As midterms loom, Herschel Walker's hometown voters say he's 'not part of the Black community'
When Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker’s hometown was the center of racial upheaval in the 1980s, he didn’t step up for or with Black folks. He didn’t step up in 2020 when protests erupted nationwide in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, and he certainly isn’t stepping up now. Since his escape from the small southeast Georgia town where he grew up, Walker has understood that toeing the company line and keeping The Man happy are the keys to winning over the GOP, and he has not swayed. Back then, it meant keeping his mouth shut. Today, it means being a mouthpiece for former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
In an article for The New York Times, reporter John Branch highlights the racial divide in Walker’s hometown of Wrightsville, Georgia—a town of about 3,700 where a little over one-half of the residents identify as Black. Most people interviewed told Branch that although Walker is a hometown hero, they would not be voting for him in the midterms. Many who chose to remain anonymous told Branch that most—almost entirely all—Walker signs are in the white neighborhood of town.
“Herschel’s not getting the Black vote because Herschel forgot where he came from,” Curtis Dixon, who is Black and who taught and coached Walker during his high school years in the late 1970s, told the Times. “He’s not part of the Black community.”
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