A spooky and hilarious Halloween treat awaits you in Max Original’s adult animated special, VELMA: THIS HALLOWEEN NEEDS TO BE MORE SPECIAL!, from Warner Bros. Animation. This limited-series episode will be available on Thursday, October 3 exclusively on Max.
In this thrilling tale, Velma and her friends are in a race against time to bring Velma back. As they search for a powerful dark spellbook, they must dodge the wrath of a vengeful spirit. But with the annual Sexy Halloween party looming, Velma and the gang must face their biggest fears if they want to make it out alive.
The star-studded voice cast includes Mindy Kaling, Glenn Howerton, Sam Richardson, and Constance Wu reprising their roles as the iconic Mystery Inc. gang. Joining them are a host of talented guest stars, including Russell Peters, Sarayu Blue, Jane Lynch, Wanda Sykes, Frank Welker, Nicole Byer, Gary Cole, Andia Winslow, Sara Ramirez, Nicholas Braun, Fortune Feimster, Jennifer Hale, Richard Kind, Jason Mantzoukas, Saweetie, Debby Ryan, and Kulap Vilaysack.
VELMA: THIS HALLOWEEN NEEDS TO BE MORE SPECIAL! is developed by Charlie Grandy, who also serves as executive producer alongside Mindy Kaling, Howard Klein, Elijah Aron, and Sam Register. Jessica Kumai Scott is the co-executive producer, Amy Winfrey is the supervising producer, Kandace Reuter is the producer, and Greg Gallant is the co-producer. The episode is written by Charlie Grandy and directed by Adam Parton and Meg Waldow.
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Lupita Nyong’o’s upcoming animated film with DreamWorks, “The Wild Robot,” in which she voices a shipwrecked robot tromping around a wild island, might be one for the mothers.
In the film, out in theaters Friday, Sept. 27, robot Roz, as voiced by Nyong’o, ends up responsible for a newly hatched duckling. The film’s story spans Roz’s attempts to raise the duckling while also learning the lay of the new land.
“For me, it was really coming to terms with how a parent’s job — a mother’s job — is to prepare her child to leave her. They have to feel safe in their parenting skills in order to let go,” Nyong’o said in an interview with the Washington Post.
The theme of motherhood in the film also caused the actress to think of her own parents, and when they sent her off to Mexico at the age of 16.
“They had instilled all the things in me,” she continued. “I was [taking] their love for granted at that point. For me, the trip to Mexico was all about me, and I never stopped to think about how hard it must have been for them to let me go.”
While Nyong’o was born to Kenyan parents in Mexico, she was raised in Kenya and later spent seven months in Mexico during her teenage years to learn Spanish.
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She added, “I called my mom up and thanked her for the strength to let me go, and the confidence and faith in her parenting skills to trust that I would be able to go survive on my own and make it back.”
Nyong’o also uses her experience living in Mexico to connect with her character Roz’s own foreignness on the island, where she ends up stranded. Over the course of the film, Roz has to embrace her new environment and get to know her surroundings.
“Though I was born [in Mexico], I felt very foreign,” she said of her time in Mexico to NBC News, adding, “What I’m proudest of is being able to adapt to my new environment, but still stay true to myself and hold on to my essence.”
To pull off the film, Nyong’o also had to wade into new waters, as this was her first starring role in an animated movie. The process was new to her, but she welcomed the challenge.
“You don’t get to do many lead roles in an animation,” she noted to the Washington Post. “This project offered me a really exciting vocal opportunity because of the evolution of this character. She literally finds her voice.”
Nyong’o’s character speaks in an unnatural, robotic tone similar to Siri or Alexa. However, mastering Roz’s robotic voice took a toll on her; the actress temporarily damaged her vocal cords in the process. While she was recovering, she shared in an interview with Jimmy Fallon that she attended Beyoncé and Taylor Swift concerts but was unable to sing along.
“It was torture,” she said.
Earlier this month, Nyong’o posted the trailer for the sentimental film on her Instagram.
In the caption, she wrote, “This movie is for everyone with a pulse! 🥹💗🫶🏿 And trust me: see it on the big screen 😊.”
