GREENSBORO, N.C. (HUNS) — The ambitions of student advocacy and celebrity appearances from Marsai Martin and Trinity Tatum led countless Aggies to march from the Dudley Memorial Building to Union Square Campus in Greensboro on Oct. 22. Students came together to vote and get registered at what students dubbed “Party at the Polls.”
After not receiving an on-campus early polling site for midterms, students fought to get it back, even after being denied by the Guilford County Board of Elections. The rejection didn’t stop students from trying though.
In fact, they turned it up a notch, using the former polling location they lost as a launching pad to march in an effort to get a polling site back on campus.
When We All Vote, a nonprofit voting organization, brought Martin, an organization ambassador, renowned actress and producer, alongside Tatum, season eight winner of “Love Island,” to get students excited to take civic action. Martin already knew the history of A&T’s polling site and encouraged students to keep going.
“You have been denied, you have been delayed, but one thing is clear: You will not be silenced,” she said. “When the path to the polls got harder, you guys all found a way forward and that’s why I’m here to party at the polls with y’all.”
“You have been denied, you have been delayed, but one thing is clear: You will not be silenced.” — Actress Marsai Martin
(Photo: Kevin Pernell/The A&T Register)
The passionate students crowded Tatum and Martin with every step they took on campus, but they also made sure to crowd the streets of Greensboro on their march to the nearest polling site downtown. However, there was one persistent question left in the minds of students during their march.
“Why is it this far?”
That was one of the many phrases students chanted on their way to the polls. The walk from the Dudley Memorial to Union Square Campus took over 45 minutes and over 2,000 steps, a distance and unfair reality many students didn’t want to deal with anymore.
A&T is home to at least 15,275 students who don’t all have accessible means to reach a polling site as far as where students marched. Olu Rouse, a senior and co-founder of Protect Ours NC, knows he deserves a say in what goes on in the community where he lives.
“We as students are residents of Guilford County and are their constituents,” said Rouse. “I’ve lived here for the past four years at this point. I believe we deserve to be heard above anything else.”
And heard they were. Inside the polling site, the halls were filled with people standing shoulder to shoulder, eager to vote. Registration forms and voter guides were passed out and Aggies spent hours at the site.
The event was more than just a “hype fest” and fanfare; students like senior Kelly Jones came educated for this year’s election.
Jones is a political science student and serves as Miss Black Girls Vote for A&T. Naturally, she also has deep convictions about her civic duty as a student.
“Everybody needs to be civically educated and civically knowledgeable about everything that’s going on in their community … it all matters,” said Jones. “And we don’t like what’s happening right now, so what does that mean? You change it.”
Early voting runs through Saturday, Oct. 31. On Election Day, which is Tuesday, Nov. 3, voters must cast their ballot in their assigned precinct. Find more details about voting at the Guilford County Board of Elections website.
Antonio Mattox is senior editor of the A&T Register at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina, where this article was originally published. The Register and HUNewsService.com are part of the HBCU Election Project in collaboration with WHUT-TV Howard University Television. They are also among 10 HBCU newsrooms in the Indaba Student Press Leadership and Innovation Consortium, sponsored by Howard’s Center for Journalism & Democracy.
