Former Tennessee State University president Glenda Glover is lending her expertise on HBCUs to a person she believes in. This year, Glover ended her decade-long tenure as TSU’s president and has joined presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris in a key role– leading HBCU outreach, The Tennessean reports.
According to TheGrio, the presidential candidate and Glover are friends and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. sorority sisters. According to The Tennessean, Glover has been a longtime supporter of Harris.
“I worked on her Senate campaign. I was among her first supporters when she ran in 2020,” Glover told The Tennessean. “She is so eminently qualified to be president of the United States.”
Glover appeared on The Hill with April Ryan earlier in August and discussed the importance of supporting Harris’ presidential run.
“This is bigger than one sorority or fraternity,” Glover told Ryan during the interview.
Glover, the Vice Chair of the President’s Board of Advisors on HBCUs, spearheaded Biden’s HBCU Divine Nine initiative before taking that role on for Harris’ campaign, according to TheGrio.
Now, she will help organize voter mobilization drives alongside HBCU alumni and schools. The focus of Glover’s work will be the swing states, but she stressed that supporting Democrats in all 50 states was crucial, per The Tennessean.
Glover previously told the Grio that the support of all HBCUs and Divine Nine organizations would total 12-13 million voters.
Trey Baker, the Harris campaign’s senior adviser, said Glover’s inclusion on the team was a “no-brainer.”
“Glenda Glover is a trusted national leader who has deep relationships with HBCUs, HBCU presidents and HBCU alumni,” Baker told The Tennessean. “It is a no-brainer that the vice president would count on Dr. Glover to help with engaging this vital community of voters.”
Among the campaign’s engagement efforts is working with poll workers and attorneys to guarantee the protection of voting rights following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down key provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Glover said the campaign is ready to cover all grounds in order to prevent votes from being “stolen,” per the Grio.
Aside from Glover’s time running a public HBCU, she is also an accountant and lawyer. She has been involved in politics for several decades, having led the youth initiative for Harold Ford Sr.’s congressional campaign in 1974.
