Black voter registration effort launched at ‘Black Panther’ screenings

An activist group has launched a voter registration effort aimed at black voters at screenings of the “Black Panther” movie nationwide.

Members of the Electoral Justice Project, an offshoot of the Movement for Black Lives, are seeking to motivate black voters and increase political engagement with the #WakandaTheVote campaign, the website Blavity reported.

Wakanda is the fictional African nation featured in the long-anticipated Marvel film “Black Panther.”

Kayla Reed, Jessica Byrd and Rukia Lumumba founded the Electoral Justice Project last year, and told Blavity that the movement has been effective “because we meet our communities where they are, whether that’s in the streets, at the city council meeting, or in the movie theater.”

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“This weekend we wanted to meet our people in Wakanda,” Byrd and Reed told Blavity. “We know that for some it’s a superhero world, but we know that the world we deserve is still waiting to be built — and we want to build it.”

The project’s website notes that volunteers will be wearing “Wakanda inspired outfits” to help moviegoers register to vote.

Byrd and Reed told Blavity that they plan to further their efforts ahead of the 2018 midterm elections by holding a campaign manager institute called the “Electoral Justice League,” and to have “thousands of conversations” with black voters about upcoming elections.

“We want to take every opportunity to engage our communities in the conversation of electoral justice,” they said.