An election battle is raging in Georgia like never before: For the first time, both Republicans and Democrats are sending a black man into the race for the Senate seat. A former football star takes on the Baptist pastor who preaches at Martin Luther King’s church. In the state’s poorest county, people try to overcome the past.
The thermometer reads summery 81 degrees Fahrenheit, but there is snow in the blades of grass on Highway 19. It’s harvest time in Southwest Georgia – what’s lying by the side of the road are flakes of cotton falling from the backs of passing trucks. The farmers bring their crops to the “Cotton Gins”, where noisy machines tear apart the cotton that has been compressed into huge rolls. They separate the seeds from the white gold, which is processed elsewhere into thread and fabric.
Dozens of rolls lie just off the highway in front of the Southern Gin Company’s low-rise office building. Mitchell County farmers are having a very good harvest this year. “It’s all coming in at once, and we’re praying we’ll be done by Thanksgiving,” says David Griner, head of the co-op. The 39-year-old grew up here, lives two miles down the road on the farm. He also grows cotton.
As everywhere in the USA, the congressional elections will also take place in Georgia this Tuesday, in which a third of the Senate and the House of Representatives will be completely re-elected. Georgia is one of the handful of states on which the nation’s gaze rests; this is where it will be decided how much influence US President Joe Biden will have. Many constituencies are reporting record numbers of early voters.
“I think about the election every day and how it affects me and my family,” says David Griner urgently. He will vote Republican. He hopes this will lead to more agriculture and jobs in the south. “They keep our towns of Camilla and Pelham alive,” he says. The Southern Gin Company employs 24 people to process the cotton harvest from more than 8,000 hectares from 35 different farmers.
Voters choose based on their circumstances, and realities diverge in Mitchell County, about a three-hour drive from Atlanta. There is the traditional family farm with cotton, pecans and peanuts as well as a small, emerging industry. And there are people who move away because they can’t find good jobs and the state doesn’t help much. Georgia is one of seven states where the minimum wage is still the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour.
Just over 20,000 people live in the county, and in terms of population density, the district is in the middle of the state comparison. About a third of the inhabitants live below the poverty line, among the children it is even half. Nowhere in the state is there more than in Mitchell County. At the same time, only half of the people are officially employed, and comparatively few are listed as willing to work.
This points to resignation or other problems that are not taken care of by the state or the economy. A clear majority of those below the poverty line are black, although they make up just under half of the population. Social advancement occurs only occasionally.
This reality is evident just before the congressional elections at Mitchell County High School, on the outskirts of the county seat of Camilla. The cashiers are asking for a $5 donation to let visitors into the gym for the benefit basketball game. There are about 120 spectators in the wooden stands, including many children, almost all of whom are black. On the wall, a painted cartoon eagle wearing a “Mitchell County” shirt looks grim.
“Without the donations and support from our community, we wouldn’t know what to do,” says Kelsee Broadway; the proceeds from the game go to her and her family. The 24-year-old, her partner and three sons only moved back home in September. They then observed coordination difficulties and salivation in their 3-year-old son, Teddrick. The diagnosis: brain tumor.
Thirty radiation sessions followed, but the prospect of survival is bleak. The sons are covered by Medicaid, the basic health insurance for children, but the family cannot afford their own. Many doctors and clinics reject state insurance. Parents cannot pay for a second opinion themselves. They are very happy that the five of them found an apartment for $650 a month and don’t have to starve. Neither of them can go to work at the moment.
In the history of the United States there have been twelve black people in the Senate in Washington D.C. made. One of them is Raphael Warnock, pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, where Martin Luther King also preached. Two years ago, Warnock prevailed in a runoff election made necessary because the previous Georgia Senator, a Republican, resigned. This year’s challenger is Herschel Walker, a former American football player best known for winning the last college football title with the University of Georgia team in 1980. Never before in Georgia has there been a Senate race with two black candidates.
“My priority right now is my son, I can’t deal with politics much,” says the father, who is holding Teddrick of the same name in his arms. “But my grandmother tells me a lot, and we are all Democrats.” Why? “That’s how it is in our community among black people.” Kelsee Broadway puts it down to content: Ever since she received her son’s diagnosis, the most important issue for her has been the introduction of public health insurance, followed by abortion rights. Although she sees herself as more conservative than many around her, she is sometimes torn. “But I couldn’t elect anyone who is against abortion rights.” Both want to elect the Democrat Warnock. Walker has long campaigned to ban abortion altogether.
A few days earlier, in a former engine shed in Camilla, local business people greet each other at the Rotary Club for a buffet lunch. There are beans and bacon, sour cream salad and fried chicken, typical of the area; the passing freight train makes the walls shake. The 25 present stand up for prayer and the oath of allegiance, one veteran is honored, another is a guest. He presents his trained dogs on the veranda, how these “bad guys” recognize them, attack them and defend their owners and their houses. “Until death!”, he says with a straight back. Such a “personal protection dog” is available for $40,000. Those present react reservedly.
Among the club’s members is James Eubanks, mayor of the neighboring town of Pelham, who also heads the county’s business bureau. After the meeting, he asks to go to his office, one house down. From his desk, he looks out over a fireplace and into the neighboring office of the Atlanta state representative. “Sometimes that has advantages,” he laughs out of his plump face. “I’m hoping for more incentives from above that will attract business,” says the 42-year-old. And with it better-paying jobs.
A lot has changed in the last few decades, he says. First the lucrative tobacco cultivation disappeared due to a lack of demand, then the big chains like Walmart came along, and the local shops didn’t stand a chance against them. And in the 1990s, the North American free trade agreement NAFTA came into force, and the value chain and jobs in the textile industry collapsed. It was now cheaper to produce in Mexico. To date, the district has not really recovered economically from all of this, says James Eubanks.
But “old prosperity” continues to rule in the county, says one person, who doesn’t want his name published, with a slight disparagement. “They sit on their lands and won’t give them up.” This is how farmers and other private owners prevent industrial development. Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate candidate, is just a black fig leaf for bigoted white Republicans. “That’s calculated,” he is certain: “He’s a joke, he can’t even talk!” According to US media, the party leadership hopes that Walker will attract more black voters to the conservative side. Ex-President Donald Trump also officially supports Walker.
While farming is still important – because “cotton is king,” as they say in the Southern States -, farm jobs are limited. As a result, the population has shrunk by 10 percent over the past 20 years, says James Eubanks. But for a few years now, business has been coming back to the plagued small towns, and local industry is growing again, he is cautiously optimistic. Textile manufacturer Fire-Dex, for example, doubled its workforce last year to more than 100 and is now expanding its production for the third time. The jobs pay very well at currently at least $14.50 an hour. Even inflation does not change the expansion plans, as the factory manager assures.
Something is stirring in Mitchell County, even as agricultural change, the aftermath of globalization, and the history of the South continue to have an impact. Biden only won a razor-thin two years ago in Georgia, after the Republicans had dominated for many decades. The two Senate seats were decided in a runoff election because no candidate had come over 50 percent at the time of the election. That could also happen with Warnock against Walker – and then it would once again depend on who has the staying power.
