Georgia Turnz Blue

Jackson Street Bridge, Atlanta, Georgia, United States Photo by Joey Kyber on Unsplash

By Chriscilia L. Cox

National Strategic Co-Director

The world watched as Georgia turned BLUE when the U.S. presidential election results were announced on Nov. 3, 2020!

This event had not occurred since 1992, and ultimately changed the direction of the 2020 elections. It was a nail-biter across the nation, as democratic candidates former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris defeated President Donald Trump, a Republican. Yet in the very late night until past dawn, all eyes were, again, on Georgia to see a potential Senate runoff, and on Jan 5, 2021, Pastor Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff were elected to the Senate, leaving the Democratic Party with control of the House and Senate, thanks, in part, to Zeta’s Get Engaged initiative.

What did we learn during this recent election season? We learned that voter mobilization matters; we learned that our voice and our vote matters. Every vote counts! It made us realize how powerful we are when we mobilize and execute together. Zeta focuses on partnerships and opportunities with When We All Vote, Black Voters Matter, and the NAACP. Our Social Action and Get Engaged Directors (Sorors Nicole Butler and Wanda Cromartie-Jones) loaded the sisterhood with webinars, training, PSAs, and any other resources needed to assist in this massive effort.

In Georgia, registered voters can request a mail-in ballot or vote early in person. In 2016, 59 percent of the total votes were cast early. In the 2020 election, due to the pandemic, 74.1 percent took advantage and mailed in their ballots with a 1-percent return rate. All over Georgia, precincts have had record turnouts. More than 3.9 million ballots were cast in Georgia. That’s more than 1.5 million votes more than were cast in early voting in the 2016 presidential election.

With one day of voting left to go, Georgia had already shattered voting records from 2016. By the end of the 2020 campaign, when polls suggested Georgia was close, Democrats went all-in on the state, as Stacy Abrams had been calling for. The Democratic super PAC Priorities USA, which focused only on Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, expanded its operations to Georgia. Initially, NAACP guidance was pretty simple: The Atlanta area turned really blue in the Trump era. Definitions differ about the exact parameters of the Atlanta metropolitan area, but 10 counties are part of a governing collaborative called the Atlanta Regional Commission. Almost 4.7 million people live in those 10 counties, or about 45 percent of the state’s population.

Until very recently, the Atlanta area wasn’t a liberal citadel. There was a Democratic bloc that long controlled the government within the city limits of Atlanta and a Republican bloc that once dominated the suburbs and whose rise was chronicled in historian Kevin Kruse’s 2005 book White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism. In 2012, Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney each won five of the 10 counties in the Atlanta Regional Commission. But in 2016, Clinton won eight

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of the 10 counties. In 2018, Abrams won those eight counties by larger margins than Clinton. Biden then improved on Abrams’s margins in most of them. For example, Romney carried Gwinnett — an Atlanta-area suburban county that is the second-largest county in the state — by nine percentage points in 2012. This 2020 year, Ossoff won by 16 and Biden won by 18. Likewise, in Cobb County, another large Atlantaarea suburban county, Romney won by 12 points in 2012, but then Clinton carried it by 2, Abrams by 10, Ossoff by 11, and Biden by 14. All eyes were initially on metro Atlanta’s Fulton and DeKalb counties. However, Savannah’s Chatham County, Clayton County, and any number of smaller Democratic strongholds throughout the Peach State or turning red counties to purple played a huge part.

For instance, 1st District’s Glynn County was in the heat of both election and runoff and fighting social injustices like the Ahmaud Arbery trial. Educating voters on their rights and registration was the main focus from chapters like the Eta Gamma Zeta chapter of Brunswick as well as other coastal chapters like Chi Pi Zeta of Hinesville. They specifically targeted the 23,000 young voters who became eligible during the runoff. Their efforts led to more than 100+ registrations within a three-county radius. On Jan. 2, 2021, the Glynn County Democratic, This is What Voting Looks Like and Eta Gamma Zeta Chapter hosted a meet the candidates forum, where Rev. Warnock shared his campaign vision. This resulted in 400+ constituents and an increase of more than 13,000 more voters with ef-

Eta Gamma Zeta Chapter and Lambda Beta Sigma Chapter of Brunswick, Georgia, at the Meet the Candidates forum January 2, 2021, at Lanier Plaza, with President of Eta Gamma Zeta Chapter Soror Darleen Smith and President of Lambda Beta Sigma Chapter Frater Johnny Davis.

National Strategic Director and Eta Gamma Zeta member Soror Chriscilia Cox with Marcus Arbery Sr.at the meet the candidate’s forum at Lanier Plaza on Jan. 2, 2021.

Chi Pi Zeta and Eta Gamma Zeta chapters registering high school eligible voters at local county high schools.

forts from late results from Clayton and Chatham counties, the latter of which sparked a lawsuit from the Trump campaign.

Regional Director LaWanda Harper, State Director Vicki Pearson, and Georgia Zetas, Sigmas, Amicae, and Youth played another pivotal role. With a $40,000 grant from Black Voters Matter, chapters moved with full force and creativity. Some chapters like Alpha Alpha Kappa Zeta of Newman, Georgia, creatively found other funding resources to actively engage with the Party at the Box campaign. Other chapter efforts included providing meals and snacks for workers, distributing snacks, rides to the polls for the general election, sponsoring billboards for Senate runoff election, Get Out the Vote parades, voter motorcades, certified runners between voting precincts, Public Service Announcements and distributing yard signs and banners. Their culminating event was the Blue Boots on the Ground neighborhood canvassing with our state Sigma brothers on Jan. 2, 2021.

State of Georgia participating chapters:

Alpha Alpha Kappa Zeta Alpha Theta Zeta Beta Alpha Chi Zeta Beta Rho Zeta Chi Pi Zeta Epsilon Tau Zeta Epsilon Zeta Eta Gamma Zeta Eta Rho Zeta Eta Theta Zeta Iota Eta Zeta Kappa Iota Zeta Omicron Alpha Zeta Omicron Kappa Zeta Phi Omicron Zeta Psi Rho Zeta Rho Epsilon Zeta Rho Xi Zeta Sigma Mu Zeta Sigma Omega Zeta Sigma Omicron Zeta Sigma Rho (ONLY UNDERGRAD) Theta Chi Zeta Theta Xi Zeta

as one of the major cities in the United States that struggled to get communities of color to the polls. Alpha Alpha Omicron Zeta (Northeast Philadelphia and Bucks County, PA) knew that they needed to be a voice of hope and change for their community.

The sorors of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania were relentless in educating the community and making sure their voice would be heard in this election.