We have on the calendar some 100-odd days until the US national election scheduled for November 3. Trump has said the elections are not necessary. US congresswoman Maxine Waters said Trump “is just itching to invoke Marital Law.” That would terminate the November 3 election.

Let the next 100 days find us in Homewood, in Pittsburgh, in Allegheny County and across Pennsylvania’s 12^th US congressional district building an African American political power base in Homewood, in Pittsburgh, in Allegheny County, in PA 12 and all across the national Black community.

We are in the middle of a very dangerous political struggle. See the National Urban League “State of Black America 2025.” 

We must plan our own strategies and implement them.  Voter registration is key and immediate. But more precise is Get Out The Black Vote, GOTBV. GOTBV is a mobilized, educated, organized, and engaged African American electorate. It is not just “African Americans Vote!”  “Vote” for who, Donald Trump, vote for Mark Robinson, vote for Hershel Walker?

 FRED LOGAN

What does a local GOTBV campaign look like?  Meet the candidate’s forums, candidate’s rallies, yard signs, and motorcades in the streets are absolute to GOTBV. What does the data say about recent voter turnout in Black enclaves like Pittsburgh’s 5th, 12^th, and 13^th Wards?  Overall, 22 percent of eligible Allegany County voters participated in the recent May 19 primaries. We must critically study the data for ourselves.

In addition, we must build a very vibrant African American Community Information Network in PA 12. We must communicate with ourselves the local African American community and the national Black community. Newsletters both on line and hard copy, forums, meetings virtual and in-person, public and private are essential components of the network.

The PA 12 Black community is in motion. But what for example does the Homewood community know about its next door neighbor to the south Wilkinsburg, or in East Hills, or Lincoln Larimer to the west, or Penn Hills on the north? Or to tell it like it is, about what’s going on across Homewood? We must have that network!

Local Black elected officials should feel obligated to convene periodic town hall meetings to keep their constituents informed and engaged.

In this very intense and dangerous era, we must create several Black Political Action Committees in PA 12. PACs can engage in partisan politics with resources and most of all with people.

In this very dangerous era, Black-funded Black Foundations are essential. The Black community has a very long and extremely important, but suppressed history of fundraising and mutual support.

For example, Callie House’s National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association had some 300,000 members in the early 20^th Century before the Garvey Movement.

However, as the late Dr. Robert S. Browne reminded us, “While it is true that Blacks, as a matter of right or reparations, are entitled to all of the public tax money, foundation money, and church and corporations contributions they can get their hands on, this argument is often used to excuse ourselves from supporting worthy black organizations” and projects. We must do that. 

We must also raise the level of Black struggle for African American cooperatives which also have a very long and extremely important, but suppressed history. See, Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice by Dr. Jessica Cordon Nembhard, also W.E.B. DuBois’ brief important discussion in Dusk of Dawn.    

We must have the political infrastructure power base of Think Tanks, PACs and so on to plan and implement our strategies.

Of course, all of this is nothing new. It is as old as the Black struggle for freedom in American.

Trumpism force us to face the reality of the moment.  Now, you check on your calendar and clock the exact number of months, week, days, hours, minute and second until November 3.