Thread by @michaelharriot

From now until the general election, my weekly “Downballot” series will explore lesser-known races on the 2024 ballot

This first 1 might be the greatest story in politics. It has everything:

A Klandaughter, a civil rights hero, white history, Black history & a map

A thread:

First, we must understand that this race takes place in one of the Blackest, poorest, most disenfranchised congressional districts in the country —Alabama’s 2nd district

It is a perfect example of the MOST COMMON voter suppression strategy:

Racial gerrymandering

This is the OLD Alabama 2nd congressional district. The boundaries do not follow geographic or political boundaries. It was SPECIFICALLY drawn to reduce Black voting power.

But because of population changes, the AL legislature had redraw its congressional districts

Alabama has 7 districts. A map that PROPERLY represented the 28.4% Black state would have 2 Black districts (2 ÷7 = 28.5)

Instead, the legislature’s new map herded Black voters into 1 district, making it IMPOSSIBLE for Black voters to choose a candidate that represented them

That’s not my opinion. Even the most conservative Supreme Court in modern history thinks so.

So SCOTUS told them to choose a better map. Alabama refused. So the SCOTUS chose a map for them.

The result was a new 48.7% Black district 2

or the “Civil rights District”

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was here. This is where Fred Gray, the lawyer who won the case, hails from. It’s wherr Tuskegee airmen trained & where Selma marchers were headed on Bloody Sunday. It’s home to America’s LAST slave ship & it’s last KKK lynching (we’ll get to that)

It’s also home to Caroleene Dobson, the conservative Republican running to represent AL-2

If you’ve EVER the name Caroleene Dobson, you know 2 things:

1. She grew up on a 5th Generation Alabama farm

2. She has “REAL Alabama roots & values”

Her ENTIRE campaign is about howthis little old country girl is a REAL American who drives a pickup in her ads & talks about the family values & work ethic she learned on her family’s “5th generation cattle farm.”

Heres how the “farm girl” describes her opponent, Shomari Figures

Aside from dog whistling how Figures is an “other,” she cant go 5 minute without mentioning the farm and the “5 generations” that taught her about hard work.

Most people wouldn’t think anything about this. But if you know history, it’s weird

Why only 5 generations?

If you’re a Black American, over 40, you already know the answer.

If you count back 5 generations (including yourself) you reach your grandmama’s grandma

My grandmother’s grandmother was enslaved

5 generations ago, Caroleene Dobson’s family stopped enslaving Alabamians

Caroleene’s 6x great grandfather was col. John Hardee, who was awarded 1360 acres of free land in Camden County Ga .

On a plot of land larger than of Central Park and Disneyland combined, the Hardees enslaved 137 humans putting them in the .1% of American slaveowners

But by 1850, they owned less than 50.What happened?

Caroleene’s kin caught Alabama fever.

In 1813, after Andrew Jackson slaughtered 1000s of Muskogee natives in the Creek War, white slaveowners moved to AL to claim squatters rights on the stolen land

encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/alabam…

In 1816, Caroleene’s 4c great granddaddy John Ziba Hardee used 3 of his enslaved property (Charles, Saturday & Tuesday) as collateral for a $1000 loan.

He took the money & moved to Alabama

But the land he got was TERRIBLE. He couldn’t grow shit.

Help was coming

In 1830s, the US government forced the Muscogee out of the state after congress passed a law allowing white settlers to claim “Indian Land” for $1.25 per acre.

John Ziba’s son Joel started buying up this land. In the 1850 census Jay-Z only had 90 acres from squatting

By 1860, he had 600.
In Monroe county Alabama

This is the 5th generation farm.

All the Hardees started moving to AL. Joel was a “justice of the peace.” Jay-Z’s confederate hero brother William became a celebrity Klansman (seriously. Apparently they had terrorist influencers ).

Aside from Jefferson County, no 2 counties in AL had more lynchings than where the Hardees dispensed justice

But how did Joel run the 1st generation family farm? He was a tax collector and a militia leader (you know what that means)

Well, Black people did it for him.

He got formerly enslaved people to sign sharecropping contracts FOR THEIR KIDS. And when he was punished by for not paying the people, he asked for his money back.

How.

He said the govt owed him money for feeding them WHEN THEY WERE ENSLAVED.

Here are the contracts

Joel was Caroleene’s grandfather’s grandfather.

Caroleene also attended Monroe Academy, a segregation academy that has never accepted a Black student in its entire history. She married a man with ties to another forced labor camp. The 825,000 acre King Plantation.

I’m not arguing that Caroleene Dobson should be held accountable for the actions of her ancestors….

SHE’S THE ONE WHO KEEPS TELLING US THAT SHE SHARES THEIR VALUES.

She doesn’t get to say she inherited all the Jesus-y American values AND distance herself from the bad stuff

To be fair, her opponent Shomari Figures also descended from enslavers. His family is also tied to the KKK.

In 1813, Malcom Mcorquodale, a white 1st generation immigrant slaveowner from NC caught Alabama Fever

He moved to Clarke county Alabama to claim stolen land too.

In 1842, he fathered a daughter named Emily Jane with “an unknown slave girl” he kept as property. He hired sharecroppers after the war too

In 1865, Joe Figured, a formerly enslaved man who had been forced to work for the confederate Army returned to Clarke County to sharecrop

Emily met joe, fell in love and married him. But in 1890, a gang of white sharecroppers began terrorizing Black voters in the area, forcing many of them to move to Mobile Alabama.

The Figures family settled in Mobile.

encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/mitcha…

On March 21st 1981, the cops found the body of Michael Donald. He had been kidnapped beaten, dragged, and his throat was slit 3 times

The cops called Joe & Emily’s great-grandkids, Mike & Tommy.

US Atty Thomas Figures arrested prosecuted the United Klans of America

You may recognize his name as the one who stopped Jeff Sessions from
becoming a federal judge by exposing his comments about being cool with thr KKK

Michael Figures, was a state senator. He had already desegregated the U of Alabama law school & was its first black graduate

Michael, whose grandmama’s grandma survived a rapist who ENSLAVED HIS DAUGHTER

Whose grandfather’s grandfather survived TWO WHITE SUPREMACIST WARS…

Michael Figures sued & bankrupted the Klan group that bombed the 16th St Baptist Church, murdered Viola Luizzo & committed the last KKK lynching

Michael Figure is Shomari Figures’ father

These are a different kind of Alabama roots and values

amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/04/10…

And that’s how two people who were born and raised in the same congressional district in the same state in the same country could actually come from two different worlds

You can find these more interesting, MORE IMPORTANT stories here every week

And you can also find them downballot

thegrio.com/2024/09/24/dow…

By the way, when I say her husband has ties to the King Ranch…

According to Dobson’s latest campaign disclosures, she owns hundreds of thousands of property, including at least THREE plantations

Anyway, read the whole article