Oprah Is Hosting Virtual Town Halls—and You Can Be a Part of It
Oprah Winfrey is hosting four virtual town halls on voting the week of October 26.
She'll engage with voters in key states including Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
The free events, part of OWN's Own Your Vote campaign, are nonpartisan and open to the public.
We're mere days away from November 3, aka Election Day in the U.S., when registered voters who didn't vote early or by mail will finally get to cast their ballots. Depending on what state you're in, you may be choosing a winner in an important senate race, in addition to helping decide who the president will be come January 2021. This week, Oprah's hosting four free virtual town halls to energize and inform voters in seven pivotal states—and you're invited to attend, too.
The events, which begin on October 26, are part of OWN's OWN YOUR VOTE campaign, a bipartisan initiative to encourage voter turnout and civic engagement among Black women.
Alongside a panel featuring voting rights experts and local civic leaders, Oprah will talk to voters in Wisconsin on October 26, North Carolina on October 27, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Pennsylvania on October 28, and South Carolina on October 29. Each virtual town hall will take place at 8:00 pm ET / 7:00pm CT.
"With a little over a week until Election Day, I wanted to talk to local voters, thought leaders, & voting rights experts across the nation so we’re all fully prepared to cast our vote," Oprah tweeted in an October 25 announcement.
With a little over a week until Election Day, I wanted to talk to local voters, thought leaders, & voting rights experts across the nation so we’re all fully prepared to cast our vote. We’ll be headed to these states starting tomorrow at 8 PM EST. RSVP at https://t.co/FmeSmzUxZN pic.twitter.com/PTW4aNInPA
— Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah) October 26, 2020
Oprah's guests include activist and Undistracted podcast host Brittany Packnett Cunningham, Wisconsin 4th Congressional District Representative Gwen Moore, Color of Change vice president Arisha Hatch, 2017 Women's March co-organizer Tamika D. Mallory, and President & Director-Counsel of NAACP Legal Defense Fund Sherrilyn Ifill, to name a few. Additionally, representatives from several historically Black sororities will attend, including Alpha Kappa Alpha international president Dr. Glenda Glover and Delta Sigma Theta national president Beverly E. Smith.
To watch Oprah's voter town halls live, register is available in advance at zoomwithoprah.com.
In Oprah's first virtual town hall, a September 24 panel in partnership with the NCAACP, she welcomed Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Stacey Abrams, former Georgia representative and founder of anti-voter-suppression organization Fair Fight to discuss voting registration and more. The public meetings are just part of her efforts to help as many voters as possible to participate in the 2020 election; she even called up Texas voters during an October phone banking session for Beto O'Rourke's Powered by People organization.
"This 2020 election holds the highest stakes we’ve known for our democracy in our lifetime,' Oprah said in an October Instagram video. "Life as we know and hope for it to be is on the line, I believe."
Oprah shared the urgency of voting during the last presidential election—and her words hold true. "The people we choose to represent and lead us reflect our collective consciousness," she wrote in the November 2016 issue of O, the Oprah Magazine. "We get the leadership we deserve, based on what the majority of us agree to. Casting a ballot isn't just something you do for yourself—it's for our collective future."
What are you doing to cope with, as Oprah recently put it, "the roar of the news & the steady hum of our own anxiety" ahead of November 3? Let us know in the comments—and if you're seeking a soothing read, check out the seven books that help Oprah through tough times.
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