VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017
Important dates:
Early voting: October 16 General election: November 7, 2017
Runoff election (if applicable): December 5, 2017
It is my belief that one of the most significant steps that members of a minority community may take is that short walk to the voting booth. It is the responsibility of every good citizen to register and vote. I strongly urge you to vote in the coming election. Vote for the party and candidate of your choice, but by all means vote. – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. recorded the statement above for radio station WLIB in New York City via station WAOK in Atlanta, Georgia on Sept. 6, 1962.
Clearly it is as relevant today as it was then. I might say we are even more duty-bound to exercise our right to VOTE, because countless men and women like Dr. King gave their lives over the past decades so that we could have the power now to VOTE.
If you want to have a hand in what happens to you, your loved ones, your neighbors and the broad community around you, you must do your civic duty. Educate yourself on the positions of candidates for office – not only during presidential elections, but in every election cycle. Local elections are just as important as national elections. They affect our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness guaranteed to us in our nation’s Constitution.
To access some tools to help you make choices in the City of Atlanta Mayoral, City Council President and City Council District and At-Large races, check out the Committee for a Better Atlanta (a non-partisan coalition of business and community leaders of which the Urban League of Greater Atlanta was a part) website to view the responses to a questionnaire on a broad range of issues that affect our communities that were completed by many of the current City of Atlanta candidates at http://cbatl.org/questionnaires/ and check out a score card based on responses to the questionnaires and in person interviews at http://cbatl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/CBA-Scores-8.5×11.pdf.
The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s brought us a long way toward gaining political and economic rights. Now, it is up to us not only to advance but to be vigilante against a tide that threatens to erase our gains.
Don’t leave your future up to someone else. Take a stand – in the voting booth.
Vote on Nov. 7. You hold the power.
