Progressive National Baptist Convention leaders hail Harris, pan Trump, urge voting

(Religious News Service) —The Progressive National Baptist Convention (PNBC) centered its annual meeting on get-out-the-vote efforts and celebrated Vice President Kamala Harris’s candidacy for president. “We need everyone to register,” PNBC President David Peoples urged during a news conference on Wednesday (Aug. 7), emphasizing the importance of members encouraging “our friends and our frenemies and our entire family to vote.” Around 2,500 attendees gathered in New Orleans for the four-day session of the historic Black denomination, known as the church home of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Peoples clarified, “We are not political, but we are prophetic,” while also praising Harris and criticizing former President Donald Trump, who is running against her. He drew parallels between Harris and the biblical Queen Esther, while questioning Trump’s understanding of biracial families, despite his own mixed heritage. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, also spoke, critiquing Trump without directly naming him. During a session honoring the late preacher Gardner C. Taylor, Warnock condemned Trump’s history of racism and called for collective action to prevent his return to the Oval Office. The PNBC is collaborating with the AFL-CIO on voter mobilization efforts, targeting four battleground states:...