Huddle Up:
Built for Us

For Black and Latino men who work, provide, and show up. 

Here, you get heard. You get paid. You help lead.

Why We Started & Where We’re Going

After the 2024 election, the story was familiar—and incomplete.

A significant enough number of Black men in swing states didn’t vote for Kamala Harris—or didn’t vote at all. Not because they didn’t care, but because politics had stopped speaking to them.

These are men holding down jobs, raising families, caring for communities—while navigating systems designed to keep them out.

They weren’t engaged with respect. Then they were blamed when the numbers came up short.

Huddle Up was created to change that.

Our vision is to build a durable, engaged network of Black and Latino men—ages 30 to 50—who’ve felt disillusioned, overlooked, or pulled toward the right. They’re not lost. They’re assessing. And when the space is real, they show up. We’re here to turn that spark into long-term civic power—ready for 2026, 2028, and whatever comes next.

We launched Phase One with a clear focus: To listen to what working-class Black men in Georgia and North Carolina who did not vote for Harris in 2024 had to say about civic life and politics.

No scripts. Just real time, real space, and deep listening.

What we heard wasn’t just personal. It was strategic.

What We Did & What We Heard

In Spring 2025, we launched a focused listening strategy with working-class Black men in Georgia and North Carolina—specifically those who did not vote for Kamala Harris in 2024. Here’s what that looked like:

  • Reached 500+ men through targeted digital outreach

  • Hosted 5 in-depth, small-group sessions (75 minutes each)

  • Built trust with a core group of 30+ returning participants

  • Collected over 100 pages of raw, transcripted insight

  • 100% of participants said they’d return—even without a stipend

What we heard was honest, layered, and powerful. Five core themes surfaced across the sessions.

  • Carrying the Weight

    Men described the relentless pressure of providing without support—navigating low wages, debt, housing instability, and generational responsibility.

    “I’m not lazy. I’m tired of working just to be broke.”

  • Disillusioned, Not Disengaged

    Most didn’t vote in 2024—not from apathy, but because they’ve seen promises break and institutions fail.

    “My vote ain’t a gift. Earn it.”

  • Healing as Strategy

    Grief, fatherhood, emotional exhaustion, and mental health came up unprompted—not as side topics, but as leadership conditions.

    “This space let me exhale. That’s rare.”

  • Legacy and Leadership

    Fatherhood and purpose were central motivators. Many spoke of wanting to break cycles, model growth, and lead differently.

    “I never had a blueprint. I’m trying to be one.”

  • Builders, Not Bystanders

    These men aren’t waiting to be activated. They’re already mentoring, creating businesses, and imagining new institutions.

    “We need more than a seat at the table—we need our own table.”

What Was Missing: A Systemic Analysis

Very few spoke about changing systems.

Across five sessions, there was almost no mention of structural transformation: neither democracy nor the economy.

That silence wasn’t apathy. It was a survival response.

These men weren’t focused on changing the system—because they’ve never been shown how.

This insight sharpens our work moving forward:

If we want structural change, we need to first rebuild emotional trust, political imagination, and concrete on-ramps to power.

OUR STRATEGY—BUILT IN PHASES

This is a long-term strategy for racial equity and civic power.

  • Phase One: Listen & Learn

    Complete

    We created space for working-class Black men to speak freely, on their own terms.

  • Phase Two: Structure & Build

    In Progress

    We’re now building infrastructure: digital tools, community pathways, and lasting partnerships.

  • Phase Three: Activate & Mobilize

    2026 and Beyond

    This phase turns trust into action—moving from individual leadership to collective power.

WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT

We Lead With Trust

We don’t start with metrics—we start with people. We offer stipends, respect, and honest conversation.

We Understand Race and Class Together

Working-class Black and Latino men aren’t “hard to reach”—they’ve been structurally excluded, misread, or only seen as voters. We’re changing that.

We Treat Healing as Strategy

Men spoke openly about grief, pressure, fatherhood, and trauma. We don’t treat that vulnerability as extra—it’s the foundation of power.

We Offer More Than Messaging

From financial literacy to community leadership, we’re designing real tools that build capacity—not just communications.

WHERE WE’RE GOING NEXT

We’re not just expanding—we’re going deeper.

Next steps include:

  • Re-engaging 500+ men already in our orbit

  • Launching new Huddles—including with Latino and Afro-Latino men

  • Creating digital and local spaces for healing, connection, and leadership

  • Partnering with organizers to move men into deeper civic action

  • Testing narrative and organizing strategies grounded in lived experience

This isn’t about scale for scale’s sake. It’s about building a base that feels like home, moves with discipline, and grows real leadership.

What Folks Are Saying

  • “Huddle Up is doing bold and ambitious work. By strengthening the progressive movement while also foregrounding the specific needs and lived experiences of working-class Black and Latino men, they are meeting the moment with a strategy that is both necessary and thoughtful. Huddle Up’s people-centered approach aligns with Demos Action’s values of organizing, racial equity, and political power and is what we need to move us towards long-term, transformative change that will better the lives of Black and brown communities in the U.S.”

    Demos Action

  • “Huddle Up is pioneering the critical work needed to re-engage Black and Latino men as civic leaders: listening deeply, engaging authentically, and developing vetted strategy.”

    Anat Shenker-Osorio

  • “It felt good being in a community of other men to know I’m not by myself, and also to hear their views and learn from it as well.”

    R., participant

Building Power. Valuing Time. 

Huddle Up is about more than one group. It’s about strengthening the whole.

We’re building power with working-class Black and Latino men—not to silo them, but to reconnect a vital part of our shared base.

This work makes the broader movement stronger because:

  • It brings in men who are decisive in elections, but often disconnected from campaigns

  • It builds emotional trust with communities that many orgs struggle to consistently reach

  • It surfaces leaders, insight, and narratives that make our strategies smarter and more grounded

We pay participants because time has value. Especially for men balancing work, family, and pressure. Compensation makes participation possible—and keeps the work grounded in respect.

In Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Arizona—states that will shape what comes next—trust and belonging could define the outcomes.

This is a strategy built to make our movements deeper, sharper, and more whole.

I’m Emmanuel Caicedo—an organizer, strategist, and first-generation immigrant from Colombia raised in Brooklyn, now based in DC. For over 20 years, I’ve built winning campaigns, moved resources, and led coalitions rooted in equity and community power.

Huddle Up is my commitment to create spaces where men can be seen, supported, and sharpened—and where solidarity can take root.

About Emmanuel