Four years ago, Deborah Scott played a key role in helping President Biden win Georgia, leading a band of mostly Black women to canvass, phone bank, even dance outside polling stations as part of a movement that helped flip this historically conservative Southern state blue.
But even as the grassroots organizing dynamo hustles to get out the vote this year, she is not sure she and other Black and brown organizers can coax and inspire enough voters to the polls to deliver another win for Democrats.
“I don’t feel confident of anything,” the chief executive of Georgia STAND-UP said as she took a break Friday from bopping to Southern trap outside a polling station in a historic Black neighborhood of southwest Atlanta and waving a sign that said “YOU have the POWER.”
Scott’s team has 200 people calling and knocking on doors and has sent out more than 1.5 million text messages. On the last day of early voting, they had a DJ cranking out rap from Young Jeezy and Waka Flocka Flame, and a line of food trucks serving free French fries, Philly cheesesteaks and shaved ice.