Black activists try to make mark on 2020 race

It’s been six years since the phrase “Black Lives Matter” was first tweeted in the aftermath of the shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Now activists are redefining themselves. Some have left the larger movement in its entirety, others have become entrenched in political distrust, but some activists have taken the fight directly to the 2020 candidates for the presidency.

Two of the most engaged activists associated with Black Lives Matter are Johnetta Elzie and DeRay McKesson, who gained a national profile for the protests they organized around the 2016 police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

The two earned even more prominence in the 2016 race, grabbing headlines for their meetings with Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. And they’re aiming to have just as much of an impact — if not more — on the sprawling Democratic presidential field this time around.

Unlike other activists who have pursued headline-grabbing disruptions, Elzie and McKesson are taking a data-driven approach through their organization Campaign Zero, which they co-founded with data analyst Samuel Sinyangwe in 2015. The group is focused on policy solutions to mitigate police brutality.

Campaign Zero has so far spoken to multiple 2020 candidates, including Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris and Julián Castro, with the organization particularly praising Castro for his early and aggressive criminal-justice reform platform.

While the group is being publicly diplomatic in its assessments of the field so far, they also expressed reservations with some, including Buttigieg, the South Bend mayor who recently has grappled with the police shooting of a black man in his hometown and struggled to draw the support of black voters.

“My first impression was that it seemed like he really, genuinely cared,” Sinyangwe said about the group’s meeting with Buttigieg before the first presidential debate. “It seemed like he definitely got the gravity of the situation, why it was important for him as mayor to step up and look for solutions.”

But praise for Buttigieg faltered when discussing South Bend. According to Sinyangwe, it was obvious that the mayor “didn’t have a clear plan” to address the shooting.

Sinyangwe characterized Buttigieg as an empathetic leader who was unprepared to deal with the situation and public outcry. According to the Campaign Zero co-founder, South Bend is behind, having just recently posted its use of force policy online.

“It's not a radical thing to post your policies online. It's actually standard best practice for police departments across the country,” Sinyangwe remarked.

Buttigieg’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Campaign Zero activists realize the potential influence they could have on the 2020 race, with many of the candidates scrambling to court black voters and with questions of use of force by police looming large in the national consciousness.

So far, Joe Biden has had a sizable advantage with black voters, but the support has been slipping, with Harris and Cory Booker hammering the front-runner for his role cheerleading a controversial 1994 crime bill and his past opposition to federally mandated busing.

Elzie derided Biden’s campaign, saying, “I think Joe Biden should absolutely not be running for president. A platform built on ‘I’m not Donald Trump’ is not enough. The bar is on the floor if that is what your whole campaign is built off on.”

Biden’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Elzie, McKesson and Sinyangwe would not divulge plans for future meetings with other candidates or their views on the rest of the field. But they say they prefer the direct engagement with candidates to the outsider approach many Black Lives Matter activists took in 2016, saying it helps them bolster the data analysis approach Campaign Zero takes with the recommendations they offer to combat police brutality.

One of their most recent public efforts was the release in May of a police scorecard that rated police departments in California on factors such as use of force and police-related deaths. The data then informs their policy recommendations for state and national political figures.

Campaign Zero’s policycentric model deviates from the strategy used by many Black Lives Matter activists. Though none of the co-founders of Campaign Zero are officially part of the Black Lives Matter movement, various media outlets have listed them as such. But Elzie said she has rejected this moniker for years.

“I’m not against the hashtag, I just am against that all of those resources passed over my hometown. And people feel left behind. And I do not appreciate that,” she said.