Last night’s Democratic win for the Alabama Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions was a moment full of meaning. Not only does it reduce the Republican majority in the Senate to 51 percent, but the race between the candidates itself was like a war of symbols.
The Republican candidate, Roy Moore, has been accused of sexual harassment and the abuse of teenage girls. He’s also voiced a fond longing for the good old days of slavery when families were happy together. He relied on Steve Bannon and Donald Trump in the last few days of his campaign.
Doug Jones, on the other hand, was a federal prosecutor who had convicted the Ku Klux Klansmen involved in the bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church where four little girls were killed. He relied in the last few days of his campaign on black leaders like New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and Georgia Representative John Lewis. President Obama was the voice on his robocalls urging people to the polls.
Jones won…and that script has been flipped on its head. Election day defied the narrative, and challenged traditional thinking about racial turnout in off-year elections and special elections. Precincts in the state’s “black belt,” the swathe of dark, fertile soil where the African American population is concentrated, reported long lines throughout the day, and as the night waned and red counties dominated by rural white voters continued to report disappointing results for Moore, votes surged in from urban areas and the black belt. By all accounts, black turnout exceeded expectations, perhaps even passing previous off-year results. Energy was not a problem.
Newkirk writes that grassroots organizing took the day, overcoming any barriers erected by the voter repression efforts in the state.
“Democrats,” Newkirk writes, “were saved by a community already fighting against the grain to be heard in the din of democracy.” In the end, the black electorate is estimated to have been approximately 28 percent of the vote in yesterday’s election, where the population of the state is only 26 percent black.