Ahead of a planned tour of college campuses in key states, Vice President Kamala Harris wrote a letter Wednesday to students at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) encouraging them to vote and laying out the stakes for this year’s election.

The Democratic presidential candidate published her letter as an advertisement through Watch The Yard, a platform that publishes content about Black colleges and universities, Black Greek organizations and the Black student experience.

The vice president, an HBCU graduate herself, has spent a lot of time on college campuses in recent years mobilizing voters. In September 2023, she embarked on a “Fight for Our Freedoms College Tour” to promote reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ equality and freedom from book bans. She also appeared on ESPN at a bowl game for her alma mater, Howard University, this past winter to promote the value of HBCUs. And she was back at Howard earlier this month to advocate for students.

The connections she subsequently built with college voters appear to have sown the seeds for the surge of support among young voters she sees as the Democratic nominee for president. So it makes sense that Harris and her team are making even more concerted efforts to get students out to the polls. They recently announced a “back to school” campaign to engage young voters on 150 campuses in swing states. Her letter to HBCU students this week is further evidence of how crucial the Harris-Walz campaign believes young, college-going voters will be to their fall presidential bid.

In the letter, Harris said her time at Howard had a “profound impact” on her and said HBCUs are where black youth are “constantly reminded that you are young, talented, and black.” She said the university was “the place where I started getting involved in politics” and where she “learned that progress in our country happens when young people fight for it.”