In 1983, the NAACP organized a 360-mile march from Louisville, Kentucky, to Detroit, Michigan, to “bury voter apathy” and register Black American voters before the 1984 presidential election.
At the time, roughly two in five eligible Black voters were not registered to vote.
Joe Madison, chair of voter engagement for the NAACP, dubbed the campaign the “Overground Railroad” because the march paralleled routes many freedom seekers traveled to escape slavery in the South to get to the North or on to Canada.
The march wound its way through many Ohio cities and towns, including Cincinnati, Troy, Piqua, Findlay and Toledo en route to Detroit, primarily following the route of Interstate 75.
Then-Ohio Secretary of State Sherrod Brown hosted a stop at the Ohio Statehouse on Aug. 18, 1983, where Madison and Brown spoke.
The effort achieved some of its goals. After marching through four states (portions of Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and Michigan) and 77 cities, Madison and the NAACP reported registering approximately 14,000 new voters. That number did not significantly move the needle toward registering nearly 7.5 million unregistered Black voters in the United States.
However, additional marches were held elsewhere, including through the Mid-Atlantic states in 1984, to get Blacks registered to vote. By election day in November 1984, Black voter turnout rose to 56%, closer to the national average that year (60%) — a higher percentage than ever for Black voter turnout.
Some attributed the Black community’s higher participation rate in the 1984 election to strong opposition to President Ronald Reagan, who was seeking reelection. NAACP President Benjamin Hooks told crowds at Overground Railroad rallies that the Black community needed to vote to “fight the evil of the Reagan administration.” NAACP leaders criticized Reagan’s opposition to affirmative action and feared his economic policies would benefit only the wealthiest Americans.
Others attribute the high Black voter turnout to Jesse Jackson’s presidential bid. Jackson became only the second Black American to mount a nationwide campaign for president. Jackson’s platform included reparations to descendants of enslaved Black Americans, creating a universal health care system and supporting the formation of a Palestinian state.
Initially viewed by establishment politicians as a fringe candidate, Jackson rose in the Democratic primaries and won 21% of the popular vote, placing third behind Walter Mondale and Gary Hart. Despite the high turnout of Black voters, Reagan won his reelection by huge margins, including 525-13 in the Electoral College.
Maria Lee is a librarian with the Columbus Metropolitan Library.
