Ariana Phillips grew up going to protests. Her mother took her. Her grandmother made sure she understood why.
By the time Phillips graduated from Rice University in May 2025, she had interned at the Massachusetts State House, the Harris County Office of County Administration, and the Texas First Court of Appeals. Voting, for her, has never been optional.
But when Phillips thinks about her generation and the local elections shaping Houston right now, she knows she is the exception, not the rule.
“There are two sides to this issue,” Phillips said. “One group of young people may not really feel that their vote matters or that there isn’t really anything that they can do right now. On the other side, mainly college-educated young people I have interacted with, they are a lot more up to date and civically inclined.”
The gap Phillips describes is playing out across Houston’s historically Black neighborhoods at a critical moment. Local elections, from city council seats to congressional runoffs, are deciding who controls the policies, budgets, and appointments that shape everyday life in communities like Third Ward, Sunnyside, South Park, and Missouri City. And a generation of young Black Houstonians is being called on to engage repeatedly, in rapid succession, with little time to catch their breath.
The District 18 congressional runoff on May 26 is among the most visible examples. Voters in the district will head to the polls for the fourth time in seven months to fill a seat once held by trailblazers Barbara Jordan, the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, and the late Sylvester Turner, a race made more urgent by Republican redistricting that merged two historically Black congressional districts into one.
For Tanisha Manning, founder and executive director of Engaged Voters, moments like this are exactly why she does the work. A native of southeast Houston, Manning launched the nonpartisan nonprofit in 2020 from her phone, mid-pandemic, after watching the civic conversation around the killing of George Floyd reduce an entire generation’s political agency to two words.
“The system recognizes our power. “That’s why they try to silence us. But the system also knows that we don’t know our own power. If enough of them show up, we’ve got a problem.”
Tanisha Manning
“The message coming in was just, ‘go vote,'” said Manning, a Tulane University Law School graduate. “I realized the ballot education piece was missing. My peers voted, but they were like, ‘I don’t know what I’m voting for half the time.'”
More than five years later, Manning said voter fatigue in Harris County has never been more acute. Organizations doing ground-level civic work are stretched thin, and many young Houstonians remain unaware of what is on the ballot.
“People are tired of voting,” she said. “We should not be tired of voting. But elections are coming so fast, and we don’t know who or what. It has been confusing.”
Manning refuses to concede the moment. Engaged Voters targets 18- to 35-year-old Black voters across Southeast Houston, Third Ward, Sunnyside, South Park, Old Spanish Trail, and Southacres. She has built her methodology around connecting the ballot to the block. She walks residents through a chain of accountability. Who appoints the police chief? The mayor. How does the mayor get elected? Your vote.
“The system recognizes our power,” Manning said. “That’s why they try to silence us. But the system also knows that we don’t know our own power. If enough of them show up, we’ve got a problem.”
The Engaged Voters Civic Leadership Institute, now in its fourth year, trains five to eight community participants each spring in an 8- to 10-week program covering government processes, voter rights, and election protection. Past cohorts have lobbied at the Texas State Capitol and traveled to Washington, D.C., to advocate on the Hill. This cycle, Manning said, the institute is focused on election protection and voter rights.
Kimberly Upchurch, regional director of the Social Justice Learning Institute in Houston, sees the same energy building among even younger Houstonians. Her organization works with students from sixth through 12th grade inside HISD and Alief ISD, building civic advocacy skills through youth-led research projects on issues ranging from food deserts to mental health.
“They are aware and paying attention to decisions that are directly impacting their future,” Upchurch said. “They may not be engaged so much around a specific candidate, but they are engaged around the issues that are going to impact their lives.”
Young Houstonians are choosing two-year colleges and trade schools as the cost of four-year degrees climbs beyond reach. They want their elected officials, at every level, to understand what it means to open the door each morning in a neighborhood without a full-service grocery store, reliable public transit, or a path to affordable housing.
“It really is about affordability,” Upchurch said. “And looking at the economic reality of where they live. It’s the lack of empathy and disconnect that young people are sensing from elected representatives.”
Phillips offered one concrete suggestion for how elected officials can begin to close the distance with young voters: Show up where they actually are. She recalled spotting U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett at a Houston bar one Friday evening. Crockett worked the room, introduced herself, and reminded patrons to vote. It was the first time she had ever encountered an elected official outside a formal political event.
“It was very memorable. I got the chance to speak with her and let her know I was thankful for the work she is doing,” Phillips said. “Officials need to make more of an effort to be seen not at specifically political events, because you have to be a very politically active person to even go to those events.”
For more information on upcoming local elections, visit harrisvotes.gov.
