Grassroots Outreach Is the Frontline in Georgia
Grassroots Outreach Is the Frontline in Georgia
BY Steven Rosenfeld | January 3, 2021
Democrats and Republicans, and their allies, have blanketed the state with media and messaging, but neighbors calling on neighbors may tip the outcome.
This article was produced by Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
With two days of early voting left before Georgia’s Senate runoffs conclude on January 5, the handful of volunteers trying to turn out 1,300 voters of color in rural Pulaski County got on Zoom on Tuesday night to assess their progress.
For the past 10 days, the team, led by Julius Johnson, who created a Black history museum in Hawkinsville, the county seat, and his college-age son Mohammed, and four older women, all friends—Kim Aquamina, Karen Burks, Jacquelyn Finch and Danielle Coticchio—had been calling and knocking on hundreds of doors. Pulaski County was in the state’s “Black Belt,” where the residents were split evenly between whites and non-whites, but few Blacks held elected office.
