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Black lawmakers campaign for Doug Jones in Alabama

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Doug Jones (253065)
Doug Jones

In response to concerns that Black voters are not energized in the Alabama Senate race, the Democratic Party is sending some of its most high-profile Black lawmakers to the state with the hope they can help Doug Jones defeat Roy Moore. Sen. Cory Booker is set to visit the state over the weekend during an agressive final push to turn out Black voters in a special election, reports the Washington Post. Rep. Terri A. Sewell (Ala.-7), the state’s only Black member of Congress, has organized a slate of campaign events Sunday that are also expected to include civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who marched for voting rights for Black Americans in Selma. More than 90 percent of likely Black voters in the state are backing Jones, according to a Post poll conducted after allegations surfaced that Moore sexually assaulted teenage girls. Black voters make up more than a quarter of Alabama’s electorate and tend to vote heavily Democratic. But Jones has faced continued criticism that he has not put forward a specific platform addressing the concerns of Black voters. What Jones did for Black Alabamians decades ago, when he prosecuted the 1963 Birmingham church bombers, may not be enough to mobilize Black voters — even if he is facing a candidate who appeared to romanticize a time of slavery, according to an L.A. Times report. “I think it was great at the time when families were united — even though we had slavery — they cared for one another. … Our families were strong, our country had a direction,” Moore said at a rally when asked by an African American when America was last “great.” Benard Simelton, the president of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, previously told The Post that his group is trying to get Black voters engaged in elections other than the presidential race by making phone calls to what he termed “sometimes voters.” Simelton said, “I hate to say it: A lot of people are apathetic about voting, because they don’t think their vote counts.

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