Blacks for Political and Social Action of Dane County (BPSADC) will host a fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz at Hayes Place on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 5-7 p.m.
“For one of the most qualified presidential candidates of our time, who happens to be a Black woman, we believe that it’s all hands on deck,” Rev. David Hart, president of BPSADC, tells Madison365. “And so several organizations and several people have come together and while we are doing our own work, we wanted to collectively do something together to help get her elected, and help win Wisconsin for her.”
Hayes Place is a new Black-owned event space on Madison’s North Side.
“The fundraiser will have some jazz and some refreshments, cocktails and some lightfare food,” Hart says. “There will be some speakers offering words of encouragement to vote and to speak on the depth of Kamala Harris’s record. I think the structure will be essentially like many other fundraisers, but in our own style.”
(Photo supplied.)
BPSADC, Inc, is an organization of community leaders and citizens who have joined together to speak in a concerted and united voice on important issues. Several of the leaders and members in the organization have worked on issues that affect the Black community and all communities at large, under several administrations, without regard to political affiliation, social status or organizational affiliation.
Hart says that he has seen a special kind of excitement for Harris as she campaigns to make history as the first female, first Black and first Asian-American president.
“There has been a record number of young Black women who have registered to vote, young Black women who are first-time voters, many of them ages 18-23 or so,” Hart says. “So we’re finding an uptick in 18 to 24-year-old Black women and Black people overall. We’re seeing a lot of excitement in the Divine Nine [historically African American fraternities and sororities] and just in the African American community generally about Kamala Harris running for president. 
“We think she is a very qualified candidate and we see all of the attacks and the virulent and visceral and racist and hurtful things they say about her … really just tired and cliche … and it makes us more resolute and more resolved to work harder and ensure that she wins,” he adds.
For Tuesday’s fundraising event, people are encouraged to pay what they can.
“Everybody’s free to stop by and if you feel like chipping in, chip in. If you don’t, if you can’t, if you won’t, that’s all good, as well,” Hart says. “But everything we collect will go directly to the campaign.
“I get really careful about saying that this election is the most important in our lifetime because we find ourselves saying that every single election, but this one is profoundly important,” he adds.
