrickson said. “We do need other communities to help step up. ... (Black women are) consistently being tapped in and exploited. And we don’t always see the fruits of our labor.”

Decades of service

Hendrickson pointed to the 2017 special election in Alabama that was a turning point for the public consciousness. Black women in Alabama pooled their voting power and helped block a controversial Republican candidate — former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore — from becoming that state’s next U.S. senator and sending a Democrat to the chamber for the first time in 25 years.

After the Alabama election, a chorus of “thank you, Black women” echoed from liberals, but they have been showing up for Democrats for a while, said Kia Smith, a Black woman from Ellenwood.

“When you look at who is leading organizing efforts on the ground to turn out voters, you see Black women doing the work to ensure those in our communities are politically and civically engaged,” she said. “We are not just passive voters. We are community leaders who are deeply embedded in the institutions and organizations that support those we love. We vote for them as much as we vote for ourselves.”

In 2022, a CNN exit poll found that 93% of Black women who voted in Georgia cast their ballot in the governor’s race for Abrams, who ended up losing to Republican Brian Kemp. But their high levels of support for Democratic candidates go back decades.

About 90% of the Black women across the country who voted in 2020 backed Biden, according to a survey by The New York Times. About 98% of Black female voters supported former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, according to a study by the Pew Research Center. Black women voted for Barack Obama at about 96% during his successful runs in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections.

And while the Black women who show up on Election Day typically vote for Democrats, Harris supporters and volunteers are hoping to get even more of them to the polls in November.

‘Historic first’ candidate

Suzette Carty LeSane, an Atlanta resident who volunteers with the Harris campaign, said she’s energized by the vice president’s presumptive nomination and what it could mean for her 14-year-old daughter.

“Her perspective on leadership is very different because she (was born) with Barack Obama as president,” LeSane said. “And now she sees the VP, Kamala Harris, run for the highest office in the land.”

And while the excitement has ramped up in the past week for Harris and the Democratic campaign for president, it remains to be seen whether it’s just a honeymoon period or if the excitement will stay through Election Day, said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University.

“It would not be surprising if we see a bump in turnout for Black women, as opposed to turnout for white women, as a result of having the opportunity to elect a ‘historic first,’ ” Gillespie said.