{Photograph} by Invoice Nigut
If former DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond declares within the weeks forward that he’s working for the Democratic nomination for governor, which appears more and more probably, one in all his most vital allies on the marketing campaign path will probably be a Georgian who died 240 years in the past.
He’s James Oglethorpe, the founding father of the Georgia colony and the topic of Thurmond’s most up-to-date guide, James Oglethorpe, Father of Georgia: A Founder’s Journey from Slave Dealer to Abolitionist.
For a lot of the previous yr, Thurmond has traveled throughout the state giving talks concerning the guide to greater than 80 civic teams, church gatherings, and different organizations. The place to begin for all of those appearances is Thurmond’s story about how he got here throughout the exceptional little-known indisputable fact that Oglethorpe based Georgia as an abolitionist colony.
As a result of Thurmond had advised me that giving talks concerning the guide additionally served as a “listening tour” to find out the viability of constructing a run for governor, I used to be glad he accepted my request to accompany him as he headed to Carrollton for a chat in entrance of the Carrollton Kiwanis Membership final week.
On the lengthy drive from DeKalb County to Carrollton, Thurmond puzzled if accepting the invitation to talk to the Kiwanis on the Friday earlier than the beginning of the Memorial Day weekend meant few would present as much as see him. He needn’t have anxious. Many of the tables within the assembly room on the Tanner Medical Middle had been stuffed with Kiwanis keen to listen to what Thurmond needed to say.
It’s a compelling story. Thurmond described visiting England with a delegation of Georgians led by then Governor Zell Miller in October 1996 to commemorate the three hundredth anniversary of Oglethorpe’s start. The delegation visited the church the place Oglethorpe and his spouse are interred. And it was there that Thurmond learn the plaque erected close to his tomb, which included a passage calling Oglethorpe “the pal of the oppressed Negro.” Thurmond says he was initially skeptical of that declare. In any case, Oglethorpe had been a principal within the Royal Africa Buying and selling Firm, the most important slave buying and selling firm in Britain. A historian at coronary heart, Thurmond spent greater than twenty years researching and writing the guide documenting the fascinating journey that led Oglethorpe to develop into the one governor of a British American colony to ban chattel slavery previous to the Revolutionary Warfare.
As he defined to the Carrollton Kiwanis, Oglethorpe’s ethical awakening got here when he learn a letter written by a West African man named Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, who was enslaved in Maryland. Diallo’s letter described to his despairing household the circumstances beneath which he was dwelling and requested for cash to purchase his freedom. {That a} slave may write and due to this fact learn, and that he expressed himself eloquently and with emotion, made Oglethorpe understand that slaves had been able to the identical mental and religious capacities as Europeans. Thurmond advised the Kiwanians that Oglethorpe got here to acknowledge that every one human beings, no matter race, faith or authorized standing, had the proper to reside as free folks and to be handled with dignity.
Thurmond, a Black man who grew up the son of sharecroppers in a home with no indoor rest room in Clarke County, was telling the story of Oglethorpe’s transformation to a virtually all white group. And he was giving his speak in shiny purple Carroll County, which gave Donald Trump 70 p.c of their vote within the 2024 common election. Nonetheless, Thurmond is a masterful storyteller, and by the point he completed his 20-minute speak, there have been folks within the room who had tears of their eyes.
Thurmond didn’t say a phrase about his personal political ambitions till the questions session, when he was requested if he deliberate to run for governor.
“I’ve thought of it,” He answered. “I don’t know if [in] the politics of at present there’s a spot for anyone who needs to construct consensus, who’s extra involved about getting issues achieved than they’re about partisan politics. And what’s incorrect at present is that we’re placing the partisanship in entrance of the folks . . . typically we reside on this world of ‘or.’ Every part is ‘or.‘ It’s white or black, or Republican or Democrat. Typically one of the best reply shouldn’t be ‘or’ however ‘and’ . . . [but] the ‘or’ is a lot extra provocative than the ‘and.”