It appears that our forever POTUS might’ve been placed in harm’s way last week after an apparent lapse of Secret Service security. On Wednesday, TMZ reported that former President Barack Obama was sitting in the back seat of his SUV on Saturday (Sept. 21) outside of a popular Hollywood restaurant Mother Wolf when the incident occurred.
Aliah Wright on Her Book ‘Now You Owe Me’
At around 7:30 p.m., an armed man allegedly approached Obama’s vehicle. He claimed to be a security guard for a bar mitzvah that was happening on the second floor of the establishment.
TMZ spoke to the man in question — who asked to remain anonymous — and he explained what went down. He claimed that he went outside because he was told federal agents were there but didn’t know why. The man told the outlet that when he walked out into the alleyway, he saw two men to his right who were Secret Service agents. He then spotted a black SUV that had Dept. of Homeland Security plates.
According to the guard, he had no idea Obama was inside until he got closer to the passenger side of the vehicle and saw the former president using a laptop. In a panic, he allegedly walked away from the SUV and then greeted the agents.
He said he walked past Obama’s SUV again before going back upstairs to the bar mitzvah. The guard recalled that a half hour later, his supervisor asked him to give up his credentials and license to carry a concealed weapon for the Secret Service.
Obama’s daughters Malia and Sasha later had dinner with their father at Mother Wolf that night. However, the security guard called what happened “definitely a security lapse on their part that there was no one on the backside of SUV, nor covering the stairwell.”
Kennedy Lucas, a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., has been crowned Miss Black USA 2024. Hailing from Maryland, Lucas is a 26-year-old professional who exemplifies the balance between beauty, intelligence, and community impact.
Lucas is a Spring 2019 initiate of the Gamma Iota Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. at Hampton University, where she also earned an MBA as a two-time graduate. During her time at Hampton, Lucas was crowned Miss Omega Psi Phi for the Gamma Epsilon Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. in 2019, further showcasing her leadership and engagement on campus.
Currently, Lucas works at Deloitte Consulting, where she focuses on government and public service, with a particular emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion. As Miss Black USA, her platform highlights the importance of breast cancer awareness in the Black community, advocating for better education and resources around this critical issue. Lucas brings the same determination to this cause as she does to her work in public service.
Beyond her professional career, Lucas is a signed model with MMG and has graced the runway at New York Fashion Week. She is also dedicated to mentoring young women, helping them realize their potential and encouraging them to pursue their dreams. Kennedy’s journey to the Miss Black USA crown reflects her commitment to using her talents and influence to make a meaningful difference.
We at Watch The Yard proudly congratulate Kennedy Lucas on her Miss Black USA 2024 title. We are excited to see how she continues to uplift and inspire the community throughout her reign.
In a candid interview on The Breakfast Club, professional wrestler Mercedes Moné (formerly known as Sasha Banks in WWE) opened up about her current status in the wrestling world and why she doesn’t foresee a return to WWE.
The multi-time champion has found a new chapter in her career, joining All Elite Wrestling (AEW) after departing WWE in 2022. When asked about the possibility of going back to WWE, Moné was forthright: “After the way that AEW has been treating me…I don’t know, I don’t think so,” she said.
Moné’s comments reflect a deep appreciation for her new wrestling home. “I feel like I have the best relationship with AEW right now and it’s legit,” she shared. “I’m living my dreams and it’s the best place I’ve ever been, mentally and physically.”
With over a decade in the industry, Moné has carved out a reputation as one of wrestling’s top talents. But even after 14 years in the ring, she’s feeling revitalized by her AEW experience. “To be able to have new dreams after being in the industry for 14 years, it’s the best feeling in the world,” she said, emphasizing how AEW has provided her with a renewed sense of purpose.
Moné made it clear that AEW isn’t just a professional fit—it’s personal. “AEW is my home right now,” she concluded, underscoring the connection she feels with her current company. While WWE was a significant part of her journey, it seems Moné has firmly planted her flag in AEW for the foreseeable future.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs’ children are breaking their silence. In a joint statement posted on Instagram on Tuesday, Diddy’s sons Quincy, 33, and Christian, 26, and his twin daughters, D’Lila and Jessie, 17, shut down the “many hurtful and false” conspiracy theories spreading about their parents and specifically Combs’ relationship with former model and actress Kim Porter.
