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At 'Black Panther' showings, activists are registering voters

T'Challa's world, and the huge crowds eager to visit it, inspire a voter-registration drive dubbed "Wakanda the Vote."

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper
Black Panther Okoye

The power shown by women in the world of "Black Panther" inspired some to try to bring change to the real world by registering voters.

Marvel Studios

Move over, Rock the Vote. Now there's "Wakanda the Vote."

The Electoral Justice Project is an arm of the Movement for Black Lives organization that hopes to use the immense popularity of the Marvel superhero film "Black Panther" to encourage moviegoers to register to vote.

"In watching 'Black Panther,' what feels familiar about the real world that we're in and Wakanda, is that we need someone to defend our communities against attack," Kayla Reed of the EJP told Vox.com. "We need to step into the idea that we can all be superheroes and we can all be change agents in our communities."

Over the weekend, as "Black Panther" smashed box-office records, the group held registration events in dozens of US cities, including Miami, Dallas and Atlanta. 

Those interested in creating a voter-registration event are asked to text PANTHER to 91990, while those who need to register to vote can text WAKANDA to 91990.

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