Posted on Sep 12, 2022
Georgia's rural Black voters helped propel Democrats before. Will they do it again?
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https://www.npr.org/2022/09/12/ [login to see] /georgia-abrams-warnock-rural-black-voters-elections-democrats-midterms
Johnnie Armstrong says he has voted in Albany since 1955, so he remembers an era when local officials tried to keep Black voters like him from the ballot box.
"They'd give you a bottle, a big thing with a lot of marbles in it," he says. "You guess how many marbles, then you can vote."
Armstrong says it felt remarkable that about 65 years later he got to help elect Georgia's first Black U.S. senator, Democrat Raphael Warnock.
Even better, Armstrong says, is Warnock spending a muggy August morning taking selfies with voters on Albany's Ray Charles Plaza as he campaigns for a full term in Washington.
Until recently, a statewide candidate spending significant time in this thinly populated, substantially Black, southwest corner of Georgia was virtually unheard of.
Johnnie Armstrong says he has voted in Albany since 1955, so he remembers an era when local officials tried to keep Black voters like him from the ballot box.
"They'd give you a bottle, a big thing with a lot of marbles in it," he says. "You guess how many marbles, then you can vote."
Armstrong says it felt remarkable that about 65 years later he got to help elect Georgia's first Black U.S. senator, Democrat Raphael Warnock.
Even better, Armstrong says, is Warnock spending a muggy August morning taking selfies with voters on Albany's Ray Charles Plaza as he campaigns for a full term in Washington.
Until recently, a statewide candidate spending significant time in this thinly populated, substantially Black, southwest corner of Georgia was virtually unheard of.
Georgia's rural Black voters helped propel Democrats before. Will they do it again?
Posted from npr.org
Democrats
Voting
Elections
Albany
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 2
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We will to see.how this plays out! I envision black voters voting despite the past.
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Both races are extremely tight.
On Election Night, cable TV anchors will spend a lot of time zooming in on their touch-screen maps on metro Atlanta, picking apart the returns from counties like Fulton, Cobb, Gwinnett and DeKalb.
But Bell still believes organizers have to work for every vote, especially in counties like hers, and especially in a state where election outcomes have become famously close."
..."Both races are extremely tight.
On Election Night, cable TV anchors will spend a lot of time zooming in on their touch-screen maps on metro Atlanta, picking apart the returns from counties like Fulton, Cobb, Gwinnett and DeKalb.
But Bell still believes organizers have to work for every vote, especially in counties like hers, and especially in a state where election outcomes have become famously close."
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