‘This year’s “Souls to the Polls” celebration rallied the faithful and saw about 500 ballots cast early at Augusta Municipal Building.
Several area churches sent vanloads of parishioners to vote and E. Gibson, head trustee at Hudson Memorial CME Church, came with a group all wearing church t-shirts.
Posing for a photo, the group flashed two fingers for their nickname, the Deuces, for the church’s address at 2 Taylor St.
“We just want everybody to come out and vote,” Gibson said. “No matter who you’re voting for, just come out and vote.”
The event leaned strongly Democrat. A group of Georgia Victory volunteers waved signs supporting Vice President Kamala Harris, played gospel music and offered voters a sausage dog.
Rev. Augusta H. Hall Jr., pastor of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, said his church uses its van to give instant rides to voters throughout the voting period, but celebrates “Souls to the Polls” as well.
“People fought and bled and died for simply the right to go vote,” Hall said. “We try to make sure that people are getting out to vote and taking part in democracy in America,” he said.
Bernard and Natine McCaugley, also from Bethel, stopped by the event and had some food.
While the Georgia legislature at one point tried to end Sunday voting, Souls to the Polls is a time-honored tradition at Bethel and turnout shows that interest remains high, Bernard McCaugley said.
“Over the years, Black churches have encouraged parishioners to go to the polls and vote and Souls to the Polls is a way that all the Black churches come together and send a bunch of of people out to vote,” he said.
McCaugley said today’s “trying times” make voting particularly important.
“We really need to get people in that will see our needs and have a heart for our understanding,” he said.
He also emphasized the struggle many Americans went through to gain the right.
“We have gone through all kinds of hard sacrifices just to get a chance to vote,” McCaugley said.
