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Seventy-two Black executives signed an open letter Wednesday in response to a Georgia election law that they say would limit Black people’s access to the vote.
The letter, published as a full-page ad in the New York Times, calls on business leaders across the country to support voting rights and oppose legislation similar to the Georgia law passed last week.
Several current and former chief executives from large companies signed the letter, including Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, former American Express chief Kenneth Chenault, and Mellody Hobson, Starbucks chairwoman and co-CEO of Ariel Investments.
“This is a nonpartisan issue; this is a moral issue,” Chenault told the Wall Street Journal. “This is not a Georgia issue,” he said.
The controversial legislation was signed into law last week by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. An uproar immediately followed, with proponents saying the law is needed to preserve election integrity and critics insisting it will curtail voting rights for Black people and other minorities.
The new law limits the number of drop boxes for absentee ballots, requires voters to provide state identification to get absentee ballots, and prohibits unauthorized people from offering food or water to voters waiting in line.
Emphasizing the nation’s history with the civil rights movement and the disenfranchisement of Black people, the letter said many absentee voters in the 2020 election were Black or other minorities whose voting rights will be negatively affected by the Georgia law.
The letter, titled “Memo to Corporate America: The Fierce Urgency Is Now,” said corporate leaders should protest the Georgia election law and others like it.
“As Black business leaders, we cannot sit silently in the face of this gathering threat to our nation’s democratic values and allow the fundamental right of Americans, to cast their votes for whomever they choose, to be trampled upon yet again,” the letter said.
In a January special election, Georgia flipped two Senate seats from Republican to Democratic control and in 2020 voted for President Biden after years as a Republican stronghold. Since then, several states including Florida, Texas, and Arizona have proposed bills that would alter voting, such as requiring a driver’s license or other ID for an absentee ballot or prohibiting the use of absentee drop boxes.