Corporate Activism on Voting Rights Echoes Role in LGBTQ Battles
In the fight over North Carolina’s “bathroom bill” and now, business leaders acted on what they saw as a moral rather than typical political issue.
With Derek Chauvin’s guilty verdict in the books, the focus of U.S. racial politics is shifting back to the GOP’s efforts to limit voting access in states across the country. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, legislators in 47 states have introduced 361 such bills, some of which have already been enacted. That means more pressure on corporations along the lines of what befell Delta, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and other companies when Georgia instituted new strictures in late March making it more difficult to vote, especially for Black people.
The intense focus on racial justice, spurred by events from George Floyd’s killing to Republican voter restrictions, has created a growing expectation that corporations respond or face censure from their employees, customers, and local communities. On April 20 a coalition of Georgia faith leaders representing more than 1,000 churches launched a boycott of Atlanta-based Home Depot Inc., which they say didn’t sufficiently oppose the state’s new law. “This is not just a Georgia issue; we’re talking about democracy in America that is under threat,” Timothy McDonald III, pastor of the First Iconium Baptist Church in Atlanta, told the New York Times.