The New Rural Project's Model

 

60,000 registered voters of color in North Carolina didn’t vote in 2020. "Those are the kind of numbers that change elections."

--Cynthia Wallace, New Rural Project

Since 2021, failed Democratic candidates Cynthia Wallace (she ran against Dan Bishop in 2020 in CD9) and Helen Propst Mills (ran twice in 2018 and 2020 for a NCSenate seat) launched The New Rural Project deliberately targeting "civic engagement" in the Black community, particularly that (large) segment not even registered to vote who tend to live in rural areas. Wallace and Mills formed a 501(c)(4) non-profit, recruited staff and volunteers, and adopted a "down home" approach as opposed to typical political advocacy. "They knocked on doors, sat on front porches, huddled in barber shops, and listened more than they talked" (CardinalAndPine.com). The New Rural Project originally targeted seven North Carolina counties — Moore, Hoke, Robeson, Union, Anson, Richmond, and Scotland. Wallace said, “What we really are focused on is giving voice to those who feel voiceless and helping those that feel unseen be seen and heard,”

Barbershop conversation. New Rural Project website

In 2022, the New Rural Project had the very productive idea of using Black barbershops for meet-ups and "deep conversations" with men in the community who had experience and opinions about entrepreneurship, jobs and wages, crime and the criminal justice system. One of the leaders of the barbershop conversations, barber Garrett Snuggs, ran for Wadesboro town council in 2023 and was the leading vote-getter. Three other Black candidates for municipal offices in the Project's target region also won their races.

This success in advancing Black candidates by rallying Black voters got expansion as the New Rural Project began beauty shop conversations to complement the barbershop meetups. “Every Black woman I know has spent her share of time in a beauty salon,” Wallace said. “And we’ve seen that happen in those beauty salons that the barriers kind of break down and you’re in a space that’s familiar, comfortable, and talking about your issues and your concerns .... We connect the dots between whatever their issue is and their civic life,” she said, “[bringing] it back full circle to why your civic engagement can actually solve these issues that you care about.”