Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens was the 550th voter to cast their ballot early at Evelyn Lowery Library in southwest Atlanta last week.
The first-term mayor did a flurry of news interviews outside of the polling location and filmed social media videos encouraging Atlantans to beat the lines and vote ahead of Election Day.
“I feel a lot of the pressure to make sure that Georgia, metro Atlanta, turns up the vote as they should,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “With so much going on in the world, there’s so many distractions, we’re telling people that this is important.”
It wasn’t his only role in a weekend packed with political events. As a surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris presidential bid, Dickens spent Saturday cruising around the city encouraging Black men to turn out big this election cycle.
He also addressed criticism that Harris’ support from Black men hasn’t been as strong as expected.
“I’m a Black man and I’m voting for Harris,” he said. “And to my knowledge, Black men are the second largest population that votes for Democrats — Black women and Black men.”
In Atlanta over the weekend, Harris held a series of events aimed at Black voters who, our colleague Greg Bluestein writes, could make or break her campaign. The Democrat held a rally with hip-hop icon Usher and attended a “souls to the polls” event Sunday at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church.
Georgians shattered records during the first week of early voting with more than 1 million cast ballots ahead of Nov. 5. Still, the mayor told the AJC that he’s feeling the heat to get voters to the polls.
“This is not the time to sit out,” Dickens said.
---
An Atlanta Council member is under fire after an “altercation” with a security guard after hours at Oakland Cemetery earlier this month.
Council member Liliana Bakhtiari was at the historic cemetery with a group of friends for a surprise wedding engagement with the permission of the Historic Oakland Foundation on Oct. 4, but was involved in a scuffle with a security guard asking them to leave.
A police report from the incident says that Bakhtiari told Atlanta officers that guard Antony Montfort approached her group cursing and yelling at them to leave. Bakhtiari recounted to police that in response to Montfort yelling in her face, she pushed him back. She described the situation as “very scary.”
“I stepped forward to intervene on behalf of my friends, both to identify him and to protect them from his advance,” she wrote in a social media post. “I never condone violence but I do believe in standing my ground to protect those you love.”
Montfort told a different story to police, saying he approached the group without a flash light and called for them to “pack it up.” When he reached them, Bakhtiari “pushed him down” and “continued coming towards him, knocked his hat off, and hit him across his forehead,” a police report says.
Montfort was fired over the incident, according to Bakhtiari’s statement about the incident posted to social media. The security guard didn’t press charges at the scene but told Atlanta News First that he is considering legal action.
---
Got tips, tricks or just want to say hello? Email me at riley.bunch@ajc.com.
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
