The mother of Jordan Davis has just flipped a red district to blue and is heading to the House of Representatives to enact change in her son’s honor.
Back in 2012, Jordan Davis was murdered by a white man who took umbrage to him playing his music too loud while sitting at a gas station. For a mother to lose her child is one thing, for him to be snatched from her by hatred is something else entirely.
The man convicted of committing this heinous crime was Michael Dunn, a 45-year-old software developer. He was convicted of three counts of attempted second degree murder for firing into the vehicle at three other teens, and one count of firing into a vehicle.
The jury was did not reach a verdict on murder charges in the first trial, but a first degree murder conviction was handed down in the second.
With everything that black women face in the United States, from gender biases, leading single parent households, glaring pay disparities, domestic violence and sexual assault, being at greater risk of losing a child before the age of 21 has to be one of the most troubling of all those scenarios. After all, the children are our chances at creating a better tomorrow.
Dear Trayvon Martin
It’s been two years since your death, and not a damn thing has changed.
The opportunity to see her progeny go off and live a normal, productive life was snatched from Lucy McBath, Davis’ mother.
Dunn tried to argue that he feared for his life, attempting to cower behind Florida’s inherently racist “Stand Your Ground Law”, as did the equally cowardly George Zimmerman during his trial for killing Trayvon Martin.
Though McBath lost her child, she gained an inner strength that pushed to run for office. That in itself was a tall task considering the rabidly red state she calls home.
Following Jordan’s death, McBath became a gun control advocate. She served as a spokesperson for Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. She’s been called a “Mother of the Movement” of black women whose children were killed by police officers or their proxies.
She made her son’s death central to her 2018 campaign as she spoke in favor of gun control and improved access to health care. Initially, she thought about running for Georgia’s state house, but the horrific Parkland school shooting in February 2018 made her shift focus to the national stage and run for Congress.
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Earlier this year, McBath won her primary runoff, but she wasn’t taken serious by her own party, who instead chose to focus on Jon Ossoff, who ran against Republican Karen Handel, former Georgia secretary of state, to replace Rep. Tom Price.
Ossoff was positioned as the a counter to Trump, but apparently Georgians didn’t see it that way.
McBath ran what could only be described as a deeply personal campaign, choosing to speak on the death of her son and surviving breast cancer twice, instead engaging in mud-slinging and political subterfuge.
However, it wasn’t until August that the Democrats began giving her real support, adding her to their “Red to Blue” program meant to bolster candidates attempting to flip red districts blue.
With this victory, a “Mother of the Movement” is now heading to the House of Representatives as the Congresswoman representing Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District.
“What I’m doing today is still mothering his legacy,” McBath told voters at an October event. “I’m extending what I would do for my son to my community.”
