Alabama's dark history reflected in battle for new House seat

In Alabama, the nation's newest congressional district, an interesting battle is underway – pitting the daughter of the family that spawned the KKK against the son of the man who bankrupted it.

Democrats nominated Shomari Figures in Alabama's 2nd Congressional District, while Republicans chose Carolyn Dobson. Supreme District Court Results Allen v. The surprising decision that ordered the state to design a second opportunity district for blacks.

Dobson comes from one of the richest families in America – the Kings King's FarmThe largest contiguous land holding in the country (825,000 acres!), larger than the size of Rhode Island. How did they get so much land? This is the story All the gory details are by the incredible Michael Harriot for TheGrio, and it's incredible stuff.

Dobson is the great-great-granddaughter of John Hardy, a “prominent state senator and slave owner” who lived in North Carolina before acquiring 1,360 acres of land in Camden County, Georgia. American Revolution. The plantation became known as the Felicity Country Plantation, where Hardy's descendants bought and sold 183 people between 1816 and 1850, according to Camden County census records, and they died. According to Field's Summary of Georgia Slave Deeds. In 1840, the Hardys owned 137 human estates, placing Dobson's ancestors among 0.1% of American slaves.

Also this:

In 1817, Carolyn Dobson's fellow conservatives used their “Alabama roots and values” to outlaw squatters' rights, 200 years before John Ziba Hardy moved to Alabama. When the U.S. government expelled some 23,000 members of the Muscogee Nation from their homelands in the 1830s, their son Joel Hardy (Dobson's great-great-grandfather) had already moved to Monroe County, Alabama, and claimed squatters' rights. 50 acres of land. Joel then used the Land Act of 1820 to take advantage of this massive redistribution of Native American wealth, paying $1.25 per acre for nearly 400 acres of land in Monroe County, including an area of ​​198,235 acres, a plot of 39 .9 acres and another lot. containing 37.64 acres. .

Accumulating generational wealth is much easier when you build it at the expense of black slaves and displaced Native Americans. And, of course, Dobson doesn't have the power to fight his inherent privilege.

But it wasn't enough for his family to enslave some and steal land from dispossessed Native Americans. They worked hard to enforce systems of inherent intolerance, racism, and oppression. As Harriot explains:

After the Civil War, Joel's uncle William Hardy joined the Hardys in nearby Selma and became a “prominent member” of the Ku Klux Klan. Joel served 50 years as a justice of the peace, while William used his status as a Confederate hero to terrorize black Alabamans. With the exception of Jefferson County (home to the blackest city in Alabama), no Alabama county has had more lynchings than the two counties (Selma and Monroe) where the Hardy brothers meted out their brand of justice.

Dobson's ancestors literally ran one of the KKK's most brutal outposts. And although slavery was prohibited, they were not oppressed by black people.

Although the 1850 census lists Joel as a “farmer,” there is no evidence that he cultivated a single tree or raised a single livestock. After the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery, Joel negotiated partnership contracts with former slaves Mitchell Chapman, Cyrus Boatwright, and Isaac Bulloch to exploit their labor (and the labor of his children) for just 34 cents a day, a pair of shoes, and three outfits a year. . In case you’ve lost count, it’s Colin Dobson’s “fifth generation cattle farm.” And since sharecroppers are technically entrepreneurs, Dobson's campaign bio wasn't technically lying when it said his family's reclaimed land was “where he learned the meaning of hard work and gained a firsthand understanding of the challenges faced by families and hard-working entrepreneurs.” .”

He never said his family was doing all this hard work.

Again, it's not Dobson's fault that his ancestors were brutal slave owners and stole tribal lands. that's it and His fault is that he brags about having “Alabama roots and values” and has no insight into what those words actually mean in his example.

His wealth was literally built on the backs of others. And he is now a member of a political party in the United States dedicated to covering up that history and exacerbating the economic and social legacy of our nation's darkest shame.

Dobson is perhaps the opposite of the figure. For one, he is black. But his family is also of great importance to the racial history of Mobile, Alabama.

Figures' father, Michael Figures, the son of a janitor, was the first black graduate of the Alabama College of Law after the formerly segregated school was integrated in 1969. In 1979, he was elected to the Alabama State Senate, a of the only three black members, Harriot reported. And then…

On March 21, 1981, Mobile, Alabama police called Senator Figures to the location where someone had kidnapped 19-year-old Michael Donald, beaten him with a tree branch, and strangled him with a rope before slitting his throat. . A police investigation and a federal investigation turned up no suspects and investigators eventually closed the case. Michael, who represented Mobile, pleaded with federal authorities to reopen the cold case. After Mobile's first black prosecutor got a job as an assistant U.S. attorney in Mobile, he agreed to reopen the investigation, arresting and convicting four members of the United Klans of America for the murders. You may know him as the former Jeff Sessions say: “I thought the KKK was okay until I found out they smoked pot.”

His name is Thomas Figures, the older brother of Michael Figures.

It's an impressive and innovative family.

Shomari's father… ended up filing a civil lawsuit on behalf of Donald's mother that bankrupted the United Klans of America, the organization responsible for the 16th Street Church Bombing.murder Viola Luizo and one Half a century of ethnic terrorism.

After his father died in 1996, Stats' mother Vivian won her seat and, in 2008, was the Democratic nominee for the Alabama Senate race, the first black woman to do so. She was also the first woman to head either party in the Alabama legislature and continues to serve today.

Figures himself graduated from Alabama Law School, worked in the Obama White House and Justice Department as a legal advisor to Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, and returned home when the position was first drawn. It is surprising that, given his family status and impressive credentials, he was able to make it through a competitive Democratic primary.

Under the new Congress line, President Joe Biden would have won this district 56-43 in 2020, so the stats would normally lead to a relatively easy win. But no one is underestimating this race. Dobson has all the money and younger black voters vote at a rate disproportionate to the general electorate.

And fundraising for Democrats is difficult in this economically backward district. At the end of JuneThe numbers raised about $900,000 to Dobson's $2.2 million (although he loaned his campaign about $1.4 million). But Figures was the beneficiary of $2.6 million in outside spending by Protect Progress PAC, a super PAC that supports the cryptocurrency industry, according to AL.com. It dramatically surpasses anything on the Republican side.

I'm also told he raised $1.2 million last quarter, so his fundraising must have increased. The district is served by three cheap media markets, so the money could go a long way.

I highly recommend reading Harriot's storyHow I left quite It’s a pretty interesting look at how “Alabama Roots and Values” can differ in detail from two different lenses. This district has the opportunity to elect a version that serves the people, and not the families of former slave owners and land grabbers who continue to this day, fighting to maintain a system that benefits the richest and most powerful at the expense of everyone else. . other

One last note: I recently had the pleasure of meeting Fieger and he is a truly fascinating person. It's rare to sit down with a candidate who knows the numbers in their district, can delve into Supreme Court jurisprudence, and communicate the importance and relevance of politics to people's lives.

If you didn't watch his speech at the Democratic National Convention, you can see what a dynamic speaker he is:

Statistics are not the backbenchers of the future. He is destined to lead and could very well manage the tasks someday, if not for now, leading a democratic revival in a republican and sharply divided political state.

You can learn more about Shomari's figures from his Campaign website.