NAACP and Black Caucus ask athletes to boycott college programs in seven Southern states
The NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus launched a new campaign this week calling on Black athletes and fans to boycott the athletic programs of public universities in several states the groups say are restricting Black voting rights. The groups said the effort is designed to pressure states that they argue are moving to limit, weaken or erase Black voting representation and to respond to changes they say followed a Supreme Court ruling affecting the Voting Rights Act.
In a launch announcement described as “Out of Bounds,” the NAACP urged current and prospective athletes, their families, alumni and fans to “withhold athletic and financial support” from major public universities in the targeted states. The NAACP also said the pressure strategy is aimed at state institutions whose sports programs rely heavily, in the NAACP’s view, on Black athletic talent while those same states reduce political power for Black communities.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson, speaking during a news conference in front of the U.S. Capitol, said he believed Republican-led Southern states were “seeking to reinstitute a sharecropping reality” by recruiting Black athletic talent while limiting, in his view, “our ability to elect candidates of our choice.” Johnson tied the sports industry’s economic and reputational value to political influence, arguing that Black athletes should not be asked to generate “wealth, prestige, and power” for state institutions when the groups say the states are stripping voting power from Black communities.
Johnson also linked the boycott to a broader push against redistricting changes. The effort is part of a coordinated strategy by Black political leaders and civil rights activists to dissuade GOP-led states from redistricting long-standing majority-Black congressional districts, with voting rights groups and Democratic lawmakers pursuing lawsuits aimed at blocking potential district changes.
The NAACP’s campaign specifically named seven states to boycott: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and South Carolina. The AP reported that the ACC and SEC, Florida State University, the University of Alabama, and four Historically Black College and University conferences—the SWAC, MEAC, SIAC and CIAA—along with chapters of the National African American Athlete Alliance in Texas and Florida did not respond to a request for comment.
Alongside the boycott call, the Congressional Black Caucus said it would unanimously oppose the SCORE Act, a bill backed by major athletic conferences that would set new rules for the payment of college athletes. The caucus said it would oppose the legislation unless the sports leagues also oppose redistricting efforts by GOP-led states, and Rep. Yvette Clarke, the caucus chair, said the group could not support legislation benefiting major athletic institutions that remained silent while, in the caucus’s view, “black voting rights and black political power are being systematically dismantled across the South.”
Clarke said that “silence in the face of injustice is not neutrality — it is complicity,” in a statement described as a Monday letter to commissioners of the SEC and ACC athletic conferences as well as NCAA President Charlie Baker. After the caucus announcement, the AP reported, the SCORE Act was pulled from the schedule of the House committee overseeing the bill, which Clarke described as proof that “silence from our institutions in moments of injustice carries consequences.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the boycott was intended to oppose what he characterized as “a dramatic return to racially oppressive Jim Crow-like tactics,” while adding that athletes would still ultimately have to make individual decisions and that lawmakers and civil rights leaders would support those choices.
The NAACP and caucus effort also faces timing constraints tied to college athletics. The AP reported that the transfer portals for the high-profile Division I sports of football and basketball are closed until 2027, limiting immediate roster-level impact. The groups said the campaign may instead affect the decisions of high school recruits, where nonbinding verbal agreements would not become official until late fall at the earliest, according to the AP description of how the recruiting calendar works.
The AP also reported that basketball signing begins in mid-November—about a week after the midterm elections—while the 72-hour early signing period for football arrives in the first week of December. The possibility of recruits attempting to pressure flagship institutions in targeted states by threatening to sign elsewhere was raised as a potential dynamic, alongside the practical challenge that recruiting decisions can be influenced by the prospect of large, time-sensitive financial opportunities for players who are not yet old enough to vote.
Brandon Copeland, CEO of Athletes.org and a former professional football player, told reporters the opposition to the SCORE Act and the redistricting efforts are linked, describing the proposed SCORE changes as “really a control mechanism.” Copeland said his organization would “stand tall” with athletes and with relatives and others he referenced, as well as with people he said “deserves a voice.”