SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Last night, former President Barack Obama delivered a blunt message to Black men.
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BARACK OBAMA: Part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president. And you're coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.
DETROW: Polls indicate that former President Donald Trump may be making inroads with some male Black voters, and others may not vote. That is a problem for Vice President Harris' campaign and something that NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith found this week in North Carolina.
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TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Cherita Evans goes by Storm the Barber. She works at a shop called Head Changerz in the community of Rocky Mount, North Carolina. It's a swing state where Democrats need to improve Black voter turnout if Harris is going to have a chance of winning. Evans is going to vote for Harris, but she knows people who aren't planning to.
CHERITA EVANS: Most of my female family and friends - they're voting for Harris. But I have a lot of males who just - male friends and family that's like, I don't know if I'm going to vote for her. And I think because - I think they're not - a lot of men aren't ready to vote for a woman.
KEITH: Harris is not talking about this, but Evans thinks she should because it's a real issue.
EVANS: In my community, you have a lot of men who, you know, won't even be under female leadership in church.
KEITH: I first met Evans back in May, and she was less than enthusiastic about the election.
EVANS: Yeah. I don't like Trump, and I don't really like Biden.
KEITH: But the thing that I remember most from that conversation was what she said about Harris.
EVANS: But after she became vice president, it seemed like she just kind of, like, got quiet.
KEITH: From what Evans could see, Harris made history and then just kind of disappeared. So I wanted to know what Evans thinks about the election now that Harris is her party's nominee.
EVANS: I think she's a better candidate than Biden.
KEITH: For Evans, Harris has the same thing going for her that Biden did. She's not Donald Trump.
EVANS: I'm going to be honest with you. I don't really like Trump, so I'm going to vote for her. But I don't think she's done a very great job of addressing the main issues that we are having.
KEITH: That gas prices are high and groceries are too expensive.
EVANS: Like, you're not addressing that. And I don't think price gouging is completely it.
KEITH: In her ads that show up constantly on the TV in the barbershop, Harris talks about going after companies for price gouging. But Evans doesn't buy that as a real solution. Back in May, Evans was cutting the hair of a 22-year-old college student named Christian Pounds. At the time, he didn't like either candidate and didn't think his vote would change anything. Reached on the phone this week, he says he's definitely planning to vote.
CHRISTIAN POUNDS: When Biden dropped out, I was kind of happy.
KEITH: The other night, he says he got into it with his uncle and his cousin about voting.
POUNDS: They got very heated 'cause I think my cousin was basically on the stance of how I was before, and my uncle was like, you better vote for Kamala Harris.
KEITH: His cousin wasn't planning to vote, and his uncle wanted none of it. Pounds says he sees a real generational divide.
POUNDS: It's more so the young people versus the old when it comes to, like, voting versus not voting.
KEITH: In the neighboring community of Wilson, Mike Harris is a barber at Style Masters. He's been voting for Democrats all his life. In May, he said he was voting for Biden. Now he's voting for Harris and hopes she will become the first female president. I ask him whether any of his clients are planning to vote for Trump.
MIKE HARRIS: Some people - I don't know if they're joking or not - say they are. Some people don't believe in female leaders, but I tell them all the time I was raised - my mom raised me and my brother in our house. So I think that, you know, women can do the job.
KEITH: The Harris campaign says it is working hard to reach Black men and win them over. To that end, next week Harris is going to Detroit for a town hall with influential Black radio host Charlamagne tha God.
Tamara Keith, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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