PHILADELPHIA — For 30 years, the Rev. Alyn E. Waller has led his flock at Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, the city’s largest black community. But on Saturday, the good priest presided over a different kind of gathering: 100 mostly leather-clad black men riding a pack of snarling motorcycles.
“Here we are in Philly, 100 dudes riding bikes through the city and the police aren’t chasing us, they’re helping us,” Waller said, surrounded by a chorus of pigs, trikes and slingshots. “At the end of the day, we know we’ve done good for everyone, not just for us.”
Days before Pennsylvania’s voter registration deadline and weeks before Election Day, this Harley-Davidson-riding pastor and a collective of some of Philadelphia’s Black motorcycle clubs, along with a bipartisan voter participation group, are encouraging some of the city’s historically Black men. to register and go to the polls in neighborhoods with low voter turnout and political engagement.
“We have it Black Bikers voteBlack Men Vote and then people who just care about democracy come together on a beautiful day to ride bikes through parts of Philadelphia.