Black Intensive Civic Engagement Project (BICEP)

The goal of the Black Intensive Civic Engagement Project (BICEP) is to Deepening democracy in African American communities. Today, any effort to mobilize black voters must begin with a critical question: After thirty years, why hasn't voting done more to improve African American lives and livelihoods?

With efforts to bring hundreds of thousands of active new black voters into the electoral process, the 2008 electoral season is a signal opportunity for engaging local activists and leaders in a full civic discourse about conditions in communities. A deepened conversation could help forge new policy agendas for local, state and federal lawmakers, tie voter registration and GOTV to those agendas and by doing so, create long term mechanisms for stimulating and supporting black political involvement. In past elections, voter engagement efforts sought to convince African Americans to support Party platforms and candidates and participation became an end in itself. Today, voter engagement efforts must focus on the issues and concerns that are most relevant to African Americans' lives, such as neighborhood displacement, over-incarceration, and failing schools.