Two of the largest Black church groups in Georgia are formally uniting for the first time to mobilize Black voters in the battleground state before the November presidential election.
The two congregations, the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, plan to combine their resources and their more than 140,000 parishioners in the state for the get-out-the-vote program, which they are set to announce Monday at the Georgia Capitol.
Their efforts, which for now will be concentrated only in Georgia, are meant to reinvigorate the Black church as a powerful driver of voter turnout at a time when national polls point to lagging political energy among Black Americans — and slipping enthusiasm for President Joe Biden, who owes his 2020 rise to the White House to their support.
The two churches have long broadly pushed to expand and protect civil rights and voting rights across the country, but they have generally not coordinated their messages or shared resources.