“We have seen so many hurtful and false rumors circulating bout our parents,” they wrote. “As well as about our mom’s tragic passing, that we feel the need to speak out.”
Porter and Combs first started dating in the ’90s and shared a complicated relationship from 1994 to 2007. Despite their on-and-off romantic status, the couple, who have three children (Christian, D’Lila and Jessie) and raised Porter’s eldest son Quincy together, maintained a cordial relationship for the sake of their family. In 2018, the mother of four died at 47 from pneumonia.
“Our lives were shattered when we lost our mother,” the siblings continued in their statement.
“She was our world. And nothing has been the same since she passed. While it has been incredibly difficult to reconcile how she could be taken from us too soon, the cause of her death has long been established.”
While the siblings emphasized that “there was no foul play” in their mother’s death, conspiracies resurfaced on social media after the recent publication of a memoir claiming to be by Porter. Entitled “Kim’s Lost Words: A Journey For Justice, From The Other Side,” the book’s Amazon description reads “Diddy’s Achilles’ heel.” The purported memoir by Jamal T. Millwood “for Kimberly A. Porter,” reportedly details alleged disturbing and graphic sexual encounters and physical abuse involving Combs, per People magazine.
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However, Porter’s children say, “Claims that our mom wrote a book are simply untrue.
“She did not. And anyone claiming to have a manuscript is misrepresenting themselves.”
Also shutting down any “friends” speaking on behalf of their mother, the siblings emphasized that these individuals do not have their late mother’s best interest in mind. Similarly, the music mogul’s attorney, Erica Wolf, described the memoir to People magazine as “fake,” “offensive,” and “a shameless attempt to profit from tragedy.”
As their father awaits trial in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, the Combs children highlighted the lifelong process of grief. Requesting that everyone respect their “request for peace” as they “continue to cope with her loss every day,” the sibling ended the statement with “We love and miss you, Mommy.”
“We are deeply saddened that the world has made a spectacle of what has been the most tragic event of our lives. Our mother should be remembered for the beautiful, strong, kind and loving woman she was. Her memory should not be tainted by horrific conspiracy theories,” they added. “We ask that everyone please respect our mother…and hold her legacy in high regard so that she may rest in peace. It’s what she deserves.”
The arrest of Sean “Diddy” Combs on charges of racketeering and sex trafficking has sent shockwaves through the entertainment world. The news has drawn the Bad Boy founder’s family and closest friends into the headlines. As a result of the scandal, a controversial memoir, allegedly from Diddy’s ex Kim Porter, has become an Amazon bestseller. “Kim’s Lost Words: A Journey for Justice from the Other Side…,” features journal entries allegedly written by her during her relationship with the music mogul. However, there are clear questions about whether these are actually Porter’s words.
Aliah Wright on Her Book ‘Now You Owe Me’
The book was released Sept. 6, shortly before Combs’ arrest. As previously reported by The Root, on Monday, Sept. 16, the 54-year-old rap mogul was arrested in Manhattan by federal authorities. His indictment was unsealed the following morning, revealing charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking and engaging in interstate transportation for prostitution. The allegations against Combs include sexual abuse, physical abuse, bribery and various drug offenses.
As criticism and backlash against the book gets louder, Kim’s children, Quincy Brown and Christian Jessie and D’Lila Combs, released a statement about the alleged memoir on social media.
“We have seen so many hurtful and false rumors circulating about our parents, Kim Porter and Sean Combs’ relationship, as well as about our mom’s tragic passing, that we feel the need to speak out,” the statement reads.
They went on to directly challenge the project’s validity, explaining that their mother didn’t write a book and that there’s no secret manuscript floating around.
“Claims that our mom wrote a book are simply untrue. She did not, and anyone claiming to have a manuscript is misrepresenting themselves,” they wrote. “Additionally, please understand that any so-called ‘friend’ speaking on behalf of our mom or her family is not a friend, nor do they have her best interests at heart.”
