"
On Saturday, November 7, 2020, millions of people in hundreds of cities throughout the nation rally to demand “Count All The Votes.” Voters push back against Trump’s claim that he won, and his frivolous lawsuits to stop counting the votes. Voters are telling Trump that it is the voters who decide who wins the election, not Trump or his lawyers
Also on Saturday, it was announced that Biden reached 270 electoral votes and is now the President-elect.
Upon hearing this news, the entire world breaks into spontaneous celebrations over the defeat of President Donald Trump. Church bells ring in Paris, fireworks go off in London, millions dance in the streets of America, so happy that democracy, decency, truth, empathy, and accountability will be restored to the White House with President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Millions are overjoyed to see an end to Trump’s nightmare of cruelty and chaos and a return to sanity and humanity with Biden and Harris. People of Color, especially immigrants, will no longer be demonized and dehumanized by Trump.
The nation lets out a sigh of relief that we are getting rid of a brutal racist psychopath that has no empathy, guilt, shame and only cares about himself.
The Rally at Freedom Parkway in Atlanta
The rally’s opening statement announced that we have a new president and a Black woman Vice President. After Trump dictatorial regime, people will never again take democracy for granted. Citizens must participate in the election process if we want to keep democracy and vote for people who will work for working people.
“We have rejected the politics of fear and hate, and we have overcome a well funded aggressive, and in some incidents, violent voter suppression. We are building the New Georgia – a multi-racial and multi-ethnic Georgia where our families can do more than just survive. We can thrive in this new Georgia,” Nse Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project, said at the rally.
“The original ambition of this rally was that we might not have all of our votes counted and we may not have a peaceful transition of power. But this is an opportunity for us to come together as a community to reject that and to talk about the democracy we want to build…. Georgia voters have an opportunity to give the Biden/Harris administration a governing trifecta so we might actually get some things done,” Ufot said.
“I’m relieved and elated we are getting Trump out of our House! But I know it takes more than the President to fix the problems. We need to elect Warnock and Ossoff to the Senate. We also must continue the groundwork in our communities and cities. People are sick and tired of being bamboozled [by politicians]. Change doesn’t come by whimpering on the sideline. We must work to bring change to fruition,” Sherise Brown, a community organizer, told the Streets of Atlanta.
Toni Michelle Williams, a black trans community organizer with Solutions Not Punishments, gets the crowd all worked up and ready to fight for justice.
Some of the major achievements of her group along with the Racial Justice Action Center and Women on the Rise are decriminalization of cannabis in Atlanta, end of cash bail for non-violent offenders, and closing the city jail to be repurposed to help not hurt the community.
Many issue were discussed at the rally by activists including pro-choice, systemic racism, police brutality, a living wage, healthcare, LGBTI rights, labor rights, immigrant rights, housing justice, homelessness, and much more.
The main issue is to continue to register people to vote and get people out on January 5 to vote for Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff for the U.S. Senate, If Democrats have a majority in the Senate, Mitch McConnell can no longer stop bills from coming to the Senate floor for a vote. More than 250 bills passed by the House are buried in McConnell’s legislative graveyard.
Georgia Turns Blue
Georgia turns Blue, thanks in large part to Stacey Abrams and the New Georgia Project which registered over 800,000 thousand Georgia citizens for the 2020 presidential election.
Abrams is very familiar with voter suppression, purges, and lost voter registration applications since all of those techniques were used on her when she ran for Governor of Georgia in 2018. Then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp a/k/a the “Voter Suppression King” was not only a candidate for Governor but also the guy in charge of the voting machines.
Abrams lost to Kemp by only 55,000 votes and Kemp lost 40,000 thousand voter registration applications and purged 560,000 hundred thousand voters because they did not vote in every election.
Abrams started The New Georgia Project, a voting rights and civic engagement organization, that works statewide to ensure the people of Georgia are registered and allowed to vote.
This is how they turned Georgia Blue
“We are meeting people in their communities, at their homes, knocking on their doors, and talking to them as to why voting is important. Making sure they have the information they need to be able to go and vote and have voting plans. We know in Georgia we have so much voter suppression. To date, we have contacted over one million Georgians via text, phones, seeing people in the streets, and in their communities, and at other events. We are the new electorate which are black and brown folks, young and older people, hard-working citizens, and that’s the electorate that we worked to activate,” Jaira Burke, Rapid Response Director at New Georgia Project, told the Streets of Atlanta.
Trump threw everything at voters to prevent them from voting. He said voting by absentee ballot would cause massive fraud, he put his minion in charge of the post office to slow down the delivery of ballots to the registrar’s office for counting (over 300,000 thousand ballots are still at the post office), he filed lawsuits against several states with claims of something wrong with absentee ballots, and lied on national television that if he loses it is because of illegal votes.
In spite of all of Trump’s efforts to suppress the vote, democracy was saved from this tin-pot dictator by mostly Black women and young people, and all the millions of people who voted to fire Trump and hire Biden.
Biden/Harris won thanks to all the citizens who stood in line for 10 or more hours to vote in a deadly pandemic. Thanks to the removal of the easily hackable DieBold voting machines that helped Republicans stay in power for 20 years. Thanks to all the first time voters. Thanks to the early absentee ballot voters. Thanks to all the voters who understood that saving democracy, controlling COVID-19 that has killed 240 hundred thousand Americans, and so much more was at stake in this election
It’s not time to go home and relax, we must stay vigilant and involved if we want to keep democracy or to prevent another Trump-like white supremacist dictator from winning in four years. Voters must also keep the Biden administration’s feet to the fire and make sure he helps working people and doesn’t become “Republican Light” like so many other Democrats.
Written by Gloria Tatum
Streets of Atlanta 