At NBCUSA denominational meeting, leaders, advocates and AOC urge midterm voter turnout

(RNS) — The leader of the National Baptist Convention USA Inc., a historically Black denomination, said gerrymandering threatened to “destroy” the power of voters, in a plea for turnout in the midterm elections this fall.

“You got to get back up and fight for your vote,” NBCUSA President Rev. Boise Kimber continued in his presidential address on Thursday (Sept. 10), the last day of the denomination’s annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, this week.

“Supreme Court has become the puppets of the land, but you got to get back up and fight until justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream,” Kimber said, referencing a verse from the Bible’s Book of Amos. “They’re trying to make voting difficult, but you stand in line if you got to stand all day. You are immovable.”

Kimber’s remarks came after two earlier days of the meeting featured representatives of partner organizations highlighting ways the Baptists in attendance and their church members at home can work together on get-out-the-vote efforts. The strategizing at the meeting, attended by about 8,000 people, occurred in the wake of a Supreme Court decision earlier this year to gut a portion of the…