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Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to appear at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in the Atlanta-metro area on Sunday as Georgia faith leaders ramp up their 2024 “Souls to the Polls” operation across the state.

Harris campaign officials and New Birth Pastor Jamal Bryant confirmed news of the vice president’s visit to the 10,000-member megachurch in Stonecrest — located about 24 miles southeast of downtown Atlanta — with Capital B Atlanta exclusively on Thursday.

Bryant said New Birth has a 7,500-seat capacity, and he expects his pews to be full during Harris’ Sunday morning address. Afterward, a mobilization effort led by Black men will help transport parishioners to metro Atlanta early voting sites, which will be open from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. He said those who show up at New Birth on Sunday will see that the Black church still plays a major role in electoral politics.

“She could have been anywhere in the state, so we are overwhelmingly excited,” Bryant said of Harris. “And Sunday, in case you don’t know, is her 60th birthday.”

The Black church’s crucial role

The term “Souls to the Polls” refers to the Black church’s unique and integral role in mobilizing Black voters to cast ballots in elections. Support from the Black faith community is crucial for Harris as she and her Democratic allies work to turn out as many Black voters as possible before and on Election Day to help her defeat former President Donald Trump.

Black voters have overwhelmingly supported Democrats in most presidential elections cycles since the Civil Rights Movement. President Joe Biden received 90% of the Black vote in 2020 during his White House win over Trump. But recent polling has shown Harris underperforming with Black voters nationwide and in Georgia, especially compared to the unparalleled 95% support former President Barack Obama received during his history-making 2008 White House run.

The fear among Democrats is that some Black voters will sit out this election instead of voting for Harris.

Harris is vying to become the first Black woman to serve as commander in chief. The Rev. Timothy McDonald, pastor at First Iconium Baptist Church in East Atlanta, noted reports of record turnout on the first day of early voting, suggesting the polls may be misleading about Harris’ Black support.

He said Souls to the Polls and the Black church can help turn the tide in her favor.

“It’s the only place where the Black community assembles on a regular basis every Sunday, the whole Black community,” McDonald said. “The Black church is still the center of the Black community — has been, is, probably will continue to be.”

First Iconium is hosting its own Get Out the Vote Rally and Gospel Concert at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday following regular church service the same day. Food will be served at the rally, which will include live performances and addresses from local elected leaders, including Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and DeKalb County Sheriff Melody Maddox, according to McDonald.

New Birth and First Iconium are involved in an early voting mobilization push led by the National Advisory Board of Black Faith Leaders, which is managing get-out-the-vote efforts in Georgia and other key battleground states through Election Day on Nov. 5. Leaders and supporters of the AME Church, the CME Church, Concerned Black Clergy, Black Voters Matter, and Georgia Stand Up are also involved in the effort, according to multiple organizers.

They’re part of a network that includes thousands of Black churches in Georgia with an estimated total membership of more than 500,000 congregants, McDonald said. The clergy leaders are telling their members to take advantage of early voting to correct any issues ballot casters could encounter before Election Day, when it may be too late to ensure their votes are counted.

The National Advisory Board of Black Faith Leaders said in a statement that it has thrown its support behind Harris, in part, because she “has been a faithful servant to both God and the American people for her entire life.”

“The vice president is a woman of faith and principle, and is the only candidate who has always been a friend and advocate to the Black church and faith communities across the country,” the Black clergy members said. “Harris has been clear: She is not taking a single voter for granted and is committed to earning each and every vote.”

State law requires all Georgia counties to host at least two days of early voting on Saturdays ahead of Nov. 5. Metro Atlanta counties are also offering early voting on Sundays, according to their websites.

The Harris campaign says the Rev. Al Sharpton, leader of the National Action Network, will conduct a televised interview with Harris later on Sunday.

Georgia state Rep. Carl Gilliard, D-Savannah, serves as pastor of the Family Life Center in Garden City, Georgia, located about 11 miles northwest of Savannah. He said he and his supporters will be helping early voters along the coast and in more rural areas of the state, including communities still recovering from Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Gilliard said he’s been hosting food and gas giveaways in the region to help voters impacted by the deadly storms.

“If we’re not going to meet the needs of the people right now, they don’t want to hear about voting,” he said. “We’ve got to meet their needs in order to reinvigorate them to go back to the polls.”

History of Souls to the Polls

The Black church has been a major force in voter mobilization efforts since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era, when formerly enslaved Black men first gained the legal right to vote.

Groups like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, once led by Atlanta native and civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., were instrumental in the fight for Black American voting rights during and after the Jim Crow era.

Their nonviolent protests and marches famously led to Congress passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which expanded legal protections for Black Americans in the nation’s southeast.

Early voting in Georgia has been around since 2004, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office. Black church leaders say their Souls to the Polls efforts intensified in 2008 during Obama’s pioneering White House run.

Republicans in the state legislature have tried to limit voting on Sundays in response to the power of Souls to the Polls. McDonald said attempts to suppress the Black vote have only hardened the resolve of Black churchgoers who are highly motivated to vote against Trump and Project 2025, fearing the former president could end democracy as we know it if he’s reelected.

“The Black church has saved America before,” McDonald said. “We’re about to save America again.”