Black Youth Vote! (BYV!) is a national grassroots coalition of organizations and individuals committed to increasing political and civic engagement among black youth and young adults between the ages of 18-35. On April 4, 1996, BYV! was launched under the theme "The Ballot, Not the Bullet" live on CSPAN to address the chronic decline in Black youth voter participation.
WHO WE ARE
BLACK YOUTH VOTE
WHAT WE DO
BYV identifies campus and community based youth-focused organizations to engages their youth leaders on the effects of the political and civic process. We develop tactics to increase youth engagement including: civic education, issue education, voter registration, message development, voter mobilization, voter protection, accountability and understanding public policy. Roundtable summits are used to increase youth participation. Take a look at our highlighted participation in the video below. Florida's Black Youth Vote! focused on engaging students and immigrants. Florida BYV hosted Justice Speak Outs on the campuses of University of Central Florida, Bethune-Cookman College, Florida A&M University, and Florida State University reached over 8,000 students and assisted 2,000 Bethune-Cookman students to the polls on the first day of Early Vote. Field Partners included APRI and CBTU.
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Love Me
Luncheon
Watch this heartwarming video of Marian and Xavier sharing their experiences of becoming members of Black Youth Vote.
Freedom Summer
BYV hosts a “Freedom Summer” Youth Summit in Orlando, Florida during the month of June. The summit brings 200 youth (Dream Defenders, Latinos, and Laborers’ Young Workers) into Central Florida to be educated on the issues of (Why Courts Matters, Rights Restoration, and the Impact of the Youth Vote around Stand Your Ground Law). The youth will conduct a massive VR and a petition’s drive. Targeting youth ages 17-25 that live in Brevard, Orange, Hillsborough, and Volusia counties. Their goal is to turn out youth in a non-Presidential election year to vote.
BYV also conducts Civic Leaders and Organizer Training Conferences anually. Roundtable discussions are about their topics, i.e, social media etiquette, proper twitter hash tags, facebook, linked-in and blog feeds. They discuss the hot topics such as, Your Credit Works or Hurts, trending sleep rape by unnoticeable drugs in drinks, proper attire for all occasions, new techniques for resume writing for online job applications, thinking in terms of finding solutions and not problems and how to create Win-Win situations.