The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has called on black athletes and fans to boycott public college athletic programs in states they alleged have violated voting rights.
Titled “Out of Bounds,” the NAACP’s campaign set its sights on eight southern states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Prominent athletic programs include Auburn, Ole Miss, Clemson, and LSU.
“The campaign follows the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which civil rights groups say further weakened protections under the Voting Rights Act and led several Southern states to revisit their congressional district maps,” per CBS Sports.
“The NAACP is encouraging football and basketball recruits to consider alternatives to the targeted schools, including historically Black colleges and universities,” it added. “Current athletes are also being asked to speak publicly about voting rights issues and evaluate options available through the transfer portal.”
Out of Bounds also urged supporters to spend money on Historically Black College and Universities (HBCU) athletic programs and scholarship funds.
“Across the South, Black athletes have helped build some of the most profitable college athletic programs in America, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue,” the group said on its website. “At the same time, several southern state governments are moving to limit, reduce, weaken, or erase Black voting representation by creating new, unconstitutional voting districts. ”
NAACP President Derrick Johnson accused the southern states went beyond “policy disagreement” and into a “sprint to erase Black political power.”
NAACP’s national director of youth and college division Tylik McMillan advised black athletes to flex their “community’s political power.”
“This generation of Black athletes understands something that those who came before them were never afforded the chance to say so plainly: your talent is yours, and so is your community’s political power,” McMillan said in a release.