They also addressed the conspiracy theories about her death that continue to circulate the internet, stating, “The cause of her death has long been established. There was no foul play.” Porter’s children expressed how difficult it’s been for them to publicly grieve the loss of their mother, revealing, “nothing has been the same since she passed.” With strangers constantly offering opinions on their mother’s life and death, they’ve never been afforded the respect to privately mourn her.
“We are deeply saddened that the world has made a spectacle of what has been the most tragic event of our lives,” they said. “Our mother should be remembered for the beautiful, strong, kind, and loving woman she was. Her memory should not be tainted by horrific conspiracy theories.”
Erica Wolf, attorney for Sean Combs, also released a statement about the alleged memoir, calling it “offensive” and disrespectful.
“The Kim Porter “memoir” is fake. It is also offensive – a shameless attempt to profit from tragedy. Chris Todd has no respect for Ms. Porter or her family, who deserve better,” Wolf said in a statement to The Root. “Unlike the fabrications in his sickening “memoir,” it is an established fact that Ms. Porter died of natural causes. May she rest in peace.”
As we wait for more developments check out our previous coverage on Combs’ case:
TheGrio’s “The Hill with April Ryan” recently spoke with state Rep. Justin J. Pearson of Tennessee, Lee Merritt, a national civil rights attorney, and Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change.
The political leaders discussed the importance of activating the vote only weeks before the Nov. 5 election. They also talked about what voters can expect if Democrats lose control of the United States Senate and other top policy issues.
Merritt, who represented the family of Ahmaud Arbery, told theGrio that as America is “on the eve” of possibly electing the first Black female President, voters must “get past the aesthetics” and focus on legislation and how having a Black woman as commander in chief would impact policies for millions of Black Americans.
The Texas attorney said that regardless of whether Kamala Harris wins in November, the issue of policing—something he has worked on over the years—will likely have to shift away from federal action and more to the local level.
For years, Democrats have called for sweeping police reforms in the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
“Obviously, police reform is going to have to take a different path. It’s going to be grassroots on up,” said Lee.
However, the civil rights attorney expressed optimism about “federal voices” in Congress, such as U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, Lee’s former law partner.
“She’s leading the charge on ways that we can effectively change the culture of policing, even if we don’t get a significant legislation,” he explained.
No matter how famous, acclaimed and popular they become, ,most actors start out with small guest roles on television. If you’re a fan of sci-fi or police procedurals, you’ve seen stars like Michael B. Jordan, Courtney B. Vance and Aldis Hodge before they got their big breaks. As the new TV season kicks off, we thought it was a good time to revisit some of these early days with a fun roundup of your favorite Black stars before they were famous.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
As the 2024 election nears, theGrio’s Downballot series explores the issues, races and individual candidates appearing on the ballots in state and local elections.
Open on a primly dressed mom-next-door type wearing pearl earrings and a remarkably unremarkable shopping smock. In front of a slightly out-of-focus Piggly Wiggly sign, the woman strolls through a supermarket parking lot with two children in tow. She stops and begins speaking.
“Prices keep rising, forcing Alabama families to make tough choices,” she laments as she opens the tailgate of a nondescript, stripped-down pickup truck and loads her groceries. “Growing up on a farm, we worked all day and had to stay on budget. That’s no longer possible for hardworking families.”
Cut to an overhead shot at a second location. The same Piggly Wiggly parking lot economist pumps overpriced fuel into the 25-year-old family pickup that she probably calls “Betsy.”
“Let’s bring down high prices and make life affordable again,” the struggling, small-town mom concludes as the screen fades to white.
This is “Tough Choices,” the first general election campaign ad for Caroleene Dobson, the very demure, very Republican candidate competing against Democrat Shomari Figures for Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District seat in Congress.
Since winning the GOP primary, Dobson, who is extremely conservative and white, has repeatedly cast Figures, who just may be the Blackest “Black candidate” on the 2024 ballot, as a carpetbagging “Washington insider” who stands in direct contrast to her Southern, small-town (pronounced “why-it”) upbringing. In the Dobson cinematic universe, she is a regular old country girl raised on a “small family farm” held by five generations of Alabama farmers. At the same time, Figures is an interloper from the liberal elite who doesn’t understand real Alabamians. Dobson’s dog whistles are dog whistling.
