Instead of spending the morning in the warmth of their beds, about 40 people from metro Atlanta gathered before 8 a.m. in the parking lot of Impact Church on Sylvan Road in East Point.
They were there to walk through the neighborhood and pick up trash. For them, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is a day of service — not relaxation.
The cleanup was coordinated by Georgia STAND-UP, a grassroots organization working at the intersection of race, class and policy to promote economic and social justice.
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Credit: Jenni Girtman
The organization operates out of a converted warehouse across the street from Impact Church. It was in that warehouse that Deborah Scott, the organization’s executive director, led a voter registration campaign — “Black mothers and grandmothers talking to Black mothers and grandmothers,” as Scott told the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in December — that contributed to the high Black voter turnout in the state.
The number of Black voters registered to vote in Georgia increased by 14 percent between 2016 and 2020, and Black turnout increased by 19 percent in the 2020 general election compared to 2016, according to an AJC analysis of Secretary of State voter data.
Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock narrowly defeated U.S. Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler on Jan. 5 because of the cultivation of Black voters. But on the federal holiday honoring the man who dreamed of racial equality, there was little to celebrate. Movement in the nation’s capital is restricted by a militarized lockdown as the country braces for potentially more unrest at Joe Biden’s inauguration.
The malicious assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, where a mob of insurrectionists, including white supremacists, inflamed by President Donald Trump’s debunked claims about election fraud, trashed the halls of democracy. Five people, including a Capitol police officer, died during the rampage.
“We know that this was a coup attempt that was really brought on by Black people taking power and taking control through their vote,” Scott said. “There’s a backlash anytime that we move progressively.”
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Credit: Jenni Girtman
If you look at King’s life, change and backlash often come together.
King endured death threats. His Montgomery, Alabama, house was bombed one month after the Montgomery bus boycott began in 1956. A cross was burned on the lawn of his Atlanta home four years later. Today, he’s hailed as a paragon of justice, but during the civil rights movement, King was surveilled and harassed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as detailed in the new documentary “MLK/FBI.” King was assassinated in 1968.
A child born in the 1960s, Scott was raised as turbulent protests erupted across the country. But then, like after George Floyd’s death last year, the unrest was sparked by police brutality and racial inequality. This time, the backlash caused Scott to hire security. Think about it: In America, a woman hired security for people to pick up garbage in the early morning.
“We don’t know who knows who we are and who sees us as a threat,” Scott said, tugging on her masking.
Oh yes, the pandemic, which has exposed inequities in health and income, continues to rage. East Point, with a population of about 35,000, according to 2019 U.S. Census Bureau data, is roughly 78 percent Black. It’s one of the few historically Black areas in metro Atlanta where longtime residents haven’t been displaced by rising housing prices and property taxes. Almost a quarter of residents are impoverished, compared to 10 percent overall nationally.
“It’s always an equity issue,” Scott said. “It’s about giving communities what they need, and part of what we have to do is equalize the playing field. I’m hopeful with (the Biden) administration that cities and urban centers will begin to get the resources that they need.”
A clean roadside is a start.
Armed with trash pickers, most of the people working on their day off were Black women.
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Lauren Davis, 28, grew up volunteering on King Day. She wore a black hoodie with the words “Black Women Matter” emblazoned on the front as she remarked about the numerous discarded Waffle House containers she picked up. On Jan. 20, Kamala Harris will become the first woman to be vice president, but Davis mentioned the effort of Stacey Abrams to register voters in Georgia.
“She didn’t let defeat get her down,” Davis said, referring to Abrams’ loss in the 2018 gubernatorial election. “She didn’t let what I think we’ve been labeled as Black women — as being bitter and upset when things go wrong — stop her. She was like, ‘It’s not about me. It’s about us as a whole’.”
Raquel Grant said there was something innate in Black women to step up.
“It’s just something inside of us that makes us take the lead and take charge, probably because that’s just how we have always had to be with our household,” she said. “Want to get something done, have a Black woman do it.”
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