Source: Jessica McGowan / Getty
Former House Representative John Lewis may have passed, but it’s clear his spirit lives on after his former county helped deal a devastating blow to current sitting President, Donald Trump‘s campaign.
On Friday (Nov 6) the civil rights icon’s county in Georgia tipped Democratic nominee Joe Biden into the lead in the state as mail-in ballots, continued to be counted from the area. As previously reported, at about 4:30 a.m. on Friday, a release of ballots counted in Clayton County gave Biden a lead of 917 votes in the Southern state, pushing his lead out to 1,096 votes after another batch of ballot results came in at about 6 a.m.
As the votes continued to be counted from surrounding counties including Fulton, DeKalb, and Chatham, helped boost Biden ahead of Trump; it was ultimately Clayton, that’s also the bluest bastion in the state, that provided the decisive votes.
Politicians and political operatives took to Twitter to point out the county’s connection with Lewis, as Secretary of State, and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, reshared a 2016 tweet from the late icon emphasizing the importance of voting, with her own caption noting that Lewis “would be proud.”
“The right to vote is precious, almost sacred,” Lewis wrote in 2016. “It is the most powerful nonviolent tool or instrument in a democratic society. We must use it.”
Although the Georgia secretary of state said Friday that the state will be headed to a recount given the tight margin, many point out the fact that the very counties that Trump referred to as “sh*t holes” helped boost Biden ahead of Trump — serves as not only an electoral twist but also an act of divine justice.
“I love the idea that Clayton County could put Biden over in GA. That’s John Lewis’ district. He would do one of his trademark happy dances in heaven. Symmetry,” former senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri wrote on Twitter.
In addition to John Lewis’s influence leading to the state’s historic flip, former Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams is also credited for her instrumental role in the “Democratic Earthquake” in the state after news that her organization registered more than 800,000 new voters since 2018 broke. As previously reported, despite being cheated out of her prominent position as Governor by Trump-backed flunkee Brian Kemp, Abrams decided to take action amid allegations that Republicans had taken steps to suppress the Black vote by purging voter rolls, by starting the voter protection and information organization, Fair Fight Action, to ensure that all votes would be counted and all voices are heard.
After falling 55,000 votes short, Abrams told Vogue in 2019, “I sat shiva for 10 days. Then I started plotting.”
Over the summer in the op-ed she penned for The New York Times, Abrams noted the hurdle she faced of restoring African Americans’ faith in the voting system, before adding that while voting is important, it’s only the first step.
“Go vote” sounds like a slogan, not a solution,” Stacey Abrams wrote. “Because millions of us have voted. And too many still die. The moment requires many things from each one of us. What I am focused on is the work of showing people, in concrete ways, what voting gets us. And being honest about how much work voting requires. Voting is the first step in a long and complex process, tedious but vital. You can have a car with all the bells and whistles, but if it doesn’t have wheels, you can’t move forward. So we have to talk about the whole process, and we cannot be so simplistic that we seem too idealistic.”
As of press time, America was still awaiting the official call of the election to Joe Biden, but as political analysts point out, the official results can’t be called until all votes are counted.
