Herschel, meet Charlotte Bergman
Welcome to your Charlotte Bergman moment, Herschel
Twelve years ago, I was walking back to my mom’s house from Christian Brothers University on a hot and muggy day in Memphis.
As I got to the corner of South Cox and York Avenue, there was a sign touting a lady by the name of Charlotte Bergmann, an unknown black Republican that was running for Congress, sprouting from a front yard.
At first, I thought Charlotte was some white woman, because I had never met any black woman with that name.
But lo and behold it was a black woman with one of the worst lacefront wigs I had ever seen, with a sign that had her picture in an oval frame, which is a frame suited for a funeral program, not a fucking political campaign.
Throughout that summer, I witnessed Bergmann’s campaign throw the kitchen sink at insulting black voters in Memphis.
For example, her campaign decided it was a good idea to place “Charlotte Bergmann can whip Willie Herenton or Steve Cohen” in predominantly black neighborhoods like Orange Mound and “Charlotte Bergman can win” signs in predominantly white neighborhoods such as River Oaks and Shady Grove.
To them, they felt like if you put violent words on a political sign, it would mean that black voters would gravitate towards her because she was black.
“Those black folks in Orange Mound are dumb,” her campaign would say, “Put violent words on a billboard and they’ll flock to you.”
Turns out that wasn’t the case.
Bergmann not only got trounced in her campaign that year, but also in the last six elections against Steve Cohen for the right to represent the Ninth Congressional District in the US House of Representatives.
Black voters aren’t dumb.
I thought about that when Herschel Walker decided to run for the United States Senate.
In the mind of the Georgia GOP and most importantly, Trump, Walker was their prized black bull.
“Well you know a lot of blacks love football and he won a Heisman, so they’ll vote for him.”
That was the line of thinking that the Georgia Republicans had when they propped Walker up for this.
They felt that black voters in Georgia would gravitate to a guy who hasn’t played football in 25 years and not to an articulate black man who is a pastor at the same church that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King presided over.
But yet again, due to the work of black women like Stacy Abrams and Tricia Harris and countless others, the articulate black man, not the violent dumbdore that ran a football well 40 years ago, won.
Well done, Georgia.