His Father Bankrupted the Klan. Now He’s Going to Congress to Continue the Fight.

U.S. Rep.-elect Shomari Figures, D-Alabama, poses for a photograph outside the U.S. Capitol in November.

This story originally published in January 2024 and was updated in December.

It’s the start of a new political era in Alabama.

In November, Shomari Figures, a Democrat, won his race against his Republican rival Caroleene Dobson to represent Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District, which had recently been redrawn to be majority Black after the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 2023 that the previous map likely violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

This triumph is, in crucial ways, a coda to the work of Figures’ father, the late Alabama state Sen. Michael Figures. He was revered in Alabama and beyond for having bankrupted the United Klans of America in 1987 through a civil suit after two of its members kidnapped and murdered Michael Donald, a Black 19-year-old. The younger Figures told Capital B earlier this year that his father’s commitment to racial justice was instrumental in helping him to choose a path, because when your father has a reputation like that, then you must find a way to improve people’s lives, too.

Beulah Donald (center) wipes tears from her eyes as she enters the funeral service for her 19-year-old son Michael Donald, who was killed by two Klansmen. The case would later spawn a $7 million civil judgment against the United Klans of America that bankrupted the hate group. (Mark Foley/Associated Press)

Now, Figures has the opportunity to do precisely that, as he prepares to kick off his first term in Congress. He and his Democratic colleagues will face an uphill battle in the House, given that Republicans enjoy a narrow majority in the lower chamber (they also flipped control of the Senate). Even with this challenge, however, the mission is the same.

“In terms of why we signed up to go to Washington in the first place, that hasn’t changed in any shape, form, or fashion,” Figures told Capital B. “We’re going up there to prioritize the same issues — to bring back resources to address those issues. Obviously, we have to work in a bipartisan fashion, but it was always our intent to do that, anyway.”

Shomari Figures (second from the left) says that the commitment to racial justice demonstrated by his father, Michael Figures, was instrumental in helping him to choose a path. (Courtesy of the Figures family)

Figures organized his campaign around issues including boosting access to health care, revamping the education system, and bolstering voting rights. Black Alabamians have long suffered from poverty rooted in exploitative economic and political arrangements that followed Reconstruction, when “formerly enslaved people were left without any money, property, or other resources needed to be successful,” per a 2022 University of Alabama report. Black Alabamians account for around 42% of residents below the state’s poverty line, though they make up about 27% of the state’s overall population. This contributes to a slew of problems: worse health outcomes, meager labor force participation levels, high unemployment rates, and more.

A federal judge in November blocked part of an Alabama law that prohibited certain absentee ballot assistance for disabled voters, explaining that it violated the Voting Rights Act. That move contrasted with Republican Gov. Kay Ivey’s decision in March to sign legislation limiting public funds for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

It’s too early to know what, exactly, Figures can accomplish. But having elected officials like him in Congress is especially crucial in red states, where the interests of Black voters, who lean Democratic, often aren’t reflected in political leaders’ policy choices. Though it’s easy to despair that Figures is just one person, that thinking minimizes the fact that Black Alabamians’ ability to elect the candidate of their choice is key to fueling broad engagement in a political process that some would rather lock vulnerable communities out of.

“People locally are excited to have the representation that we do have,” Figures said. “This district was created through a Voting Rights Act challenge, and so many people died to get the Voting Rights Act. We’re grateful for those sacrifices that so many people went through for us to stand here today. With that comes a great obligation to make sure that we go to Washington and do everything we can to keep our mission front and center.”

Capital B spoke with Figures while he was on the campaign trail earlier this year. Read on to revisit that conversation and see what he had to say about Black Alabamians’ excitement around the new district, the issues on residents’ minds, and the assault on voting rights that’s gained fresh intensity in recent months.

Capital B: How do Black Alabamians feel about having an additional majority-Black district?

Shomari Figures: Excited. People are very excited about the possibility of being able to put another person in Congress who will actually prioritize the many communities and places that have been overlooked by leadership in the past, certainly in the recent past.


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People are really looking forward to going to the polls in March and being able to cast a ballot that actually has the possibility to drive a result that can produce change when it comes to federal focus on the issues in their communities. People are eager and ready to go.

How are you trying to connect with people — what issues are you mobilizing around?

We’re connecting with people by getting out and talking with them and hearing what their concerns are. When you sit down and have these conversations in one-on-one environments or in group settings, you’ll be able to resonate with people.

For instance, in Alabama, we have among the lowest life expectancies in the nation. People in Alabama aren’t expected to live too much longer past their 60s. That’s a mind-blowing statistic: that if you’re born in the state of Alabama, you’re likely to be among the first in the U.S. to die. When you frame that issue through that lens, it resonates.


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Everyone in the state of Alabama knows someone who didn’t go to the doctor routinely, so by the time they went, it was too late, and they were dealing with something that was irreversible. For many, if not most, of those people, the reason they didn’t go to the doctor was because they didn’t have access to affordable health insurance, so they lived their lives just kind of getting by medically. Had they been able to go to a doctor, they would’ve discovered that they had something that was very avoidable or reversible.

That story is incredibly common. I was recently in Monroeville — that’s the birthplace of Harper Lee — and I asked people in the room how many of them know someone who didn’t go to the doctor and by the time they went, it was too late. Every hand went up.

And a lot of the issues we have are issues that people struggle with across the country. Our education system needs to be addressed. We need to pay our teachers more. I’m a believer that teaching is the single most important profession for the future of this district and state and country, and we have to treat it that way.

The attack on the Voting Rights Act has intensified since Alabama got a second majority-Black congressional district. What are your thoughts on this supercharged assault on Black voting power?

Unfortunately, these attacks aren’t new. The Voting Rights Act has been attacked in various forms since its inception. For a long time, we were able to rely on the court system to uphold the essence of the Voting Rights Act, but obviously the law took a big hit with 2013’s Shelby County v. Holder decision. I think that a lot of people and entities, including the current leadership in the state of Alabama, saw that decision as an opportunity to go after the Voting Rights Act in its entirety — to gut it and make it meaningless.


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Of course, people have fought back successfully. The Alabama case is an example of one of those successes. At the core, voting is essential to democracy, and I feel that, as a country, we should be doing everything we possibly can to make voting easier, more accessible. We should be encouraging the greatest amount of participation we can. But, unfortunately, we’ve seen a faction in this country do the exact opposite, and make voting tougher and more restrictive. That’s real. It’s reflected in the laws and policies passed since 1965 — and certainly more recently.

All of this is a reminder that freedom isn’t free. That the rights that people marched for and bled for and died for across the state of Alabama — Montgomery, Selma, Birmingham — and across the South, we have to continue to fight for them.

The post His Father Bankrupted the Klan. Now He’s Going to Congress to Continue the Fight. appeared first on Capital B News.

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