SAVANNAH, Ga. – Sundays are always special at the St. Philip Monumental AME Church. But in October, the pews are often more crowded, the sermon a little more urgent, and the congregation more animated and eager to follow: walk in church carriages and buses – though some prefer to walk – and go to the polls.
Voting for Sunday’s church services, popularly known as ‘souls to the ballot box’, is a tradition in black communities across the country, and Pastor Bernard Clarke, a pastor since 1991, led the effort for five years. in St. According to him, his sermons on those Sundays convey a message of community, responsibility and reverence.
“This is an opportunity for us to show our voting privilege as well as to fulfill what we know for what people died for, and what people fought for,” Clarke said.
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The Republicans in Georgia are now proposing new restrictions on voting on weekends that could seriously curtail one of the central roles of the Black Church in civic engagement and elections. Stricken by losses in the presidential race and two Senate games, the state party is moving fast to push through these limits and a series of other measures aimed directly at suppressing the black rise that helped the Democrats dominate the critical battle state.
“The only reason you have these accounts is because they have been lost,” said Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, who oversees all 534 African Methodist Episcopal churches in Georgia. “What makes it even more disturbing is that there is no other way to describe it as racism, and we just have to call it what it is.”
The push for new restrictions in Georgia comes amid a national effort by Republican-controlled state legislators to impose strict restrictions on voice access in states such as Iowa, Arizona and Texas.
But the goal of Sunday’s vote in new bills passed by Georgia’s legislature stirred the most passionate response, with critics saying it was reminiscent of some of the state’s racist laws.
“I can remember for the first time that I went to register,” said Diana Harvey Johnson, 74, a former state senator living in Savannah. ‘I went to court alone and there was actually a mason jar on top of the counter. And the woman there asked me how many butter beans were in that pot, ‘and suggested that she should guess right to be able to register.
“I had a greater chance of winning the lottery in Georgia than guessing how many butter beans,” Harvey Johnson continued. “But the fact that such contempt and dehumanizing and dehumanizing practices – tax evasion, lynching, burning crosses and burning down houses and firing people and putting people in jail, just to stop them from voting – is not so far away. the history does not. But it seems like some people want to revisit it. And that is absolutely unacceptable. ”
The bill passed by the House would limit the vote to no more than one Sunday in October, but even that would be at the discretion of the local registrar. It would also seriously reduce the early voting hours in total, restrict mail voting and severely restrict the use of push boxes – all measures that activists say would excessively affect black voters.
A similar bill awaits a vote in the Senate. Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, has indicated he supports new laws to secure the vote, but has not committed himself to all restrictions.
Advocates for voting rights say there is deep hypocrisy in some of the new proposals. It was the Republicans of Georgia, they pointed out, who voted only five years ago over postal voting in the early 2000s and automatic registration of voting rights, only to say they should be restricted now that more black voters have embraced them.
Georgia was one of nine mostly southern states and numerous provinces and municipalities – including the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan – whose records of oppression of racist voters required them to obtain federal permission for changes to their electoral rules. The requirement is under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the civil rights era law that restricted the deportation of blacks in the South.
The changes the Republicans are now pursuing would have faced a severe federal review and possible blockage under the section of the law, known as Article 5. But the Supreme Court, with a Conservative majority, ruled that division in 2013.
Even after the enactment of the Voting Rights Act, churches played a key role in civic engagement and during the 1970s and ’80s they often organized non-partisan political action committees that provided, among other things, resources to vote on Sundays where allowed. . According to David D. Daniels III, a professor of church history at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, the phrase ‘souls to the ballot box’ took hold in Florida in the 1990s. Raphael Warnock, one of the Democrats who won a special Senate race in January, is himself the pastor of the deepened Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
Historically, churches have provided black congregations with more than just transportation or logistical assistance. Voting as a congregation also provides a form of refuge for the intimidation and violence that black voters regularly await at the polls.
“It was one of the things my father said, that once blacks got the right to vote, they would all go along because they knew there was going to be a problem,” said Robert Evans, 59, a member of St. Louis. Phillip Monumental. “By bringing everyone together, they felt more comfortable doing the civic duty.”
