Oprah Winfrey to Host Virtual Town Hall to Encourage Georgia Voters on the Eve of Runoff Elections
ATLANTA – Helen Butler, executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda, Stacey Abrams, founder of Fair Fight, Actress Crystal Fox, and Congresswoman Nikema Williams will be among the speakers at a virtual town hall Oprah Winfrey will host live Monday January 4 at 8 PM, ET. The event is part of OWN’s continued OWN YOUR VOTE nonpartisan get-out-the-vote initiative intended to encourage, inspire and support voters ahead of Georgia’s Special Election. The town hall is free and open to the public and presented in partnership with Open Society Foundations and Kapor Center.
Registration is available in advance at zoomwithoprah.com.
Oprah will speak with local voters from throughout the state of Georgia to ensure as many as possible are prepared with resources, information and inspiration ahead of the Special Election. Those joining the town hall will include local voters, along with national thought leaders, voting rights experts and those who can provide resources and information for voters.
Representatives from women’s organizations will also participate including: Dr. Glenda Glover (Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated); Beverly E Smith (Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated); Melanie Campbell (Black Women’s Roundtable); Glynda Carr (Higher Heights Leadership Fund); Dr. Johnetta Betsch Cole (NCNW); Dr. Kimberly Leonard(The Links, Incorporated); Rasheeda S. Liberty(Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Incorporated); Valerie Hollingsworth Baker (Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated). A closing prayer will be offered by Rev. Toni Belin Ingram, Presiding Elder, AME Church.
This is the second town hall Oprah Winfrey will host for the Georgia Senate and Public Service commission runoffs. During the general election she hosted virtual town halls engaging with voters in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.
OWN Your Vote Partner Organizations include:
Advancement Project National Office
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated
AME Church Social Action Commission
Color of Change
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated
Fair Fight Action
Higher Heights Leadership Fund
Joseph and Evelyn Lowery Institute for Justice and Human Rights
The Kapor Center
The King Center (Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc.)
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
The Links, Incorporated
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF)
National Council of Negro Women
National Urban League
Power Rising
Power to the Polls
Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Incorporated
Sistahs in Business Expo
Vote Run Lead
Vote.org
VoteAsIf.org
When We All Vote
Woke Vote
Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated
About OWN Your Vote
The OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network OWN YOUR VOTE initiative is a bipartisan registration and get-out-the-vote campaign partnering with national and local grassroots and voting rights organizations to provide tools and resources that will empower Black women to vote this November. Black women powerfully influence election outcomes and OWN YOUR VOTE will support this group of voters to show up to the polls and help friends, family, and their community to do the same.
OWN Your Vote is designed to help Black women make a voting plan for this critical 2020 election cycle, by recognizing obstacles to voting including challenges around COVID-19, mail-in ballots, voter suppression, transportation, and changing protocols and poll locations; connecting the everyday issues critical to Black women to the issues appearing on the ballot; empowering this key voting block to own their voting story, and make a plan to ensure success at the polls; encouraging local community activism and leveraging personal networks; and collaborating with the voting rights partnership community to support mail-in voting, voter registration, volunteerism, transportation, and safety procedures.
About Kapor Center
Kapor Center aims to enhance diversity and inclusion in the technology and entrepreneurship ecosystem through increasing access to tech and STEM education programs, conducting research on access and opportunity in computing, investing in community organizations and gap-closing social ventures, and increasing access to capital among diverse entrepreneurs. As part of the Kapor Center family of organizations’ 100 Days of Action for Racial Justice Campaign, the Kapor Center supports the mobilization of Black and Brown communities in local, state, and national elections in the 2020 election cycle. Learn more about Kapor Center at: https://www.kaporcenter.org/.
About the Open Society Foundations
A nonpartisan organization, the Open Society Foundations are active in more than 120 countries around the world. They work to advance civic engagement with the aim of building inclusive and vibrant democracies. Their vision is a call for change—change in the way we think about others, and in the ways we work together—now more pressing than ever amid the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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