The 29-Year-Old Organizer Behind Vice President Harris and President Obama’s Historic Campaigns
By Yasmeen Mayes and Natalie Jenkins
When we were children, we all had big dreams of what we would do and who we would become as adults. We fantasized about the ways that we would change the trajectory of the universe and bring peace on earth. For most of us, we have grown up to find ourselves in nine-to-five jobs that have not quite lived up to the hype of being an Olympic champion. For Anatole Jenkins though, his dreams did not even scratch the surface for the work he would do for the first Black president and to get the first Black woman vice president to the white house.
Jenkins’ dreams changed as he grew older when he ultimately stumbled into the work that has quite literally impacted the path of our country. He has held titles such as National Director of States Organizing for the Biden-Harris campaign, National Organizing Director for Vice President Kamala Harris’ primary campaign, and Regional Field Director for Obama for America to name a few.
With three historic campaigns under his belt, you might think that this work was the type of vision a young Anatole Jenkins might have had for himself growing up. “I often tell my campaign kids that I would be lying if I said I didn’t think that a Black man could ever be President. The truth is, I never even posed that question. It is a question I had never even thought to ask,” Jenkins said, reflecting on his time leading a key role in the re-election of President Obama.
During President Obama’s first campaign in 2008, Jenkins became motivated to get involved with the electrifying call to uplift and unite all people. With original plans to pursue a career in architecture, the leap into politics and organizing was an unexpected shift.
After witnessing the inspiring morale behind President Obama’s campaign, the trajectory of the current Georgetown University fellow changed forever.
Jenkins’ next stop was landing an internship on Capitol Hill with a member of congress, but he eventually came on board as an intern for President Obama’s political organization where he learned and fell in love with the aspect of organizing, “I went from doing menial tasks to ultimately being able to play a role in launching President Obama’s re-election campaign.”
After his internship, Jenkins had a choice to make: Go to Chicago as an assistant, or venture out into new territory in Nevada and be an organizer. He chose the latter and became the first organizer hired for the re-election campaign. “There’s this way of allowing people to rise to the occasion as opposed to forcing them to break their back to prove themselves first,” Jenkins said when describing his then-newfound love for organizing.
Committed to the Cause
So, what values does someone who signs on to rally in the name of a political candidate hold dear? What makes someone worthy of the effort and commitment that is required to organize? For Jenkins, it’s the person, or party, steering the ship.
Identifying as a Democrat in every respect, Jenkins believes very strongly in the party he has chosen to pour his livelihood into. So much so that he has taken on the brunt of both difficult and historic campaigns for the duration of his career. In 2018, he even led efforts to mobilize voters for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee which resulted in historic voter turnout that afforded a Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The other thing that Jenkins observes is whether or not he actually likes the person he is advocating for, “It is very rare in politics that you get someone who you both fall in love with as a person and who you agree with on their policy opinions. Someone that you believe is a really good person along with the policies in their campaign.” Jenkins always knew he wanted to work with someone who he could believe in, and an important part of that was determining if he liked who they were at their core.
“With Vice President Harris, I had interacted with her prior. We always had great interactions. I saw the way that she led an organization, I saw the things that shaped her morals, and I saw that she really cared deep down. I prefer that over working with an a-hole.”
Organizing 101
According to Jenkins, without the act of organizing the Democratic party would never win and the politics behind it would feel far away in the places that matter most. There is a great deal of effort that goes into getting people of color out to the polls. For many of these people, there are seemingly simple things that might deter them from voting in an election like coming from a mixed-status household for fear of DACA agents being present. These types of challenges are the very things that organizers work to help overcome. “In 2018, our team had a motto: Find our voters and make it easy for them to vote,” Jenkins said.
Organizing is an important aspect of building a sustainable movement. No matter who wins, there are groups of people voting and becoming politically engaged who never would have without the efforts of grassroots organizers.
The soul of political organizing involves building momentum and power in a targeted way that brings people in. According to Jenkins, four critical elements of a thriving political movement are leveraging relationships, data, people, and duplication. All of these pieces in action mobilize communities that result in an undeniable movement that scales and inspires others to work together to maximize their impact at the polls.
Overcoming Barriers Through Community Building
The lack of online voter registration, strategic limiting of polling locations in areas where they are needed, and voter ID laws are just some of the obstacles in place that discourage people from participating in the political process. Jenkins empowers folks to overcome these barriers to ensure that the process can be as accessible and simple as possible. Political organizers like Jenkins advocate for simplifying voter registration forms and ensuring vote by mail forms are available.