“My opponent is not just a Washington liberal … my opponent is not a Southern Democrat who is left of center or thinks for himself,” Dobson told Mobile, Ala., Republicans during a July meeting. “To assume [Figures] will prioritize the interests of people of District 2 over his career path is fantasy.”
To be fair, Dobson is not wrong to portray her opponent as the Democratic “other” from another planet. The candidates are from two entirely different places. While you might be surprised by which candidate openly acknowledges their ancestors’ ties to slavery, the confederacy and the Ku Klux Klan, this political contest is more than just about the candidates and their family background. It’s about stolen land and a gerrymandered map. It’s about Black history and whitewashed white history.
The battle to represent one of the poorest, most gerrymandered congressional districts in Congress is also the most captivating political drama in America.
And it all begins with a map.
Mapping values
“Extreme MAGA Republicans here in Washington, in Alabama, and throughout the country understand that they have difficulty winning elections or upholding their majority in the House without gerrymandering congressional districts illegally.” — Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.
This is not Jeffries’ opinion. For years, Alabama legislators maintained white voting power by using a congressional map that herded Black voters into a single congressional district. When a U.S. District Court ordered the Alabama legislature to come up with a redistricting plan that “remedies racially discriminatory vote dilution,” the Supreme Court had already noted that “voting in Alabama is extremely racially polarized.” After years of legal wrangling, the Supreme Court rejected Republicans’ racist map that disenfranchised Black voters. In 2024, two of Alabama’s seven congressional districts (or 28.5% of the Congressional delegation) will have a chance to elect a candidate that represents the state’s 28.4% Black population.
Along with preserving the majority-Black 7th District, the ruling added a new congressional district with a 48.7% Black voting-age population. The redrawn 2nd District stretches across the Alabama Black Belt and contains three of the 10 poorest counties in the state. It’s probably a coincidence that the same district includes three of the 10 Blackest cities and five of the 10 Blackest counties in Alabama. Although this kinda feels like democracy, the 2nd District has two fundamentally different candidates.
Like most conservatives, Dobson touts the moral values she inherited from her country, community and, most of all, her hardworking ancestors. Her campaign site describes her as a “passionate advocate for families, farms, and faith” who aims to “preserve the bedrock values and moral backbone that have defined our nation.” After winning the Republican primary, she declared, “I was born here, and it is my Alabama roots and values that I will take to Washington to represent you.”
Nearly every media outlet, news report and political supporter mentions Dobson’s five generations of family and her all-American background. Similarly, you can’t find a single article about Figures that doesn’t mention his famous civil rights hero father or his mother’s public service.
“I left my community to work for my community,” Figures told theGrio. “My ancestors were enslaved here. My parents raised me with those values and taught me to fight for the people in my community and their values. I imagine my opponent feels the same way. We just see two entirely different communities with an entirely different set of principles.”
We wanted to examine the “values” and “principles” both candidates constantly attribute to their ancestors. After searching through thousands of documents covering nearly three centuries, theGrio uncovered a story that spans the entire history and geography of America and reveals the source of the candidates’ political differences as well as the true story of this country.
But Shomari Figures and Caroleene Dobson come from two entirely different Americas.
An All-American Family
“My story is the same as most of the people in District 2,” Shomari Figures told theGrio. “This is the place where my ancestors were enslaved. It’s the place where my parents taught me to fight for our people.”
Shomari Coleman Figures was born and raised in Mobile, Ala., and attended a segregated high school (according to the National Center for Education Statistics, Leflore Magnet High School is 95% Black and only had two white students in 2023). Figures stayed in-state to attend college and law school at the University of Alabama, the school his father desegregated in 1969. Like Dobson, he left the state to work for bigwigs — first as a field organizer for a young senator named Barack Obama, then as an attorney for a big law firm called the U.S. Department of Justice.
Shomari Figures also descended from a family of wealthy, blue-blooded slave traders.
