National Voter Registration Day gathering during CBC week comes amid renewed debate over the preservation and telling of Black history, days after Smithsonian Secretary and African American Museum founding director Lonnie Bunch announced his retirement.
Registration Nation Action Fund and national partners to launch the March On for Freedom 2026 National GOTV Bus Tour—a multi-state effort to register, educate, and mobilize thousands of voters across the South and key battleground states to defend our history, our vote, and our democracy.
Media is asked to RSVP HERE to attend
Washington, DC – On Tuesday, September 15, from 1:00 to 3:00 PM ET, Rep. Jonathan Jackson will join Bishop William J. Barber II, members of Congress, prominent faith leaders, civil rights advocates, and movement leaders at the National Museum of African American History and Culture for a National Voter Registration Day gathering and national call to action focused on protecting Black history, voting rights and democracy.
The gathering comes just days after Lonnie G. Bunch III, founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the first African American to serve as Secretary of the Smithsonian, announced his retirement following a period of intense political pressure on the institution over its presentation of Black history and America’s past. Faith and national leaders will gather outside the museum Bunch helped build to uplift his work and legacy, offer prayer and reflection, and reaffirm the importance of protecting the institutions that preserve Black history and America’s collective memory.
The gathering will draw a direct connection between the struggle over how our history is preserved, understood, and remembered and the continuing struggle for voting rights and political participation. From emancipation and Reconstruction through Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Voting Rights Act, the fight for the ballot is inseparable from the history represented inside the museum. On National Voter Registration Day, leaders will call on a new generation to turn remembrance into action and protect the rights generations fought to secure.
As part of the gathering, Andrea Pringle, Founder and CEO of Registration Nation Action Fund, will join national partners to launch the March On for Freedom 2026 National GOTV Bus Tour, a multi-state voter registration and mobilization effort that will travel from Washington into communities across the South and key battleground states.
Building on the Registration Nation Action Fund’s 2024 national bus tour, March On for Freedom will meet voters where they are, including at HBCUs, churches, community centers and other gathering places to register, educate and mobilize thousands of voters around voter registration, early voting, voter protection and Election Day participation.
The tour will carry the call to defend our history, our vote, and our democracy from Washington into communities across the country, transforming a moment of remembrance and witness into sustained civic action ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
WHAT
National Call to Action on History, Voting Rights and Democracy & Launch of the March On for Freedom 2026 National GOTV Bus Tour
A National Voter Registration Day gathering bringing together congressional, faith and movement leaders to uplift the work and legacy of Lonnie Bunch and the importance of preserving Black history and collective memory; call attention to the continuing fight for voting rights and democratic participation; and launch a multi-state voter registration and GOTV mobilization through the South and key battleground states.
WHEN
Tuesday, September 15, 2026
1:00–3:00 PM ET
WHERE
National Museum of African American History and Culture
1400 Constitution Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20560
WHO
- Rep. Jonathan Jackson
- Bishop William J. Barber II
- Andrea Pringle, Founder & CEO, Registration Nation Action Fund
- Additional Members of Congress TBA
- National faith and clergy leaders
- Civil rights, voting rights, labor, and movement leaders
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Registration Nation Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) organization focused on expanding voter registration and building ongoing civic dialogue with young people and communities of color. Through grassroots efforts and strategic partnerships, we work to engage those who have been historically excluded from the democratic process.