NPR

Black Campaign School Seeks To Build Black Political Power

Roughly 90 percent of elected officials in the United States are white. The Black Campaign School is trying to change those statistics by investing in a new generation of black politicians.
Jessica Byrd, the founder of Three Point Strategies, leads a session on stump speeches at the second annual Black Campaign School in Atlanta, Ga.

Quentin James was tired of the Democratic Party taking black votes for granted without investing in building black political power. So, in 2016, he started the Collective PAC to fund progressive black politicians. The following year, James, a veteran of the Obama campaign, established a boot camp — the Black Campaign School — to train those candidates.

"Ninety percent of our elected officials in this country are white, and so part of this is about equal representation," said James on a recent humid Sunday in Atlanta, where he was organizing the second annual Black Campaign School.

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