FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — The Fayetteville State University marching band played on as NBA players Chris Paul and Dennis Smith Jr. led several hundred students Wednesday afternoon in a march from the university across the street to the early-voting site at Smith Recreation Center.
Paul, a 10-time NBA All Star who grew up in Winston-Salem and plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder, and Smith, who grew up in Fayetteville and plays for the New York Knicks, delivered their messages for the students and faculty: Get out and vote, and don’t think your vote doesn’t matter.
Paul has been making his get-out-the-early-vote appeal at historically Black colleges in North Carolina and is also part of a coalition that says it is fighting attempts at voter suppression.