With voting rights in mind, Progressive National Baptists head to Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON (RNS) — On the first full day of their annual session, a busload of members of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, a historically Black denomination that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called home, headed to Capitol Hill to meet with members of Congress about their concerns about voting in the upcoming midterms and beyond them.

“We cannot come to D.C. and not have conversations with our federal legislators,” said the Rev. Willie D. Francois III, co-chair of the PNBC’s Social Justice Commission, during a live edition of the youth-led podcast “The Pew and the Porch.” Francois spoke on the episode on Monday (July 20) at the Omni Shoreham shortly before he and the younger panelists left for their Capitol visit.

“The Supreme Court, not too far from here, decided that it was OK for Black folks to not deserve representation in Congress,” he said. “Not only do they want to dilute our vote, now they are telling us we cannot elect the people we want in office.”

Francois said the PNBC is looking to senators and representatives to take action from their branch of government after the high court gutted the Voting Rights Act by declaring a congressional map of Louisiana’s second majority-Black district “an unconstitutional gerrymander.”

“We’re going over there to say, listen, the Supreme Court can make one decision, but you, as the Congress, have a responsibility to restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act, and only you can do that,” he said.

The high court’s decision has prompted renewed and revamped efforts toward mobilizing votes, even as President Trump has sought congressional passage of the SAVE America Act that would require proof of citizenship for voter registration and a valid photo ID at the polls. Citizenship is already a voting requirement.

“It’s a shame that something like that is even being introduced and considered,” PNBC President David Peoples told Religion News Service in an interview before heading to the Capitol, noting the lack of credible evidence of voter fraud in the U.S.

“For those who are older, those who are challenged to find a birth certificate, I mean, it’s unnecessary, and it’s, more so, making one feel like they want to make sure that you’re white rather than right. Because it affects, really, more so, Black and brown people,” Peoples said.

The denomination’s Freedom Sunday 2026 guide — which encouraged churches to mark Sunday, July 5, with the theme “What is the 250th Anniversary to Black people and Black Churches?” — described its “arc of activation” from a Lenten time of discernment about justice issues to this week’s convention through the midterm elections.

Like other Black Christian leaders, the Rev. Jamal Bryant, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a prominent megachurch outside Atlanta, cited the Louisiana v. Callais decision by the Supreme Court as a motivator for joining the visit to members of Congress.

“The voice of the Black church is saying that we have the moral compass for what’s taking place in the country and in the culture, and to register our discontentment with what is taking place in the rollback of the strides that impact our community,” Bryant told RNS.

The Rev. Andre E. Johnson, director of social justice for the PNBC’s Southern region, said he doesn’t personally think Hill discussions this close to the midterms will change what has recently occurred with redistricting or gerrymandering. But he said greater mobilization of people to register and vote could make Southern states like Louisiana or Tennessee have different-than-expected results.

“To bear witness is to lay down a foundation for future work,” said Johnson, a Memphis, Tennessee, pastor and communication professor. “So one of the things that we really want to try to do is to remind elected officials that what they thought was going to be in their advantage may just be their downfall.”