Three weeks before the presidential election, early voting has already started in certain key states such as Georgia. In this state where Donald Trump was indicted for trying to reverse the result of the last presidential election of 2020, and three weeks before November 5, tensions between supporters of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are such that some are distributing their leaflets on the ground while carrying a firearm with them to protect themselves, explains our special correspondent in Atlanta, David Thomson.
When he goes door to door in the black neighborhoods of Atlanta to mobilize African-American voters, Horace Cooper, 75, is always armed, because you never know, he says: “ I have a gun in my car. I have one on me. And I have another one in my bag. We must be ready. »
Racist intimidation
This Democratic activist thinks he needs these weapons to protect himself from Donald Trump supporters when he goes door to door with his organization “We Vote We Win”. He says he suffered racist intimidation from them aimed at preventing him from encouraging black people to vote on November 5: “ The other day we were going door to door and people came up to us saying “hey nigga, get out of here”. We weren’t even in a white neighborhood. We only go to black neighborhoods, and our vans are unmarked. but they know our vehicles and they see us. The closer we get to November, the more threats we will receive. But we are prepared. This is a war by the party of Trump against us, black people and people of color. »
Horace Cooper was born in 1949, he grew up in an America that experienced segregation and buses and restaurants prohibited to black people; but he claims to have never experienced such a level of racial hatred since the 1960s in the United States.