By John McCann
During a town hall at Edgecombe Community College in October, North Carolina Rep. Shelly Willingham was going back and forth a little bit with constituents about why he voted to override vetoes by Gov. Josh Stein, a fellow Democrat.
Willingham pointed to what he’d done to get results for the people he represents in Bertie, Edgecombe and Martin counties. Some were in the audience. A good 99% of them were Black and not trying to hear Willingham’s yammering. So the brazen legislator matter-of-factly gave them an option.
“I think I’ve been effective, and the only thing I can say to you is that if you really think I’ve been ineffective, then, you know, we’re elected every two years, and you can remove me,” Willingham said. “You can unelect me.”
And the constituents said amen.
When the primary polls closed March 3, 56% of the voters in N.C. District 23 had cast ballots in favor of having Patricia Smith represent them in the North Carolina General Assembly rather than Willingham. It was a textbook example of Black people leveraging their voting power.
North Carolina Black Alliance (NCBA) came alongside several community groups to organize that Edgecombe County town hall. No mainstream media bothered to show up at the rural campus. There was nothing gaudy about the setup; just Willingham on stage with N.C. District 5 Sen. Kandie Smith and Susan Perry Cole, the president and CEO of the North Carolina Association of Community Development Corporations.
“This is about y’all,” NCBA deputy director Jovita Lee, Ed.D., told the audience that evening.
Tuesday’s primary election was about them, too. It was about Black voters across the state. And NCBA during this election cycle, as it’s done for 25 years, has been in place making sure that was understood.
Heading into primary Election Day, NCBA canvassers had accumulated concerted stops at 76,362 doors in 23 North Carolina counties. It wasn’t perfunctory door knocking — tap lightly, leave literature, scram. No, it was genuine engagement from NCBA associates seeking understanding about why people were not registered to vote, why they were feeling disengaged with the political process.
Transactional politics don’t work.
Willingham could teach that at the community college.
So far in this election cycle, NCBA staff members and volunteers have made 267,052 phone calls encouraging people to vote. In fact, there was a Saturday in February when NCBA had members of Black fraternities and sororities gather in a room to do some dialing toward that end.
A week later, NCBA had personnel on the ground in Wake County at Martin Street Baptist Church for Souls to the Polls. There were 32 candidates in there vying for votes. Before any of them got on stage and said a word, NCBA executive director Marcus Bass did some level setting.
“Democracy in its current form is dead,” Bass said. “What we’re voting for now in 2026 is a new democracy.”
In other words, voters are looking for a democracy that works for them — voters like Johnston County resident Vivian Williams, who went to her polling site irked about high food prices, the mistreatment of immigrants and the way some individuals so casually and boldly give Black people a hard way to go.
“If things ain’t right around you, you shouldn’t just sit there and say, ‘Well, somebody else is going to do it,’ or ‘I’m not going to take the time out because it’s rigged,’ and all this stuff. You get up, and you go vote. I’m here so when I see things on TV that’s going my way, then I can say, well, I put my voice in there,” Williams said.
Williams’ sentiment is the mindset NCBA is infusing into the Black electorate. Results from the primary election offer demonstrated evidence that progress has bloomed. It’ll require continued hands in the dirt to bear fruit toward freedom in the November general election.
John McCann is the senior digital communications associate for North Carolina Black Alliance.