LeBron Praised Black Voters For Coming Out In Record Numbers During The Election

Even before the election results started coming in on Tuesday, experts had anticipated that Black voters would turn out in record numbers across the United States this year. That was a key issue for democrats in 2016 as Black voter turnout declined for the first time in nearly 20 years.

Trump’s policies and rhetoric during his White House tenure have been one of the main factors to Black voters exercising their rights — with the vast majority of those votes going to democratic nominee Joe Biden — but it was also thanks to a major push from LeBron James and other star athletes, who banded together in recent months as part of the More Than A Vote initiative.

More Than A Vote was designed to help educate the public about voter suppression tactics against minority groups in America and help historically-disenfranchised groups understand their rights and get registered. As Joe Biden continued to take the lead in the key states necessary to secure the election on Friday morning, LeBron took a moment to praise voters in those states for doing their part to make history.

The state of Georgia has turned out to be one of the biggest surprises this election cycle, as Biden has been able to overcome his deficit there and appears to be on track to take those electoral votes, although it could take some time for that to be confirmed. That’s thanks in large part to former Georgia House minority leader Stacey Abrams, who has helped more than 800,000 new voters through the New Georgia Project and other voting rights initiatives in the state. LeBron added a special shout-out to Abrams on Friday morning as well.

The NBA, as part of the social justice initiative it instituted in the wake of the work stoppage, secured agreements to use team-owned arenas as voting sights in this election. Once the tallies are all in, it’ll be interested to see just how much of an impact that made on the outcome as well.