Reports from primary voting in Wisconsin.
The country may be in lockdown, but Cheryl and Terrence Moore — black natives of the Deep South — felt there was no more important place to be Tuesday than their polling site, in surgical masks and latex gloves, voting in Wisconsin’s fiercely disputed primary.
“After the polls taxes and the poll tests, the lynchings and attack dogs, our ancestors dying and people putting their lives at risk at every opportunity, not to do our part because of a virus?” said Terrence Moore, 50, a pastor and business development coordinator at a Milwaukee neighborhood chamber of commerce.
“I would betray that legacy by staying home,” said the former South Carolinian, who waited 2 1/2 hours with his wife to cast their ballots at the city’s Riverside University High School. “It would be a dishonor not to honor them in this capacity.”
The Moores said they weren’t the only ones who considered it their responsibility to turn out Tuesday, pandemic or no.
The diversity of those in line with them — black, white, Latino, Asian American, young, old, Democrat, independent, Republican — showed they were undeterred and united in purpose. “No one talked about what side they were on,” said Terrence Moore.
Los Angeles Times.