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WASHINGTON (AP) — The NAACP has issued a call to action for Black athletes and supporters, urging them to boycott sports programs at public universities in states where, according to the organization, Black voting rights are under threat.
Unveiled on Tuesday, the “Out of Bounds” initiative appeals to Black athletes, their families, alumni, and fans to refrain from offering athletic or financial backing to significant public universities located in states that have taken steps to curb, diminish, or abolish Black voting influence.
Should Black athletes adhere to the boycott, it could significantly impact the rosters of leading football and basketball teams within the Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference.
The NAACP joins other groups in response to widespread gerrymandering following a U.S. Supreme Court decision that weakened a critical component of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
This boycott emerges amidst a surge of civil rights activism throughout the Southern U.S., where demonstrators are challenging Republican state legislatures’ redistricting strategies that dissolve majority-Black congressional districts. Activists are seeking ways to exert pressure on these GOP-led states, employing tactics such as mass protests and economic boycotts to counteract the redistricting plans.
“Across the South, Black athletes have helped build some of the most profitable college athletic programs in America,” said NAACP President Derrick Johnson. Johnson noted that the programs “generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue, national television value, alumni donations, merchandising sales, ticket sales, and brand equity — much of it powered by Black football and basketball talent.”
The NAACP’s campaign calls out Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and South Carolina as states to boycott, arguing that the athletic programs of those states’ flagship universities are especially reliant on Black athletic talent and should protect Black political interests.
“Black athletes should not be asked to generate wealth, prestige, and power for state institutions while those same states strip political power from Black communities,” Johnson said.
The timing of the initiative comes at a moment in the college athletic calendar that might make it difficult for it to have any immediate impact. The transfer portals for the high-profile Division I sports of football and basketball are all closed until 2027.
There may be an opportunity to influence prominent high school recruits who are still weighing their college prospects for the fall of 2027 and beyond. While many schools have received nonbinding verbal agreements from football and basketball players, those agreements won’t become official until late fall at the earliest.
The signing window for basketball opens in mid-November — about a week after the midterm elections — and the 72-hour early signing period for football arrives in the first week of December.
There is a chance that recruits could attempt to put pressure on flagship institutions in the targeted states by threatening to sign somewhere else. The reality, however, is that the pockets of those schools run deep, and asking a teenager to factor politics into a decision that could produce a life-altering financial windfall before they are even old enough to vote could prove tenuous.
Black lawmakers themselves are also putting pressure on athletic leagues to take action against Republican-led states that may redistrict longtime Black members of Congress.
The Congressional Black Caucus on Monday sent a letter to the commissioners of the SEC and ACC athletic conferences, as well as NCAA President Charlie Baker, that its members will oppose the SCORE Act, a bill to standardize athletes’ contracting rights across the country, unless conference leaders oppose GOP-led redistricting efforts in states that include major conference members.
“The Congressional Black Caucus believes institutions that profit from Black talent and Black communities have a responsibility to stand with those communities when their fundamental rights are under attack,” the CBC said in a Monday statement. “Silence in the face of injustice is not neutrality — it is complicity.”