The Watch the Yard platform has 2 million followers, and Rabb says its content reaches about 13 million people per month. Because the Divine 9 fraternity and sorority is encouraged to continue after finishing college, Rabb also notes that its audience is intergenerational, with Gen Z and baby boomers actively engaging with each other in the comment sections. “We can reach students in the swing states. We can reach a student in the Pacific Northwest. Because there’s D9 there. If I can reach that AKA in Oregon, I can reach their peers.”
On July 30, Watch the Yard announced its official partnership with Michelle Obama. When we all voteFounded in 2018, this nonprofit, nonpartisan organization seeks to help increase turnout in all elections. On Watch the Yard’s Instagram, followers can simply click the link in their bio to quickly view their registration status.
“As Black people struggle for our right to vote, Divine 9 has been constantly connected to democracy and pushing people to vote,” Rabb says. Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, the second oldest African-American sorority, She was at the forefront of the suffrage movement, with the group’s first public act of service taking place in 1913.“As far as the elections are concerned, this is just a continuation of the work that (the Divine 9) have already been doing.”
Black Greek organizations are not only organizing publicly online, but also privately. WIRED confirmed that more than 8,000 Alpha Kappa Alpha members have created an unofficial, secret GroupMe for the purpose of increasing voter turnout in their communities. The privacy of the group allows members to share information about key campaign platforms for both candidates, create strategic planning for voter registration in underserved communities, and share opinions about the candidates without the pressure of maintaining official protocols.
While the Divine 9 as organizations are not authorized to endorse specific candidates, alumni from HBCUs like Howard University are campaigning. Howard University’s Bison PAC, a project within the Collective CAPa political action committee working to elect more Black officials for political equity, has rallied alumni to raise money for Harris-Walz’s candidacy.
While the PAC is not associated with any D9 organizations, many of the PAC’s members are also D9 members. According to an internal email seen by WIRED, the first “HU Bison For Kamala” Zoom call on July 25 hosted more than 4,000 attendees and raised more than $151,000 for Harris’ campaign. “In the next two weeks,” the email says, “we will begin our Bison PAC phone and text ‘Zoom parties’ to encourage Black voters in key swing states to support Kamala Harris for President.”
The email to PAC members also included a link to a social media best practices guide put together by Cameron Trimble, a Howard University alumnus and founder of the Hip-Politics platform. The guide is titled “Ways to Be Helpful in the Digital and Social Media Landscape” and includes tips such as only sharing and engaging with positive Kamala content, not engaging with negative comments and content to avoid having them spike in the algorithm, and creating your own WhatsApp or internal group chats to share verified information for quick responses.
“We want to raise as much money as possible for Kamala. We want to make sure all Bisons (Howard students and alumni) are registered to vote, and we want to give them accurate information to spread in their communities,” says Stefanie Brown James, co-founder and senior advisor to the Collective PAC. “Long-term, we want to build Bison PAC into an independent organization to support other Howard alumni running for office across the country… We want to be involved in our political process and make sure we have a role in electing our leaders.”