Empowering voters is also what Jenkins described as something that is showcased through community engagement, “There’s this saying in politics that we need people to be a part of our campaign, but instead it should be that we need to become a part of their community,” he said, “Going into spaces where people are already congregating and using the community leaders that people trust are important examples of how to break barriers and push people to stay engaged in local and national politics.”
It’s no secret that it is harder for minority communities to actively participate in politics. These groups, such as Native American communities, have a history of living life on the margins and are characterized as low-propensity voters who are difficult to reach. Jenkins offered insight on the power of meeting these communities where they are, “For Native American communities, we put a lot of work in hiring from within those communities, people who already have those relationships established which erase that barrier of entry.”
Going Digital: Reinventing Organizing Strategies
Adding a global pandemic to an already difficult set of circumstances to reach and engage voters presented Jenkins with big challenges. In 2020, digital organizing had a chance to flex its muscles.
Jenkins helped spearhead a flurry of digital outreach strategies to reach voters directly on sites like Facebook. “Particularly in Florida, a big tool the Latinx community uses to talk to others is WhatsApp so we really took advantage of relational organizing there to get in contact with folks who we didn’t have any contact information for.”
Investment in paid communication ads on apps that have a large audience of underrepresented groups that are hard to reach was also routine. Jenkins found that in a digital age, leaning into using social media influencers to serve as surrogates to talk about campaigns and voting was a success.
“If we couldn’t get in touch with college students, we’d use college football players at specific universities with a large social media following as surrogates to use their platform to talk about getting out and voting.”
“In its most basic form it is about meeting people where they are,” Jenkins explained when describing what needs to be kept at the forefront when trying to communicate with a diversity of voters across states in a digital world.
Approaching Diversity as a New Norm in Politics
In many respects, political work as a person of color is no easy feat. Like most industries, it tends to be dominated by our white male counterparts. For Jenkins, it didn’t always feel as such. “The beauty of organizing is that on day one you are a leader. You are always in those shoes of leading.” As a Black man heading up significant campaigns, he did not feel out of place or an exception to the rule. “In Nevada, we were a team led by people of color. All of my bosses and mentors were people of color.”
Though he recognizes there are big strides still to be taken, Jenkins says that the direction that the Democratic party is heading is a good one. When we consider going through social unrest, those periods of time are when it is especially important to have people of color in leadership who can have difficult and important conversations with younger staffers.
“This past June, Black staffers were battling with whether they should show up for Zoom calls or go out to the streets to protest. This is important to recognize when you are trying to change a system. There is a role to be played marching and shouting and banging down the door, but there is also a role to be played at the table. And a role to be the one actually opening the door when the activists are banging… The beauty of politics is that those differences are paramount. Diversity is the key to victory.”
The Future of Black Representation in Politics
Representation in American politics is something that Jenkins has long embraced. As a Black American, the participation of underrepresented groups in the political process is an antidote and fulfillment of politics looking like America and being of the people, by the people and what we stand for.
“Politics absent of Black people is a politics that is divorced from America and the American experience and a politics that does not represent our country,” he said, “We need to have seats at the table filled with people who look like us and can talk about our perspective and bring our issues and the lived experiences of a Black person to light.”
As someone who was on the frontlines of historic campaigns, we asked Jenkins about his perspective on the significance of Black History Month and what it means to him. “It means everything,” Jenkins said. “Being able to have a month dedicated to giving us a focal point to celebrate ourselves, more than anything, gives us a piece of representation and weaving Black history into what is American history. That’s what it means to me.”
There have been so many notable Black and African American firsts in politics. For Jenkins, Black History Month is of course a time to celebrate the greats of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Fannie Lou Hamer, but it is also a time where we can celebrate the greats of Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, “People who are here right now making history as we speak,” he said.
As a Black man in politics, Jenkins recognizes that he stands on the shoulders of giants and is dedicated to continuing the fight in a climate full of division.
“I decided to head back to campus as a Fellow at Georgetown’s Institute of Politics and Public Service because it’s important that we don’t create sandcastles that can just be washed away. That we do our work in a way that is long-lasting and sustainable. The way the work of Dr. King continues. That only happens when we invest in the next generation of leaders and let them lead.”
This is the second story in an eight-part Black History Month series, Celebrating our Past, Present, and Future featured in the publication The Chronicles of Black History and Culture.
