After listening to Kamala Harris speak at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church on Sunday, Jeremiah Kilgore and his wife, Katrina, said they were heading straight to the polls to vote for the vice president.
“I look forward to seeing her get inaugurated in 2025,” Jeremiah said of Harris after exiting the Stonecrest megachurch with his wife and two daughters. “I hope she can guide us as a whole and that path that we need to be guided in,” Katrina added.
The Kilgores were among the more than 42,000 Georgians who voted ahead of Election Day on the first day of Sunday early voting in this year’s general election. A statewide “Souls to the Polls” operation — which channels the ballot-casting power of the Black church community — contributed to record turnout rates last week after early voting began.
More than 1.5 million people have already voted in this year’s elections as of 3:30 p.m. Monday, according to state election data. Souls to the Polls organizers who spoke with Capital B Atlanta over the weekend credited their efforts for higher turnout rates among the state’s Black population last week, when overall Black turnout peaked at more than 29%, before dropping to just over 20% on Monday, according to data from the secretary of state’s office.
In metro Atlanta alone, as many as 75 volunteer drivers spent the week transporting people to early voting sites using a fleet of borrowed church vans and other vehicles, according to voter engagement activist Helen Butler, executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda, an Atlanta-based social justice nonprofit.
Butler spent Sunday afternoon energizing Black voters at churches throughout the metro area, including First Iconium Baptist Church in east Atlanta. She said her organization is visiting churches in Cobb County next Sunday to take churchgoers to voting locations in remote areas of the state where volunteer drivers aren’t available.
Anyone who needs a ride to the polls can arrange one by visiting www.ridetothepoll.com or calling (877) 524-8683. That includes more remote areas in Georgia where public transportation isn’t available.
“We’re going to be all over the state,” Butler told Capital B Atlanta on Sunday. “My offices have vans, and the churches in those areas have offered to provide vans as well, so [there is] no excuse for [anyone] not voting.”
Harris also did her best to rev up the crowd at New Birth on Sunday morning. The estimated 5,000 in attendance sang the Stevie Wonder version of “Happy Birthday” to the vice president before her address, which coincided with her 60th birthday.
She spoke about the biblical story of the Good Samaritan, which teaches the Christian commandment to “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” and noted how Georgians have been putting that tenet into practice during Hurricane Helene relief efforts.
Harris also urged congregants not to be weary this election cycle with a nation that has reached a political crossroad.
“We face this question: What kind of country do we want to live in — a country of chaos, fear, and hate, or a country of freedom, compassion, and justice?” Harris said. “The great thing about living in a democracy is that we, the people, have the power to answer that question. So, let us answer not just through our words, but through our actions and with our votes.”