John McCorquodale was the son of Scottish immigrants who came to America in “the dark, airless and dank hold of a ship.” Three months after the birth of his first son, Malcom, John purchased 100 acres in part of Cumberland County, N.C., catapulting his children into the “planter society which engaged in the production of cotton and corn, in abundance.” Following Andrew Jackson’s slaughter of thousands of Indigenous people in the Creek War of 1814, Malcom caught the “Alabama Fever.” The first-generation immigrant joined thousands of slaveowners who moved to the Alabama territory to claim squatters’ rights on Native American land. In 1842, 46-year-old Malcom fathered a daughter with an “unknown female slave,” one of the 27 people he enslaved in his new residence in Clarke County, Ala. Census workers listed Malcom’s enslaved daughter on the 1860 slave schedule as a “mulatto” named Emily Jane McCorquodale. After the Civil War, Emily married Joe Figures, an enslaved man from Clarke County who was forced to labor for confederate troops in Mobile, Ala. Joe returned to Clarke County, earning $325 a year as a sharecropper.
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In 1893, Clarke County’s white sharecroppers began a three-year campaign of mob violence to wrest control of politics from Clarke County’s Black voters. The Mitcham War drove many Black families out of Clarke County. The Figures landed in Mobile where, in 1947, Emily and Joe’s grandson Coleman, a janitor for International Paper Company, gave birth to Michael Anthony Figures. Michael would graduate from a segregated school, all-Black Hillsdale Academy, and attend all-Black Stillman College. He would go on to integrate the University of Alabama Law School before becoming its first Black graduate. In 1979, he became one of three Black members of the Alabama State Senate.
Michael was just getting started.
On March 21, 1981, police in Mobile, Ala., called Sen. Figures to the scene where someone had kidnapped 19-year-old Michael Donald, beaten him with a tree limb and strangled him with a rope before slitting his throat. A police investigation and a federal inquiry yielded no suspects and investigators eventually closed the case. Michael, who represented Mobile, pleaded with the federal authorities to reopen the cold case. After Mobile’s first Black district attorney had just got a job as assistant U.S. attorney in Mobile, he agreed to resume the investigation, eventually arresting and convicting four members of the United Klans of America for the murder. You may know him as the person whom former Jeff Sessions told: “I thought the KKK was OK until I learned they smoked pot.”
His name is Thomas Figures, the older brother of Michael Figures.
Shomari’s father, Michael Figures, eventually filed a civil suit on behalf of Donald’s mother that bankrupted the United Klans of America, the organization responsible for the 16th Street Church Bombing, the murder of Viola Luizzo and a half-century of racial terrorism. When Michael died in 1996, Shomari did not inherit a family farm or stock from a slave camp. Michael didn’t even pass down his Senate seat – his wife, Vivian Figures, won it in a 1997 race. In 2008, Vivian became the first African-American woman in Alabama to win the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate. Her run was unsuccessful, but she eventually became the Alabama legislature’s first female party leader of any race. She is still one of four women in the Alabama Senate.
The Klandaughter
Caroleene Dobson is a distinguished attorney, wife, mother, District 2 resident, and a lifelong advocate for conservative values. Born and raised in Beatrice, Alabama, Dobson grew up on her family’s fifth-generation cattle farm, where she learned the meaning of hard work and developed a firsthand understanding of the challenges faced by hardworking families and entrepreneurs. – “Meet Caroleene”
In many ways, Caroleene Dobson is a lot like Shomari Figures. Like her opponent, Dobson is a product of her ancestors. Her family’s origin story also contains ties to slavery, the confederacy and racial terrorism. It also begins on a North Carolina plantation and ends in Alabama with a family inheritance. Knowing her backstory explains her Alabama roots, work ethic, politics and family values.
Dobson graduated from Harvard College and moved to Texas to attend Baylor University Law School. She spent the next seven years there as a commercial real estate attorney representing wealthy landowners and corporate developers. After not living in Alabama for a third of her life, it’s easy to see why she said: “I don’t want to go to Washington, but I want to fight for Alabama families because Alabama is and always will be my home.” Plus, her ancestors moved around a lot.
