The list of Black celebrities to hop on the Joe Biden presidential campaign grew by one with a new video ad featuring one of Hollywood’s most iconic voices.
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Samuel L. Jackson offered his recognizable voice, image, and brash speaking style to a new campaign video for Biden as election day nears. The actor not only used his 60-second slot to encourage voting, but Jackson also detailed the history of voter suppression.
“If your vote didn’t matter, they wouldn’t try so hard to take it from you,” the actor said in the short ad. With imagery of Martin Luther King Jr. and protests from the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, Jackson introduced the history of barriers put in place to hinder Black people from voting such as poll taxes, literacy tests and violence.
“New day, same old dirty tricks,” he said as the tone shifted to present-day efforts. The campaign ad highlighted recent news of President Donald Trump‘s reported effort to sabotage mail-in votes.
The message hammered down by the Snakes On A Plane star is not only to vote for Biden, but to vote early.
“I’m exercising my right to vote, and you should too. Not because I want you too, but because he doesn’t,” he said after photos of Trump flashed on-screen.
The video ended with a stern “Vote dammit! Vote!”
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This is not the Biden Campaign’s first time enlisting Black celebrity to endorse its candidate. theGrio reported the “Our Voice, Our Vote” ad campaign lead by the Democratic presidential nominee featured Atlanta-based musicians Ludacris, Monica, and Jermaine Dupri among others. The ads, similar to Jackson’s were designed to be inspirational and speak directly to the audience on how their vote matters according to theGrio.
“It is really really important to make sure people don’t sit at home,” Dupri said in his campaign.
“Our campaign is focused on meeting voters where they are with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ message to build back better,” said Biden’s campaign director of strategic communications Kamau Marshall, according to theGrio.
For the hopeful president, efforts to reach Black voters may have landed. Pew Research found that Biden currently leads Black voters by 81 percentage points, and Black voters are among those likely to say their choice to vote is for Biden as opposed to voting against Trump.
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