US Elections 2020: Hundreds 'march to the polls' in North Carolina's Graham
Nov 04, 2020
Carolina [US], November 4 : Hundreds of people from across North Carolina marched quietly several blocks to two polling locations on Tuesday (local time), days after law enforcement agencies used pepper spray to break the first march.
The march was led by Reverend Greg Drumwright. Locals march on the day of US presidential elections for several blocks, before making their way to the central square, where a Confederate monument stands, Al Jazeera reported.
"In the absence of hope, what do we have?" Drumwright told the crowd as they raised their fists in the air.
"Therefore we cling to hope tonight," he added. "I want you to cling to change tonight; I want you to believe that this is a shifting and a turning and a dawning of a new area; that things will not stay the same; that white supremacy will come down; that racism will come down; that love will be lifted up."
The march was carried out on the day of the highly divided US Presidential election. According to CNN projections, Joe Biden is currently leading President Trump in North Carolina with 8 percent of the estimated vote in, but in some big Democratic counties, it is mostly early votes.
There are nine electoral votes at stake in South Carolina. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election.
Meanwhile, civil rights groups in North Carolina are suing law enforcement in Alamance County over the police's pepper-spraying of people in a march to the polls last weekend, alleging the action was taken to intimidate voters.
Last Saturday, about 200 people marched from a church in Graham to the courthouse in an event called "I am Change March to the Polls."
Police said they ordered people to disperse because they were blocking the road and deployed pepper spray when they refused to comply.
Some of the marchers were arrested, including the organizer, the Rev. Gregory Drumwright, who is named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit filed by the ACLU and the Lawyers' Committee.