ATLANTA (AP) — Black church leaders and activists in Georgia rallied Sunday in a push to get congregants to vote — a longstanding tradition known as “souls to the polls” that is taking on greater meaning this year amid new obstacles to casting a ballot in the midterm elections.
At Rainbow Baptist Church just outside Atlanta, about two dozen cars and a large bus emblazoned with the image of civil rights icon John Lewis formed a caravan in the parking lot. Teresa Hardy, an organizer with voting rights group The Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, led a prayer before the caravan set out for a polling site at a nearby mall.
Few people in the group actually cast a ballot there, but organizers said it was important to promote voting, particularly in the wake of new restrictions enacted by the state Legislature.
“Your rights are being taken away,” said Comarkco Blackett, a minister at Rainbow Baptist. “We have to get out, stand together across color boundaries.”
State lawmakers nearly did away with Sunday voting under a bill signed into law last year. The Republican-sponsored legislation followed former President Donald Trump’s false claims that voter fraud cost him reelection in 2020.