American college campuses are full of fraternities and sororities with Greek-lettered names, exclusive membership, and a promise of community, usually among members of the same sex.

And Harris’ membership in Alpha Kappa Alpha, a historically black sorority, gives her campaign a direct connection to a network of 360,000 women across the country, many of whom are eager to see one of their own serve in the White House.

The Democratic Party, for which women and black voters are a key constituency, is taking notice.

While the association itself is nonpartisan, many of its members, like Baham, are prepared to use their networks to raise funds and register voters in elections that could be decided at the last minute.

“We’re going to… make sure that our kids, young people and seniors have a chance to register and vote,” said Baham, a social worker from Louisiana.

Harris joined AKA at Howard University, a historically black college in Washington, D.C., where the sorority was founded in 1908. It was the first such organization for black female students in the United States.

Over the next decades, more and more black sororities and fraternities were formed, providing black students with a haven from the scourge of American racism and also serving as a base for civil rights organizations.

AKA has chapters for both undergraduate and graduate students, making it much larger than just a college student organization.

While serving as vice president, Harris hosted leaders of black fraternities and sororities at the White House, and before taking over as Democratic Party leader, she headlined the AKA convention in Texas in July.

Later that month, days after President Joe Biden’s re-election bid ended, she attended the convention of another black sorority, Zeta Phi Beta, in Indiana.

AKA members participated in a Zoom call called “Win ​​With Black Women,” which raised $1.5 million. Glenda Glover, a past president of the AKA, is leading the drive for Harris at historically black colleges across the country.

For the first time in its history, the AKA also established a political action committee to raise funds for political candidates.

“We’re ready to go and get this done,” Donna Miller, a county clerk in Illinois who was on the Zoom call, told the Chicago Sun-Times. “It’s been a huge motivator for so many people, young and old, from different generations and ethnicities.”

But while AKA and other black student associations provide Harris with access to a network of contacts, it’s hard to tell whether that will translate into actual votes in November.

The association and its members remain tight-lipped – many of them refused to talk to AFP about the elections.

Some referred AFP to the association’s headquarters, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A half-dozen individual chapters also did not respond to requests for comment.

“Mobilizing through student organizations wouldn’t hurt,” said Daniel Hopkins, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania.

Hopkins cautioned, however, that “there is only a limited number of voters in the United States who attend four-year colleges and are members of these organizations.”

Although African Americans overwhelmingly vote Democratic, their departure from the party has been declining in recent years — a decline that his research shows is largely driven by younger voters voting less often.

At the same time, Amanda Wilkerson, an assistant professor of higher education at the University of Central Florida who has studied black voters, said organizations like black sororities and fraternities are “hidden mechanisms” that are often ignored by polls or the media, even though they have organized in past elections, both nationally and locally.

She says her members and alumni are adept at campaigning and that the 2024 election is not their first such endeavor.

Harris “is the first candidate of her kind who is able to leverage those support networks,” Wilkerson said. “But that’s not something entirely new.”