Black Blogosphere Encouraging Black Voter Participation

For Immediate Release
January 14, 2008
Contact: LaTonya Johnson: info@mrsgrapevine.com * Yobachi Boswell 615-478-5204 * Wayne Hicks 513-284-4968

Black Blogosphere Encouraging Black Voter Participation

The 2008 presidential decision represents a seminal election in determining the direction of the United States. For the first time, we have two viable candidates who are not white males. Moreover we have issues of healthcare, economics, foreign policy, immigration and others that directly affect every American’s life.

It is important that all who are eligible vote. Many of the most pertinent issues on the national agenda have a disproportionate effect on the Black community at large; yet voter turnout for Blacks continues to lag behind .

With those factors in mind, the Afroshpere Action Coalition has initiated a "Proud to be a Black Voter" movement; and created the “Proud Black Voter” blog (http://proudblackvoter.blogspot.com/) to encourage other Blacks to vote. The “Proud Black Voter” blog will inform the public about the importance of the need to vote, and will help to facilitate people in getting registered. We want to encourage greater voter registration and election participation within the Black community nationwide.

In regards to the importance of voting, music mogul Sean “P. Diddy” Combs has stated “people have died to have that right. When the president is running your country, he is running you”. Political commentator Armstrong Williams “echoes that sentiment regarding Black people in specific saying “we must go to the poll and pull that lever, not just for you, but what it has taken for you to be here". (Bnet.com November 14, 2007)

LaTonya Johnson, who initiated the ideal, in writing about her motivation for the blog states “I am an avid voter…hopefully we can get black people moving so that we can vote in the Presidential Election in record numbers.”

Other bloggers and websites are encouraged to participate by prominently displaying 1 of 6 “Proud Black Voter” buttons on their webpage; which they can obtain from the “Get Your Badge” page of “Proud Black Voter” at http://mrsgrapevine.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/badge_page.html

The HTML widget, which read "Proud Black Voter...Join Me Now, Register to Vote", can be placed on anyone’s page, and links back to the Proud Black Voter Blog; containing information on voter registration, voter rights, and other voting issues.

This is a nonpartisan effort to increase participation in the democratic process.

Afroshpere Action Coalition

Proud Black Voter blog sponsored by: MrsGrapevine.com * www.BlackPerspective.net * http://ElectronicVillage.blogspot.com/