In Georgia, the role of the AME Church in civic engagement has increased under the leadership of Jackson. Last year, he launched Operation Voter Turnout to expand the ways in which AME churches can prepare their members to participate in elections. The operation focused on voter training, registration trials, assistance with absentee ballots and a coordinated Sunday vote.
This had an impact during last November’s election, even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic: According to the Center for New Data, a nonprofit research group, African Americans voted at a higher rate over weekends than voters in 107 of the 159 provinces of the state identified as white. Internal numbers from Fair Fight Action, a voting rights group, found that black voters make up about 37% of those who voted in Georgia early Sunday, while Georgia’s black population is about 32%.
State Representative Barry Fleming, a Republican and main sponsor of the House bill, did not respond to requests for comment, nor did three other Republican sponsors. At the introduction of the bill, Republicans portrayed in the legislature the new restrictions as attempts to ‘secure the vote’ and ‘restore confidence’ in the election process, but in addition no reasoning and no credible evidence that it was erroneous. (Georgia’s election was declared safe by Republican election officials and reaffirmed by multiple audits and court decisions.)
Restricting Sunday voting will affect black voters rather than losing the help of the church. This would inevitably lead to longer lines during the week, especially in the Black community, which has historically been maintained on Election Day.
The bill also bans the so-called “line heating”, the use of volunteers to provide water, snacks, chairs and other assistance to voters in line.
Latoya Brannen, 43, worked with members of the church and a nonprofit group called 9 to 5 to hand out snacks and personal protective equipment in November.
“We have learned that it is only in line to give people just such small items,” Brannen said. She said she occasionally handed out bubbles to parents who brought young children along.
If Sunday voting is limited, it could encourage more Black Georgians to vote by mail. During the pandemic, churches played an important role in helping African Americans navigate the absent voting system, which they have traditionally not used in the same proportion as white voters.
At the Greater Gaines Chapel AME, a church about half a mile from St. Philip Monumental, Israel Small spent most of last fall helping church members with the absence process.
“We took people to drop boxes to make sure they were counted,” Small, 79, said. He’s very angry to hear this winter that Republicans also want to restrict voicemail.
Among the changes proposed by Republican lawmakers is a requirement for voters to provide proof of their identification – their license numbers or copies of official ID cards – with their absent ballot applications.
This indicates a shift for Republicans, who have long controlled the Statehouse; in 2005 they accepted a similar proposal, but to vote in person.
The measure included a new “fraud against fraud” that required voters to present one of a limited set of government-issued identity cards, such as a driver’s license, at polling stations.
The information showed that the restrictions had affected black voters excessively. At the same time, Republicans withdrew from the state to facilitate the process of absenteeism – which was mainly used by white voters at the time – by depriving absentee voters of the excuse they could not personally vote for and releasing them from the new photo- requirement for identification.
Attorneys for the Department of Justice reviewed the proposals under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and found that the new ID Act is likely to make voting for black citizens excessively more difficult. The advocates recommended that the George W. Bush administration block it.
In a memorandum that ultimately disregarded the political leadership of the department, staff advocates noted that a sponsor of the legislation had told them that she believed that black voters would probably only vote if they were paid for it, and that if the new law reduces their votes. part it was only because it would limit opportunities for fraud.
The memorandum also said that the sponsors of the law defend the more prudent treatment of postal voting – such as the exemption from the ID provision – by arguing that it is safer than voting in person, because it leaves a paper trail.
Now, after an election year in which former President Donald Trump repeatedly and falsely dismissed email voting as full of fraud, the state republics argue that the voting vote needs more restrictions.
There is no new evidence to support this claim. But one thing has changed in 2020: the increase in black voters who took advantage of the absentee ballot, which helped Democrats dominate the results during the presidential election.
“It’s just a sad day,” Small of Greater Gaines Church said.
“This is a very challenging time for all of us, just for the inalienable voting rights we have fought so hard for, and currently they are trying to turn back the clock to make sure it is difficult,” he said.
Clarke of St. Philip Monumental said the Republican effort to impose more restrictions could backfire, which could result in already active voters.
“Donald Trump woke us up,” he said. ‘There are more people in the congregation who are more aware and vigilant and have a greater awareness of politics. Although we know this and believe that his intentions were sick, we can honestly say that he woke us up. That we will never be the same. ”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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