In a powerful and emotional testimony on the sinister results of Donald Trump’s attempt to nullify the 2020 election, a mother and daughter who were Georgia poll workers described how Trump and his allies turned their lives upside down, fueling racist harassment and threats by claiming they were involved in voter fraud.
Testifying before the January 6 committee in Washington, Shaye Moss said she received “a lot of threats. Wishing death upon me. Telling me I’ll be in jail with my mom and saying things like, ‘Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.
That was a reference to lynching, the violent extrajudicial fate of thousands of black men in the American South.
Moss also said his grandmother’s home had been threatened by Trump supporters seeking to make “citizen arrests” of the two poll workers.
No Democratic presidential candidate had won Georgia since 1992, but Joe Biden beat trump by just under 12,000 votes, a result confirmed by the recounts.
Tuesday’s hearing detailed Trump’s attempts to overturn that result by pressuring Republican state officials and smearing Moss and his mother over a video allegedly showing them involved in voter fraud, an allegation quickly debunked.
Moss’s mother attended the hearing. In recorded testimony, she said: “My name is Ruby Freeman. I have always believed when God says that she will make your name great. But this is not the way she was supposed to be.”
“For my entire professional life, I was Lady Ruby. My community in Georgia, where I was born and lived all my life, knew me as Lady Ruby. I built my own business around that name: Ruby’s Unique Treasures. A pop-up store catering to ladies with unique fashions.”
“I was wearing a t-shirt that proudly proclaimed that I was and am Lady Ruby. She had that shirt in every color. I wore that shirt on election day 2020. I haven’t worn it since and will never wear it again.
“I won’t even introduce myself by name anymore. I get nervous when I run into someone I know at the grocery store who says my name. I worry that people will listen. I get nervous when I have to give my name for food orders. I am always worried about who is around me.
“I lost my name and I lost my reputation. I have lost my sense of security, all because a group of people starting with [Trump] and his ally Rudy Giuliani decided to scapegoat me and my daughter Shaye, to further their own lies about how the presidential election was stolen.”
Freeman also said: “There is no place where I feel safe. Nowhere. Do you know what it feels like when the President of the United States takes aim at you?
“The president of the United States is supposed to represent all Americans. Don’t target one. And he took aim at me, Lady Ruby, small business owner, mother, a proud American citizen who stood up to help Fulton County hold an election in the midst of the pandemic.”
Freeman said she was forced to leave her home for two months.
Moss described the threats that were also made to his grandmother.
“That woman is my everything,” he said. “I have never heard or seen her cry, never in my life. And she called me screaming at the top of her lungs, like ‘Shaye, Shaye, oh my God, Shaye,’ scaring me, saying there were people at her house.”
“And there was a knock on the door and of course she opened it, she saw who was there, who it was, and they just started pushing their way through, claiming they were coming to make a citizen’s arrest. They needed to find me and my mom, they knew we were there.
“Y [my grandmother] I was just screaming and didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t there, so I felt so helpless and so horrible for her. And she just screamed and I called her to close the door. Don’t open the door to anyone.”
Moss was asked how his own life had been affected.
She said: “My life was turned upside down. I no longer give out my business card. I don’t want anyone to know my name. I don’t want to go anywhere with my mom because she might yell my name in the grocery store aisle or something. I don’t go to the supermarket anymore.
“I haven’t been anywhere. I have gained about 60 pounds. I don’t want to go anywhere, I doubt everything I do. It has affected my life in a major way, in every way.
“All for lies.”
Reference-www.theguardian.com