Dobson is the great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughter of John Hardee, a “prominent state senator and slaveholder” who lived in North Carolina before receiving 1,360 acres in Camden County, Ga., for his service as a soldier in the American Revolution. The plantation became known as the Rural Felicity Plantation, where Hardee’s descendants bought and sold 183 human beings between 1816 and 1850, according to our search of Camden County census records and Tara D. Field’s abstracts of Georgia Slave Deeds. By 1840, the Hardees owned 137 pieces of human chattel, placing Dobson’s ancestors in the top .1% of American enslavers. But in 1850, only 50 people were enslaved at the Hardee family’s forced labor camp. Don’t worry; the Hardees didn’t squander the family fortune. The youngest boys were simply stricken with a disease. The Hardee boys also caught the Alabama Fever.
In 1817, 200 years before Caroleene Dobson’s conservative colleagues used their “Alabama roots and values” to outlaw squatter’s rights, John Ziba Hardee, moved to Alabama. By the time the U.S. government kicked an estimated 23,000 members of the Muscogee Nation off their native land in the 1830s, his son Joel Hardee (Dobson’s great-great-great grandfather) had already moved to Monroe County, Ala., and claimed squatters rights on 50 acres of land. Then Joel used the Land Act of 1820 to take advantage of this massive redistribution of native American wealth, paying $1.25 per acre for nearly 400 acres in Monroe County, including a 198.235-acre tract, a 39.9-acre plot and another parcel containing 37.64 acres.
After the Civil War, Joel’s uncle, William Hardee, joined the Hardees in nearby Selma and became a “well-known member” of the Ku Klux Klan. Joel served 50 years as justice of the peace while William used his confederate hero status to terrorize Black Alabamians. Aside from Jefferson County (home to Alabama’s Blackest city), no county in Alabama had more lynchings than the two counties (Selma and Monroe) where the Hardee brothers dispensed their brand of justice. To be fair, Joel was busy building an empire.
Although the 1850 Census listed Joel as a “farmer,” there is no evidence that he ever farmed a single plant or ranched a single cattle. After the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery, Joel negotiated sharecropping contracts with formerly enslaved men Mitchell Chapman, Cyrus Boatwright and Isaac Bulloch to exploit their labor (and their children’s labor) for less than 34 cents per day, a pair of shoes and three outfits a year. If you lost count, this is Coleene Dobson’s “fifth generation cattle farm.” And since sharecroppers are technically entrepreneurs, Dobson’s campaign bio was not technically lying when it says her family’s reappropriated land is “where she learned the meaning of hard work and developed a firsthand understanding of the challenges faced by hardworking families and entrepreneurs.”
She never said it was her family doing all that hard work.
The Hardees’ wealth and slave-owning pale in comparison to Caroleene’s husband’s family. Robert Dobson is the great-great-grandson of Richard King, who used his 825,000-acre ranch to feed confederate soldiers and fund the fledgling white supremacist nation during the Civil War. To this day, the Dobsons continue to financially benefit from the slave labor camp. According to her most recent quarterly report to the Federal Election Committee, Caroleene Dobson earns thousands of dollars every year from her family’s six-figure ownership stake in King Ranch. Her real estate holdings alone total at least $5.4 million, including her stake in Hardee Lands LTD and her share in the $1.4 million empire in Monroe County. To be clear, wealth isn’t necessarily bad. Still, it explains how little old conservative farm mom’s campaign can outspend a politically connected “Washington insider” by a 3 to 1 margin.
But Carleene Dobson is right; this race is ultimately about “Alabama roots and values.”
Ultimately, every election is a chance to create two different Americas. The fight for Alabama’s 2nd District is no different. The race is the culmination of white history, democratic politics and Black Americans’ ongoing fight to make America great for the first time. Now that a map has given Alabama’s Black voters a semblance of political power, they get to decide which roots and values they want their children, communities and our country to inherit.
Will they choose privilege or progress? Equality or the status quo? The options are literally Black and white.
Tough choices.
Michael Harriot is an economist, cultural critic and championship-level Spades player. His New York Times bestseller Black AF History: The Unwhitewashed Story of America is available everywhere books are sold.
