One month before Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) met with national civil rights groups to discuss his opposition to congressional Democrats sweeping voting rights bill, he met with leaders of the West Virginia NAACP who were hoping to persuade him to back it.

The state activists wanted to understand Manchins then-unstated position on the bill. The senator told meeting attendees that he was opposed to certain provisions of the bill, but didnt name any. And while he didnt take a position on the bill at the time, it came across as though he opposed it.

Manchin joined the May 6 meeting by phone for only 15 minutes before handing it off to a staff member.

We were very unsatisfied with his response and how short of a meeting he had with us, said Owens Brown, president of the West Virginia NAACP.

Brown and other Black leaders in the state are deeply frustrated with Manchin and are planning to step up their activism to pressure him to stop opposing key parts of his partys agenda in Congress. Although just 3.6% of West Virginia residents are Black, they argue that their support was key to his narrow victory in his last election and he cannot take them for granted going forward.

If we all sat on our hands and stayed home, we would have an impact, said Jennifer Wells, senior organizer at Community Change Action.

In his meeting with the state NAACP, Manchin did say that he supported the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a more limited bill that would reinstate the preclearance formula for the 1965 Voting Rights Act gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013.