Thurmond gained a spherical of applause when he added: “So if Georgia can have an ‘and’ governor, I is likely to be your man.”
Whether or not Thurmond can win the votes of what was presumably a largely Republican group of Carrollton voters is unsure. However his story about Oglethorpe, which he’s repeated to teams many occasions throughout the state—in blue counties and purple—is a strong automobile for him to deal with points like racism and equal remedy for all from the protected distance of historical past, and on the similar time permits him to make the case for a extra reasonable method to politics.
Some observers of Georgia politics, myself included, have watched Thurmond flirt with the concept of working for governor for the previous two years, and we’ve puzzled why he nonetheless hasn’t declared his intentions. However in Carrollton, I noticed the reply to that’s easy. He’s been capable of get in entrance of numerous teams of voters throughout the state because the writer of an vital guide about Georgia. What number of of these alternatives would by no means have come his means if as a substitute he was pitching himself as a candidate for governor?
Nonetheless, with former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and state senator Jason Esteves now formally within the Democratic governor’s race, and already out elevating cash and dealing to construct their networks, Thurmond is aware of he can’t wait for much longer to declare his intentions. He advised me he realizes a Democratic candidate has a really slender path to win the governor’s workplace.
“On the state stage, Democrats are affected by a structural political deficit,” he mentioned. “You will have 20 straight years of defeat in each state-level workplace . . . and except we are able to restructure the voters then it will likely be very troublesome if not unimaginable for a Democrat to win.”
Thurmond factors out that because the 2002 gubernatorial election—when Sonny Perdue defeated incumbent Democrat Roy Barnes—Stacey Abrams set the high-water mark for Democratic candidates by profitable 48 p.c of the votes in her race towards Brian Kemp in 2018. And Thurmond offers Abrams credit score for coming so shut by constructing a brand new progressive coalition of Black and white voters. However he sees a special path. Thurmond believes the candidate who emphasizes inclusivity, respect for political variations, and a dedication to coalition constructing could also be enticing to voters in search of a extra reasonable, smart method to politics.
It’s labored for him up to now. On our drive, Thurmond talked about profitable his seat within the state home representing Athens-Clarke County in 1986. “I misplaced my first two races for the seat as a result of I centered solely on turning out Black voters. Then it hit me that the district was 66 p.c white.” It was solely when he courted white in addition to Black voters that he gained on his third strive. He turned the primary Black candidate to win the district since Reconstruction.
He had related success utilizing the identical technique when he gained a statewide race for Labor Commissioner in 1998, once more breaking a shade barrier by turning into the primary Black man to win a statewide race in Georgia with out having first been appointed to the place he was in search of. In that first race, he was swept into workplace when Barnes gained the governor’s workplace. However Thurmond gained the place twice extra when Perdue was additionally on the high of the statewide poll.
Nonetheless, Thurmond understands his first problem will probably be to win a major through which some Democratic voters could also be in search of a hard-charging candidate who hews to the left and is able to go toe to toe with a MAGA GOP opponent. Will he be capable of persuade sufficient of them to decide on somebody he believes will probably be a extra electable common election candidate?
As we had been heading again to Atlanta after an extended day, I identified to Thurmond that when he had the opening, he didn’t ask his Carrollton viewers to vote for him ought to he resolve to run. That led us to attempt to bear in mind which politician it was who misplaced a Georgia race and went on to make the well-known comment that “a number of the individuals who ate my barbecue didn’t vote for me.” We regarded it up on our telephones. It was one-term governor Marvin Griffin, who misplaced his bid for re-election in 1962.
As Michael Thurmond comes near saying his candidacy, his hope will probably be that plenty of Georgians who purchase his guide may also find yourself voting for him.
Invoice Nigut has lined Georgia politics for greater than 40 years, working as a reporter at Channel 2 Information and at GPB because the host of Political Rewind. Most lately, he was a cohost of Politically Georgia for the Atlanta Journal-Structure and WABE.
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