Birmingham barber Brian King says he'll vote for Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama's Dec. 12 Senate election, but he doesn't "feel good about it."

Black voters are mad at Democrats, too, King told AL.com a few days before Thanksgiving. They're tired of voting for people who won't fight for their interests, he said.

Alabama political scientists say getting black voters like King to vote is critical if Jones is to overcome Republican Roy Moore in one of America's reddest states. Alabama has nearly 2.3 million active voters, according to official records, and only 846,651 of them are active black voters.

Secretary of State John Merrill expects between 950,000 and 1 million voters to go to the polls Dec. 12. No one is speculating on the racial breakdown of that number.

"The black voting is indeed crucial for Jones to make things interesting on Dec. 12," William Stewart, professor emeritus of political sciences at the University of Alabama, said this month.

"If we had a regular November election for governor, you'd have 20 percent or a fourth of the votes cast by African American voters," agreed Jess Brown, a retired political science professor at Athens State University. "(Jones) needs at least that threshold. But if the minority vote is not there, the level of support he needs from Caucasians just is not there."

Al.com spent several days just before Thanksgiving talking to black Alabama voters and organizers at rallies, workshops and town halls across the state. There was no shortage of opinions about the race pitting Moore against Jones for the Senate seat vacated when former Sen. Jeff Sessions became U.S. attorney general.

And there are new signs Jones is making progress. A predominantly black crowd filled a large church and gave Jones a warm welcome in Huntsville Tuesday night. The non-partisan organization Vote.org also announced it will make a major push to turn out minority voters in Alabama starting Dec. 1. That push will include 200,000 mail-outs, billboards in major cities and the Black Belt, and three weeks of radio ads on Pandora targeting African-Americans, the organization said.

Prosecuting the Klansmen

Kimberly Oden Webster of Birmingham, one of the voters AL.com talked to, is firmly in Jones' camp. "I've always admired (him)," she said. "He's getting my vote. It didn't change with the allegations against Moore. Allegations of misuse of power and authority are very alarming to me as a mom and as a woman. The fact the allegations are old does not bother me. Oftentimes, women suffer in silence."

Black voters for Jones also bring up his successful prosecution as a U.S. attorney of two Klansmen in the 1980s for their part in the 1963 bombing that killed four young girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.

Marvis Owen of Birmingham will vote for Jones because of those prosecutions. But he also added, "I just don't want Roy Moore in there."

Health care and education

Voters like Kintisha Matthews of Birmingham said issues like education and health care matter to her. She wants Medicare to be there when she needs it and believes in Jones. She calls him a man of the people and says, "I know when he gets to D.C. he's going to work."

Those "other" issues are why Mobile's Byron Walker thinks Jones has a chance. "He's talking about working across party lines, which is something they need to do," Walker said. "It seems like Trump is only interested in repealing Obamacare because it belonged to Obama. There are too many people without health insurance. If the healthcare deal can be fixed, then fix it, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

Walker was never going to vote for Moore. He said his "big issue is the Ten Commandments" and thinks the Republican "doesn't really believe in separating church and state. America was founded on religious freedom."

A black political scientist in Alabama thinks Moore isn't even trying for black voters like these. "I think black voters have been completely ignored by the Moore camp and the Alabama Republican party," said Derryn Moten, chairman of the Department of History and Political Science at Alabama State University. "I think that black voters are outraged that the Republicans and national media assume that Alabama voters - including black voters - will support Judge Moore irrespective of the allegations against him."

The Moore allegations

Black voters are as interested as white voters in the allegations made against Moore by Alabama women in recent weeks. Just like white voters, they're trying to balance character and the other issues.

"I do believe a person is innocent until proven guilty," Leria Jordan of Birmingham said of Moore. "I am still looking at what he stands for. I look at platform. I am listening to both sides. There's no real proof."

Kesia Webb Dailey of Birmingham believes Moore has "done wrong" and needs to repent. "We know if anyone is in Christ he's a new creature," she said. "We all have a past. He should admit that he's done wrong and he's a new creature in Christ."

But while Jordan is "still open" to Moore and Dailey said flatly, "I like Roy Moore," both women also like Jones. "I do appreciate Doug Jones and what he's done," Jordan said. Dailey goes further and says she's voting for Jones because, "I vote issues."

A street conversation

Conversations on a downtown Mobile sidewalk show how deeply black voters are diving into social history and human nature as they think about this election.

"As far as the state of Alabama is concerned, you have several camps," Teddy Lee said. "You have people in Alabama that want Alabama to be what it was 50 years ago. I think Roy Moore subscribes to that point of view. But, you also have a different part of Alabama that is looking forward and is trying to get together and live together."

Lee said he's not surprised that the allegations against Moore have dominated the headlines in both political and entertainment news.

"Well, human beings have always been obsessed with power. Sexual conquests are a part of power. It's always been that way and will always be that way," Lee said. "We're realizing that it is wrong when it is perpetrated on someone who is not willing. Nothing's going to change. None of this is new."

"If you're a staunch conservative, looking at a younger woman, while you're in your 30s, that aligns, in some people's minds with conservatism," said Byron Walker of Mobile in a separate interview. "Our society has advanced to the point where we've decided to draw a line that you can't talk to women under 21 if you're over 21."

Always in controversy

"It seems like he's always in the midst of controversy. It started back with him and the Ten Commandments. It's been that way with him ever since," Lee's friend Lorenzo Franklin said of Moore. "What he stands for, some people will always disagree with. It's kinda like Tim Tebow, y'know. I think he will always be in the midst of controversy, based on what he stands for. I think it's all political."

Franklin won't vote for Moore, because Franklin isn't a Republican. "But if I were, I don't see anything that would make me not support him," he said. "They say these are allegations, which means they haven't been proven. Why would these women wait 30 or 40 years to bring this up?"

Lee wasn't buying that.

"In the most turbulent times in the Civil Rights Movement, you wouldn't have been able to get seven people to tell the same lie about Dr. (Martin Luther) King, if you tried," Lee said. "I don't see how anyone would be able to coordinate people who don't even know each other to get together and tell a lie about Roy Moore, either. Now, if they're lying, he's being persecuted and I'm wrong. But I just don't believe that."

Veteran activists like Faye Rose Toure are focusing on issues like healthcare and education. They don't spend time talking about history, character or the allegations.

"I don't spend a lot of time talking about Doug Jones," Toure said. "We tell people to look at the policies of the people who are running and who will do the most good and the least amount of harm on the issues impacting the qualities of your life."

The activists' goal is to raise black turnout at a time when it's declining nationwide and in Alabama. Statewide turnout - black and white - didn't reach 20 percent in the Senate primaries or the GOP runoff between Moore and Strange.

(AL.com reporters Jared Boyd, Erin Edgemon, Greg Garrison and John Sharp conducted the interviews in this report)