The words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. were echoing in Parrish Hill Baptist Church on Sunday, when state Sen. Jennifer McClellan walked into the church in Charles City County.
Yvonne Smith-Jones, vice president and treasurer of the Charles City County Democratic Committee, was reciting King’s call to “give us the ballot” and send “good people to Congress” as McClellan arrived at the predominantly Black church. It was one of three churches she visited in the county during a two-day weekend swing through parts of the 4th Congressional District for her campaign to succeed the late Rep. Donald McEachin, D-4th, in Congress. A special election on Feb. 21 will determine who will fill the seat left vacant since McEachin’s sudden death on Nov. 28.
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“It was just so timely when she walked into our church,” Smith-Jones said in an interview on Monday. “As African Americans, we’ve always wanted the ballot box and wanted to vote.”
On Monday, a state and national holiday to honor King, McClellan was back at the General Assembly in Richmond to push an ambitious agenda of legislation and budget amendments in her 18th – and she hopes final – session as a state legislator before she would become the first Black woman elected to Congress in Virginia. Leon Benjamin, an African American pastor who is running against her, was meeting legislators and speaking at a gun-rights rally in Capitol Square during Lobby Day, held each year on the King holiday.
For McClellan, a corporate lawyer and mother of two, the hectic schedule is nothing new. “It’s busy, but I like being busy,” she said in an interview on Sunday night, after appearing at a campaign meet-and-greet at Cul’s Courthouse Grille in Charles City, the day after meeting Brunswick County voters in Lawrenceville.
Benjamin, pastor of New Life Harvest Church in South Richmond, appeared at a rally by the Virginia Civil Defense League, a gun-rights advocacy group, and then made the rounds with legislators, “letting them know I’m running.”
Both campaigns are trying to let voters know about the special…
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