‘Souls who’ve already been to the polls’
Sunday tradition sees many black voters having already voted
This year, the Sunday tradition of “Souls to the Polls” for AfricanAmerican voters could better be described as “Souls Who’ve Already Been to the Polls.”
“Oh, I already voted,” said Teresa Smith of Orlando, talking with friends on the steps of the Macedonia Missionary Church in Eatonville, quoting Andrew Gillum’s campaign slogan of, “We’re taking it home.”
With more than 423,000 African-Americans having voted as of Sunday morning, black turnout
since early voting began on Oct. 22 is likely to double statewide numbers from the last midterm election in 2014.
Overall, African Americans – 13.3 percent of the electorate – made up 17 percent of early voters going into Sunday, the traditional “Souls to the Polls” day when buses take large groups directly from churches to early voting sites. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum joined one such event in Miami Sunday.
But on Souls to the Polls Sunday in 2018, more than half of the churchgoers at Macedonia Missionary raised their hands when Pastor Willie C Barnes asked who had already voted.
Outside, there were no buses this time taking congregants to the polls, only the weekly buses taking some of them home.
“At one time, most of our congregation lived in Eatonville,” said Clarice Hayes, Barnes’s executive assistant. “Now, the congregation’s spread out all over. It’s Sunday, they’re ready to eat, and they don’t want to drive all the way back here. So they’re driving over to the polls, or carpooling.”
For many in the congregation, Hayes said, “There’s a pride in voting. Some people feel like it’s not only their right, but their responsibility.”
Barnes led the way, telling parishioners in a rousing, fiery sermon, “If there was ever an important time in this country, it’s today. What I want you to do is vote. And you can vote today.”
Churches aren’t allowed to tell members to vote for one person or party. But just as conservative religious groups issue voting guides explaining candidates’ positions on issues such as abortion, pastors can make it very clear what they think.
“I know all about 45,” Barnes said, never referring to President Trump by name but by his numbered presidency. “This is the world we live in. We live in the age of 45. You know what he’s doing. That’s what he likes to do, exercise authority over people.”
“Even to the point of trying to change the Constitution of the United States,” Barnes added, alluding to Trump’s vow to end birthright citizenship granted by the 14th Amendment, which made former slaves U.S. citizens.
Barnes also pointed to Democratic U.S. Bill Nelson, who was in the pews.
“No, he’s not going to make a speech,” Barnes said of Nelson. “But he’s already made his speech for the last 18 years. He comes to worship, and I know it’s a way of humility for him. He don’t need to say anything. Not in this church, he don’t.”
Hope Champion of Winter Park said she wasn’t surprised to see Nelson at church Sunday: “He’s always here.”
For Champion, “It’s very important to vote in this day and time, with the administration we currently have going against everything I, myself, my family, my ancestors, stand for. We live in a divisive time right now, and I think that my vote, along with most of the congregation here, is a vote to make a change.”
Awaiting a church bus to take her home first, Christine Armster of Orlando said her vote Sunday “wasn’t just about being a black person. I just don’t like the way the country’s being run right now.”
Antionette Taylor Richardson of Rosemont, meanwhile, would vote early Sunday or not at all, due to health conditions that make it hard for her to stand for long periods.
“It makes a huge difference for those who can’t stand in line to vote,” Richardson said.
Others didn’t vote Sunday for different reasons.
Tanesha Roberts of Orlando was among the dozens who’d already voted, saying it’s less stressful. But for Cynthia Facey of Rosemont, “I love to do my voting on D-Day,” she said, referring to Election Day. “I think back to the old days when we couldn’t vote and I like to stand in line. I love it. I take the grandkids to let them know the feeling of voting.”
Bill Dunlap of Apopka also remembered the days before the Voting Rights Act as he left to go vote Sunday.
“Voting this year will actually determine the rest of my life and my children’s’ life,” Dunlap said. “Things are being put in place now, that if we don’t change them my children will suffer. I’ve seen the ’40s and ’50s, and things got a little bit better from they were, but not enough. And we’re going right back there.”