Rick Rouan  |  rrouan@dispatch.com

Could Ohio be the bellwether for a nationwide wave of black voter turnout in the presidential election? The Rev. Al Sharpton thinks so.

Sharpton said during the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus Foundation’s digital voting summit Thursday that black Americans follow the lead of Ohio, where in 1967 former Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes became the first black mayor elected in a major U.S. city.

“We always look for you in Ohio to set the tone. You cannot drop the ball now. You must show up and show out. If Ohio is on fire, it will set Black America on fire and in turn it will change the course of this country,” he said.

Black voter turnout set a record in Ohio in 2012, said Alicia Reece, the foundation’s vice chair. In 2016, though, that turnout dropped significantly.

“We can’t allow that to happen this time. We have to make sure you exercise your right to vote the right to vote is your power,” she said during “The Power of Black Vote! Voting is Essential Statewide Summit.”

Sharpton said the election is “bigger than (President Donald) Trump,” and that voting rights, health care and criminal justice issues all will be determined at the ballot box in November.

Major turnout, particularly among black voters, is needed to overcome foreign interference and what he believes is the fallout from a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision that backed off requirements that some jurisdictions get permission from the U.S. Department of Justice before making changes to elections administration.

“You’ve got to have an ocean of turnout, not just a wave, to make sure you save this republic from going the wrong way,” Sharpton said.

Generating turnout, though, is complicated by a new generation that questions whether it should participate in the election at all, said Curtis Maples, a board member for the ACLU of Ohio.

“I have to convince them of that before I even get to where your polling place is,” Maples said during a panel discussion.

Black women have long been organizers in their families and communities, and they turn out to vote more than black men, said Petee Talley, one of the foundation’s board members. Black men, she said, need to “catch up.”

Ohio Sen. Vernon Sykes, D-Akron, said during the panel that black men “have to speak up and be part of the movement for liberation” to help change systems that have targeted them “for some 400 years.”

“If we want to be good troublemakers like (former U.S. Rep.) Jon Lewis suggested, we must vote,” said Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League.

rrouan@dispatch.com

@RickRouan

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