Harris County set a record on the first day of early voting Oct. 19, when more than 104,600 people cast ballots in person ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm election. The previous first-day mark for a midterm, set in 2018, was 63,188. Early voting runs through Oct. 30.
The turnout points to an energized electorate. But for many Black Houstonians, the familiar call to “show up” now comes with a question attached. Show up for what? Since early 2025, voters in the 18th Congressional District, once represented by Barbara Jordan and Mickey Leland, have gone to the polls four times in seven months. They have watched the U.S. Supreme Court weaken a key section of the Voting Rights Act and seen federal and corporate diversity programs rolled back.
That tension shaped “Real Conversations Part III: The Power of Showing Up,” a community forum Fight for Democracy recently hosted at The Astorian. The evening opened with a fireside chat featuring rapper, producer, and activist David Banner, followed by a panel that included Houston-raised actor and organizer Kendrick Sampson. Ashley Etienne, a former communications director for Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi, moderated.
Voting is not the finish line
Banner, a Jackson, Mississippi, native, has paired music with activism for much of his career, and in 2007. He told the crowd he had grown tired of conversations that do not lead to action.
“The difference between me and most people is I want to do something,” Banner said. “And I’m sick of talking.”
Banner said Black voters should still cast ballots, but he challenged candidates to speak to them directly.
“So, although we do need to vote, the problem is most people who are running are too afraid to tell you what they’re going to do for your community,” he said. “They tell every other subsection in America exactly what they’re going to do.”
He described the work ahead as a shared responsibility. Banner said he reads the story of Jesus not as a man carrying a cross for others, but as a lesson in how to carry your own.
“These Black children are our cross to bear,” Banner said. “The food that they are feeding our community is our cross to bear. Our entertainment, our music, is our cross to bear. And no white man is coming out of the sky to save you or to save your community.”
Why the pressure feels heavier
U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner died March 5, 2025, leaving the 18th District without a voting member of Congress for nearly a year. Voters returned for a special election in November 2025, a special runoff on Jan. 31, a March 3 primary, and a May 26 primary runoff. Mid-decade redistricting by the Texas Legislature placed U.S. Rep. Al Green in the redrawn district, setting up a Democratic runoff that Christian Menefee won.
In April, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Louisiana v. Callais that the state’s second majority-Black congressional district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The decision makes it harder to use Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to require districts where Black voters can elect their preferred candidates.
Nationally, Black turnout slipped from 63% in 2020 to about 60% in 2024, according to U.S. Census Bureau survey data.
Makia Golliday is a Galveston native and entrepreneur who began her civic engagement in childhood, accompanying her parents to the polls before she was eligible to vote.
“Before I turned 18, I would go to the polls all the time with my parents and wait and watch them vote,” Golliday said. “So, being that I saw them vote, when I turned 18, there was no doubt about it that I was going to vote.”
She has voted every year since, including in 2024. Today, she defines showing up as researching candidates with the same energy she gives her TikTok feed and honoring the ancestors who fought for the right to vote.
Many people who skip elections have never seen voting modeled at home. Without that example, she said, voting can feel like one more errand that competes with social life.
The issues she wants elected officials to address start with children. Safe schools, safe neighborhoods, access to healthy food in communities that are food deserts, and abortion and civil rights protections.
“The best way you can show up, if you can’t curate the events yourself, pop up wherever you can,” she said. “Show up to that Little League game. Show up for the local football team.”
Registered, then waiting
Javiney Duhon voted on the first morning of early voting. Getting there took longer than she expected. At the polls, she found the ballot easy to understand and the process quick.
“But when you look around, first off, our ancestors fought so hard for us to have the right,” Duhon said. “And they’re trying so hard for us not to vote, it means something. They wouldn’t be putting that much energy into it.”
Duhon considered herself an independent for most of her life. The current political climate pushed her to pick a side, and she now leans Democratic.
She lives in Sunnyside, a historically Black neighborhood in south Houston that is drawing new investment. Her daily concerns are property taxes and illegal dumping. Investors who abandon lots and let them become overgrown go without citations or fines, and he wants the added tax revenue from rising property values to show up in local schools and streets.
“With the gentrification and all the extra money coming in from the property taxes in the area, we need to see that more,” Duhon said. “We need to see it improving as we come in and we spend more of our dollars in the area.”
Taking care of each other
Sampson grew up in Houston and began acting in theater at Elkins High School in Missouri City. He is known for roles on HBO’s “Insecure” and ABC’s “How to Get Away with Murder,” and in 2019, he co-founded BLD PWR, a nonprofit that connects entertainers with grassroots organizers.
He warned the audience against counting on Black people in positions of power to speak for the community.
“We can’t expect Black faces in high places,” Sampson said. “Usually Black faces in high places got to that high place because they compromised to get close to white people.”
Sampson also pushed back on the idea that Black celebrities have gone quiet. Many are speaking out, but they are doing so while networks cancel shows and corporations and technology companies reshape film, television, and music, cutting jobs along the way.
“A lot of Black celebrities are speaking out right now,” Sampson said. “We just broke.”
The backlash Black communities face today is a response to the power they showed during the 2020 protests, and pointed to a model of community care that predates social media.
“We showed how we will take care of each other, no matter what,” Sampson said. “Like the Black Panthers, we’ve done this before. Free breakfast was about us taking care of each other, not through their systems.”
