April Ryan, the longest-serving Black White House correspondent, urged a Casino Del Sol crowd on Oct. 24 to do more than vote at the NAACP Tucson Branch’s “We The People” event.

The event, held on National Black Man Voter Day, centered on community. Ryan, who wrote the memoir “Notes on a Blacklash: When a Black Woman Goes Viral,” signed copies for attendees before the program.

Ryan said she was looking forward to “just being with the community,” where people “understand the struggle, understand the issues.”

She said she hoped for unity instead of the “foolishness” the country is in right now, “where everybody’s hurt.”

Community was the focus of the event and its speeches.

“When we do things, we don’t want to do them in silos,” said NAACP Tucson Branch President Cheree Meeks. “When we think about advocating together, we also want to think about voting together, we want to educate together. We want to learn together, inspire together. Thinking about how we can do this together really means that we’re stronger.”

Donna Liggins, a former president of the NAACP Tucson Branch, said the organization exists to help people. The group can’t do everything, Liggins said, but “what we can do is help people.”

“What’s exciting is just seeing people that you’ve known and haven’t seen in a while . . . seeing the recognition, and how this event touches the community itself,” said 2026 NAACP Legacy Award recipient Larry Starks.

Students receiving the Black Excellence Scholarship also took the stage to share their education experiences and future goals and to express their gratitude.

Helping each other was part of the program, too. Ryan asked attendees who had lost their jobs to raise their hands and those with jobs to offer to stand. She told them to meet in a corner of the ballroom after the event to talk and help one another find new positions.

In her speech, Ryan criticized U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying agents are not picking up criminals, and asked what “we the people” did in response.

“Many of us look like we could be Latina. Many of us look like we could be Dominican. I’m carrying my passport every day,” she said.

Ryan said she was upset for about a month after former Vice President Kamala Harris said last summer that she would not run for governor of California.

“I have never seen women say no, particularly Black women. I have never seen women pull back,” Ryan said.

Ryan said Black women have “held up nations and communities from the time they brought us here from slavery to now.”

She closed her speech by pushing attendees to do more than vote.

“We the people make a difference in a trial of trouble. This is not new to us, we have been here before,” Ryan said. “The question is, what are you going to do, beyond voting? I hate this, ‘Oh, I voted.’ Okay, what are you going to do after? What is your next step?”

Christy Russell is a journalism major at the University of Arizona and Tucson Spotlight intern. Contact her at crussell68@arizona.edu.

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