America's oldest civil rights organization, the NAACP, is kicking off a series of town halls this week to mobilize Black voters ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. CBS News congressional correspondent Nikole Killion reports.

Washington

The NAACP, the United States' oldest civil rights organization, is launching a series of town halls across the country to mobilize Black voters ahead of the next midterm elections. The initiative aims to address concerns over recent rollbacks of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, as well as cuts to Medicaid and food assistance programs under the Trump administration. 

NAACP President Derek Johnson described the current period as an urgent moment, emphasizing the organization's commitment to grassroots engagement and voter recruitment. The town halls are part of a broader strategy to build on previous efforts that mobilized millions of voters of color, with a focus on informing communities about policy impacts and increasing voter turnout.

NAACP launching town halls to mobilize Black voters ahead of midterms

And at CBS News Exclusive, we've learned that America's oldest civil rights organization is kicking off a series of town halls this week to mobilize Black voters ahead of next year's midterm elections. The NAACP said they plan to focus on the Trump administration's rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI policies, as well as their cuts to Medicaid and food assistance programs in addition to others. The organization's president, Derek Johnson, told CBS News that this was a, quote, urgent moment. CBS News Congressional Correspondent Nicole Killian joins us now. And Nicole, very good to see you. Let's talk about this. Where is the NAACP looking to focus its attention when it comes to mobilizing the vote next year? Yeah, well, keep in mind, we're kind of in this season of town halls, right, with Congress being in recess. So we know lawmakers are holding town halls. But now the NAACP says it, too, will be conducting a series of nationwide town halls beginning Tuesday in New Jersey. And this is taking place more than a year ahead of the midterms, the NAACP says, because they really want to launch this all-out unprecedented effort to mobilize Black voters. Of course, the NAACP was very instrumental in mobilizing Black voters during the presidential election, investing some $20 million in the effort to mobilize more than 14 million voters of color. But they really want to go beyond that, if they can, and certainly try to maintain that momentum. So a lot of these town halls will be focused on the Trump administration policies with respect to the big, beautiful bill that recently passed and its impact on communities of color. So the Trump administration's recent rollbacks of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, as well as some of the recent immigration raids that we have seen in cities around the country. The president of the NAACP says that this is an urgent moment. And so, you know, they believe strongly that some of these policies are negatively impacting, particularly African-American communities. So they want to get the word out in terms of a response. But they also want to try to get voters to the polls well in advance by trying to recruit more volunteers, recruiting more voters, you know, going door to door, really engaging people on the grassroots level. So that is the purpose of these town halls, which will be taking place over the next several weeks. And, Nicole, as we were reporting, state lawmakers in Texas were unable to advance their bill to redraw the state's congressional districts today. Here's what Governor Greg Abbott just told CBS News Texas. We're searching across the state. We call it a dragnet, looking for any Democrats we can find to make quorum. For your audience, there's 150 members of the Texas House, 88 Republicans to have a quorum. We need a total of 100. So we need 12 Democrats to be able to make quorum. We will continue to search as we speak right now to try to make quorum. So Nicole, hearing that, where do things go next? Well, look, you know, the governor has made clear that is he is going to keep calling special session after special session to try to move forward with this congressional map. Of course, we know that Democrats have fled the state. So because of that, they haven't been able to get this quorum, which is what they need to be able to vote on this new map, which would potentially add upwards of five Republican seats if approved. So that is why Democrats fled in protest. In fact, you know, there has been a law enforcement effort to try to track some of these lawmakers down. Many of them have fled to blue states today. They held a presser with Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, where they were very mum about their plans and next steps. But for now, they plan to try to ride this out as long as they can to again protest this congressional map. All right. Nicole Killian, thank you very much.

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