More than 44,000 people logged into a Zoom call to support Harris and raised more than $1.5 million for her campaign in three hours, according to Win With Black Women founder Jotaka Eaddy.
“Anyone who doesn’t think that Black and brown women are the backbone of this party doesn’t know us,” Star Jones, a lawyer and former talk show host, told The Washington Post. “(Harris) has already led by example. We’re going to support her, we’re going to raise money for her, and we’re going to turn out voters for her.”
The call shows how Black women, a key voting bloc in the Democratic Party, plan to mobilize and organize in support of Harris. The call, which drew several celebrities and political figures, was held privately and everyone spoke in their personal capacity, but many participants described to the Post how it felt like going to church, attending a family reunion, participating in a rally or spending time online during the height of quarantine.
Even though they were told not to, people streamed Zoom to other sites like Clubhouse, Twitch and YouTube.
Eaddy hosted the Zoom call in the same way she has hosted most Sunday night calls for Win With Black Women since August 2020. The organization says it aims to elect Black women nationwide and denounces racism and sexism. At the height of the 2020 election, she said the largest number of participants she had on a Zoom call was 1,500 people. Eaddy was expecting a few hundred people last night.
But she realized something was wrong around 2 p.m., when she got a message that there were 50 people in the Zoom waiting room. The call was scheduled to start at 8:30 p.m.
By 7:50 p.m., the Zoom room was full with 1,000 people. Members contacted Zoom, which moved the group to a webinar, giving them unlimited capacity to increase the number of participants.
“I will be forever grateful to the leadership at Zoom for what they have done,” Eaddy said.
She said “allies” who identify as Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and Black men joined on Zoom to show their support. But the majority of the call focused on the collective power of Black women to elect Harris.
“What happened last night was historic,” Eaddy said. “It’s really the culmination of so many years and years of work and culture and creation by so many Black women for this moment. And last night was also a tribute, a work for them and their sacrifice.”
Bernice King, the youngest child of Martin Luther King Jr., California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, 85, the oldest black woman in the House of Representatives, and Donna Brazile, two-time acting chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, spoke on the call. Jones, actress Jenifer Lewis, Maryland first lady Dawn Moore, radio host Angela Rye, U.S. Senate candidate Angela D. Alsobrooks and author Luvvie Ajayi Jones also joined the call.
Also speaking were representatives from the nine black sororities and fraternities that exist under the umbrella of the National Pan-Hellenic Council, known as the Divine Nine. Alpha Kappa Alpha, of which Harris is a member, formed the first black sorority in 1908.
Naima Cochrane, a music industry executive and writer, spent the first part of her Sunday afternoon reeling from Biden’s announcement. She said she didn’t trust American voters, even though she trusted Harris. But the call lit a fire inside her.
“There was no discussion of doubt. There was no questioning of what if we couldn’t do it, but rather what are we going to do,” Cochrane said. “People needed to know the guidelines, to know that there is a strategy, that we are united in our messaging and what the next steps are. Now we can move forward with confidence and determination to combat misinformation and detractors.”
Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who endorsed Harris, said she received at least 10 messages from people telling her about the Zoom call. Bowser told The Post Monday that she was at an event celebrating Washington’s food scene when she joined the call. When other women heard she was going out to connect, they asked if they could come. So about a dozen women huddled around an iPhone outside the event and listened.
Bowser said there was a “collective anxiety about what’s coming.” She said women were expecting sexist attacks on Harris from political opponents. She reconnected on her way home. After putting her daughter to sleep and walking the family dog, she reconnected a third time. That call, Bowser said, “is indicative of what these women are going to do in the coming months.”
Black Girls Vote founder Nykidra “Nyki” Robinson said she received the Zoom link about 15 times, starting at 3 p.m. After putting her 2-year-old to sleep, she joined the call at 9:40 p.m.
“Sometimes we work in silos, but I felt a sense of community being on the call and I feel better equipped to mobilize young voters,” she said.
“I hope Joe Biden feels love. We are grateful,” Robinson said. “We are also very happy to support Harris in this historic moment. This call has been about brotherhood, unity and love.”
Jane, a Black woman from Connecticut who spoke to The Post on condition that only her first name be published because she feared retaliation from her employer, spent last night watching the Zoom call from her kitchen island on speakerphone as one of her 11-year-old sons listened in. He asked her if Harris would be president, and she explained how the nomination process works.
She said she was happy her son saw a group of black women come together so quickly to support each other.
“It’s a message to the world,” she said. “Don’t underestimate black women in this country and our influence. Sometimes we get overlooked, but you want to be our friends because that’s how fast we were able to get this information out there. It was lightning fast.”
Mariam Sarr logged onto Zoom at 10 p.m., determined to make sure the Democratic Party did not “neglect Harris.”
“As a young black woman in corporate America, I know what it feels like to be sidelined. I feel invigorated, just like I did in 2008. I actively campaigned for Obama when I was in college and I campaigned on the streets. Last night, I felt the same way.”
On Monday night, political commentator Roland Martin will host his own online discussion with the group Win With Black Men.
Star Jones, who has known Harris for several years and is a founding member of Win With Black Women, was tasked with raising funds. As the creator of the Brown Girls Fundraising Collective, Jones told the Post she spent last night at a dinner with people looking to see how they could fund Harris’ campaign. She got a fundraising link, but didn’t have any graphics. The Zoom call’s hosts told her to join the call around 11:43 p.m.
She told participants the challenge was to raise $1 million in the next 100 days. She posted the fundraising link at 11:50 p.m. “In 100 minutes, we raised $1 million,” Jones said.
According to Jones, the money will go directly to Harris’ presidential campaign.
“People tend to think that we don’t really have the power to spend money,” Jones said. “So in addition to what we spend as consumers, we actually make concessions in a political climate when we think we have a vested interest.”
As of 1:30 p.m. Monday, Jones said he had raised more than $1.6 million from more than 13,000 donors.
