The People’s Revival: A faith-labor-civil rights campaign to boost turnout in four Southern states

Baptist Convention (PNBC), the AFL-CIO and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Organizers frame the effort as a response to interconnected political threats—racism, xenophobia, militarism and authoritarianism—and aim to combine the organizing strengths of faith communities, labor unions and civil rights groups.

The initiative will focus on educating voters, protecting ballot access and getting people to the polls in Georgia, Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina. A multi-city bus tour will include revival-style services, social events, Souls to the Polls training and volunteer recruitment. Specific activities named by organizers:

• "Blessed Ballot Sundays" on Oct. 4, 11, 18 and 25: prayer gatherings and postcard-writing drives to encourage voters.
• "Movement Mondays": virtual volunteer training sessions.
• Volunteer roles: postcard writing, phone bank operations, poll observation, election-day ride sharing and poll-watching.
• Volunteer recruitment and training for election peacekeeper and observer roles coordinated by the AFL-CIO.

Notable stops on the tour include Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston and Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

Leaders describe the campaign as reviving a historic three-way alliance of faith, labor and civil rights that they say was central to 1960s civil rights advances. The PNBC framed the campaign as part of its institutional history: the denomination was founded by civil rights leaders in 1961 and was the spiritual home of Martin Luther King Jr.

Labor leaders set the campaign in material terms, linking voting access to economic pressures such as rising costs of food, fuel and stagnant pay. The AFL-CIO is training thousands of election peacekeepers and coordinating with attorneys nationwide to ensure election results are certified and officials seated according to law.

Organizers stress that the campaign's work must continue beyond Election Day because recent Supreme Court decisions and changes in federal authority have reduced federal oversight of elections, made it harder to challenge discriminatory electoral maps and weakened some civil rights protections. Rainbow PUSH leadership warned that without legal protections, the risk of disenfranchisement persists and long-term engagement will be required.

The campaign sets two primary outreach goals: mobilize people who did not vote in the previous election and persuade conservative evangelicals to align voting choices with policies that care for marginalized communities. PNBC leaders challenge messaging they see as inconsistent—for example, opposing social safety programs while claiming a pro-life stance.

Organizers encourage churches, unions and community groups to host Blessed Ballot Sundays, participate in Movement Monday trainings, volunteer for phone banks and postcard campaigns, sign up as poll observers and help provide election-day transportation.

Revival combines religious services, worker organizing and civil rights advocacy into a coordinated voter protection and turnout operation across four Southern states. The coalition frames the effort as both immediate voter mobilization and a longer-term defense of electoral integrity in a legal environment where federal protections have been diminished.