How Black Lives Matter forced campaigns to toss their strategies on black voters [View all]

[n2doc]

By EVAN HALPER AND KURTIS LEE


Democrats have never been more confident that their chances of hanging onto the White House hinge on black voters, who tipped key states toward President Obama -- but they have never been less confident, it seems, about how to talk to them.

The Black Lives Matter campaign is seeing to it that the rules they relied on for courting the vote no longer apply.

The potent social media-driven movement, sparked in the aftermath of Florida teen Trayvon Martin’s death and reignited in the racial unrest of the last year, has 2016 contenders scrambling to adjust their strategies. The protesters involved are proving masterful at refocusing the spotlight. Candidates who might have otherwise been complacent given their high marks on legislative report cards from the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and endorsements from an older generation of black leaders have had to more directly confront uncomfortable questions of racial inequality and the mistreatment of blacks by the criminal justice system.

“We want to ensure that these candidates will actually deal with the issues that black people face,” said Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of the movement who is from Los Angeles. “The reality is that it’s still not legal to be black in this country.”

The group’s demands are likely to drive discussion at a major conference of the National Urban League here Friday, where candidates of both parties will spar over the best approach for improving the lives of African Americans. Among the attendees are Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Jeb Bush, who both found themselves pushed off balance by Black Lives Matter in recent weeks on the campaign trail.

more

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-campaign-black-lives-20150731-story.html#page=1