South Florida event aims to increase Black voter turnout ahead of November
MIAMI -- Ted Lucas didn't vote until he was 35 years old, in the 2008 election.
"All my life I felt like voting was another community problem. It wasn't my problem," Lucas said. "They ain't have nothing to do with me. They ain't gonna fix my community."
He realized the power of casting a ballot and wanted to spread his story along South Florida.
"Now that I had voted, I had seen how it had trickled down to my community. I had seen how it had affected my community," Lucas said.
He helped set up the Black Men Win tailgate in northeast Miami-Dade on Sunday, an event encouraging voter engagement in the Black community. There were voter registration forms and information about how to vote.
"The only way to make our communities better is to hold people in positions for our communities to be accountable to us," said Ed Ponder, an organizer.
Data from the Pew Research Center found there are 34 million eligible Black voters in the country. In South Florida, there are 218,431 registered Black voters in Miami-Dade County and more than 272,900 Black registered voters in Broward County. Organizers say there are more potential voters out there.
"If it's not 100%, it's low," Ponder said.