PRINCEVILLE, N.C. — On a single-lane road in eastern North Carolina surrounded by farmland, members of Mark Chapel Baptist Church hear a sermon about their faith and the importance of voting as part of their “black belt.” The extent of majority black Congressional districts in the South.
The 1st Congressional District hasn’t elected a Republican since 1883, and an African-American has represented the district since 1992, but that could change this year.
Residents here find themselves facing new political realities. The key battleground state is contesting 16 electoral votes, and although no Democratic presidential candidate has won the state since 2008, Republican support has shrunk in the past two elections. In 2016, Donald Trump won by 3.6 points, and in 2020 he defeated Joe Biden by 1.3 points. The 1st District is the only competitive congressional race in North Carolina since redistricting.
Currently, North Carolina’s congressional delegation includes seven Democrats and seven Republicans. new map According to Cook Political Report, the 1st District is expected to be a crowded field, with 10 Republicans and three Democrats.
On Sunday, Vice President Kamala Harris visited East Carolina University in Pitt County was redistricted from the Democratic-leaning 1st Congressional District to the 3rd Congressional District, which is expected to contain a Republican. Incumbent Democratic Congressman Don Davis of the 1st District spoke just before Harris took the stage.
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“The young people who are now in the 1st Congressional District were on the old map,” said former Congresswoman Eva Clayton, who represented the district. “Right now he’s working on a new map, which means he’s got some challenges.”
The 1st Congressional District is home to some of the oldest Black communities in the United States, with a centuries-old legacy of political organization. Princeville is the nation’s oldest chartered African-American town, formed at the end of the Civil War. In nearby Warren County, protests in 1982 are believed to be the origin of the term “environmental justice.” The district is also home to Soul City, a utopian project inspired by the 1970s civil rights movement.
Princeville has been subject to repeated flooding that has threatened residents for decades. One of Mayor Bobby Jones’ biggest challenges is protecting his historic town from increasingly severe flooding.
“It’s disillusioning and frustrating, but at the same time, this is the hand we’ve been dealt,” Jones told CBS News. “There’s nothing you can do about it other than move, and that’s not an option.”
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Princeville has benefited from the Biden administration’s focus on climate infrastructure. In 2024, the town was awarded $11 million to build flood mitigation infrastructure. bipartisan infrastructure law. The funding is also part of President Biden’s Justice 40 initiative, which aims to give 40% of federal climate subsidies to disadvantaged communities like Princeville.
And this year, Jones is seeing the community come alive in a way she hasn’t seen in more than a decade.
“I’m excited to see the enthusiasm of young people wanting to vote and talking about voting, which I haven’t heard as much lately since President Obama,” Jones told CBS News.
In nearby Warren County, local leaders are focused on teaching young people about the historic political movement that started in their backyards. Pastor Bill Carney’s family lived next to a landfill where the federal government dumped PCB chemicals. In the 1980s, demonstrators gathered at nearby Corey Springs Missionary Baptist Church and marched to the landfill to protest the negative effects of toxic soil dumping on majority-black communities. 500 people were arrested and the protest is seen as the beginning of environmental justice as a movement.
“They’ve moved on about two or three generations and are looking for heroes elsewhere. There are a lot of heroes here who have done great things,” Carney told CBS News. .
The PCB protests also prompted changes in race relations. Wayne Moseley, who is white, attended the protest and believes it changed the county’s political landscape.
“I rarely saw blacks and whites socializing together, but this was the first time I had ever seen blacks and whites eating together, holding hands, marching together, and singing together. ” he told CBS News.
He believes the protests marked a turning point, when majority-black counties started electing more black elected officials, including Mr. Clayton.
Creighton was the first black woman elected to Congress from North Carolina in 1992. She believes turnout in rural black communities in the Black Belt, which have been ignored by Democratic campaigns so far, will be key to winning both the 1st District and the state. For Democratic presidential candidates.
“We can’t do it in urban areas alone,” she said. “You can’t ignore that black people in rural areas are out there.”
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In rural eastern North Carolina, organizations like Walk Vote, a nonprofit that works to increase voter turnout and increase community political participation, are working to get out the vote.
One Sunday this summer, the group visited Mark Chapel Baptist Church to speak to the community. Tilda Whitaker-Bailey, Edgecombe County Director of Woke Vote, helped register voters and inform them of the identification they need to vote and plans for getting to the polls.
“They’re waking up to the fact that they need to be involved,” she says. “They need to do something to change these numbers. They realize they’re not doing well because they’re not getting the results they want.”
As a result, church leaders are urging members to register. Some, like Pastor Douglas Leonard of Mark Chappell, are coordinating transportation.
“We just want to educate the public on the importance of voting, how important it is and why as people of color we always have to vote,” he told CBS News. “We have the right to vote because so many of our ancestors died. We don’t want their deaths to be in vain.”