Black Voters Matter (BVM) is a national organization dedicated to expanding Black voter engagement. For the past three years, Boys Town Youth have participated in the organization's “We Won't Back Down" bus tour, where they have been given the opportunity to visit historic sites and engage with Black voters, policymakers, faith-based leaders, Black influencers and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) students. The goal of the BVM is to promote voter rights and help to expand Black political power.
Faith, a senior at Boys Town, was one of the students that attended the tour this year and recounted her experience below.
The Black Voters Matter Tour of 2023 was one of the most influential trips I have ever been on. It really gave me a perspective of what African Americans experienced in the journey to where we are today. We, the Black Voters Matter group, went to a lot of historical places like the Black Wall Street in Greenwood, Oklahoma, and the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. My favorite part was the bus tour of Atlanta, Georgia, where we visited the historic home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Ebenezer Baptist Church and Spelman College, which is a Historically Black College and University (HBCU). Overall, I thought that the experience was really enjoyable and very informative. It is definitely something that I would want to participate in again.
