By Regina A. Smith
Local seniors on Tuesday held a silent, walking protest along the sidewalks in front of and across the street from a private home on Milledge Avenue that was sponsoring a high-dollar fundraiser for Republican Sen. David Perdue, seeking re-election for a second term against Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff.
Gov. Brian Kemp was a special guest at the event.
Numbering about three dozen, the protesters from Clarke, Oconee, and Barrow counties were predominantly retirees, reflecting professions from teacher and administrator to lawyer and librarian.
In the messages on the signs they held, the protesters apparently took issue with many of Perdue’s and Kemp’s stances, voicing their displeasure and concern about Perdue making lucrative stock trades immediately following his attendance at at a congressional briefing during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.
Kemp was targeted for his swift re-opening of Georgia’s businesses in the midst of the pandemic and his continued refusal to issue a statewide mandate regarding the wearing of masks, even in the face of advice from President Trump’s own Coronavirus Task Force.
Both politicians were taken to task for their close relationships with Trump.
In keeping with advice from public health experts, all protesters were masked; virtually all of the fund-raiser attendees were not.
Protesters told Classic City News that they were exercising their First Amendment right to free speech while those rights were still protected in America. Each identified as a patriotic American and said they wanted to remind everyone that under the watch of Perdue, Kemp, and Trump, the coronavirus has infected more than 270,000 Georgians and killed more than 5.600 of its citizens.