It’s an election that’s too crucial to view from the sidelines.
That was the message Friday night at Word Tabernacle Church in Rocky Mount, at a rollicking service that combined the spiritual and the civic. The gathering, called “A Celebration of Church, Community, Culture & Civics,” kicked off the church’s three-day celebration of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and drew more than 1,000.
“The Black vote east of I-95 is equal in size to the Black vote in Durham,” the church’s senior pastor, James D. Gailliard — a former state legislator — told the crowd. “But it’s rarely resourced.”…