× Expand chmeredith In Jackson, Mississippi, progressive mayor Chokwe Lumumba has made bringing economic justice the city a key focus.

The nearly-successful elections of Democratic governor candidates Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Andrew Gillum in Florida are a testament to the growing strength of the progressive movement in the Southern United States. The close races, even as they were marred by racism and voter suppression efforts, reveal a progressive trend and suggest one pathway that the Democratic Party is challenging the long-term Republican lock-down in the deep South; running candidates with an unapologetic progressive message that speaks to the Democratic Party’s base of black voters that have been traditionally ignored by moderate, centrist campaigns.

In Georgia, gubernatorial candidate Abrams performed 4 points better than the 2014 Democratic challenger, even though Republican victor Brian Kemp, as Georgia’s secretary of state, purged 1.5 million Georgia voters, placed more than 53,000 voter registrations on hold, and closed hundreds of polling locations. In Florida, Gillum performed better than 2014 Democratic candidate Charlie Crist, but lost, argued Miami New Times’s Luther Campbell, because “Gillum turned over control of his campaign to establishment Democrats, who are completely clueless about connecting with Florida's black voters.”

“All the money that’s made between nine to five happens to be out by six.”

These close races are not isolated events. In 2017, Khalid Kamau became one of the first Black Lives Matter organizers to win election to office as a South Fulton, Georgia City Council member; Democratic Socialist Lee Carter unseated Virginia’s 2nd ranking Republican in the State House. Knoxville, Tennessee elected their first Democratic Socialist City Council member, Seema Singh Perez. In 2018, the congressional seats flipped in deep red districts in the south were won by candidates who veered to the left of the traditional moderate blue dog ideology. Lucy McBath, for example, won Georgia’s 6th Congressional District after “cautious” moderate Jon Ossoff lost in a 2017 special election for the seat.

In 2017, two of the biggest progressive wins in the south were made in the mayoral elections in two of the most Republican states in the country: Chokwe Lumumba became mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, and Randall Woodfin defeated the incumbent mayor in Birmingham, Alabama.

Mississippi has the largest proportion of black people in the United States, some 37.8 percent of the state population, and it’s also the poorest and most difficult to vote in. But even as the rest of Mississippi continued to favor Republican candidates, the city of Jackson voted for Lumumba with 93 percent of the vote in June 2017.

Lumumba, who promised to make Jackson the “most radical city on the planet,” was faced with improving a city carrying a $6 million budget deficit, a school district under threat of takeover form the state of Mississippi, and hundreds of city employees on furlough.

But after just one year in office, Lumumba says he has put an end to city employee furloughs, increased city employee salaries by 2 percent, reached a deal with the state to leave control of the school district in city hands, and transformed the city of Jackson’s budget deficit into a $19 million surplus.

“Jackson is in a deficit in terms of a more progressive ideal. There has also been a deficit in the physical structure, infrastructure, and economic structure,” Lumumba says. “We’ve been addressing all of those.”

Although some 30 percent of Jackson’s residents live below the poverty line, Lumumba’s administration hopes to create cooperative business models, like a cooperative movie theater, to maintain and reinvest the city’s produced wealth.

“Jackson is not a city that has a problem producing wealth, it’s a city that has a problem maintaining wealth. All the money that’s made between nine to five happens to be out by six,” Lumumba says. “If your strategy for success is dependent on someone else to see value in you, someone else to invest in your community, then you don’t have a strategy, you have a wishlist.”

Lumumba’s cooperative economic plans for Jackson include an agreement with long-haul Internet provider Cogent to provide high-speed broadband to its residents.

In terms of making Jackson the “most radical city on the planet,” Lumumba says he’s sees it as a model for the rest of the country on how progressive policies can alleviate suffering and poverty.

“We have to speak loudly and clearly about our progressive ideals and send a clear and concise message to all people that the reason you are failing isn’t because someone has been too radical on your behalf, it’s not because someone has fought too hard, its because someone hasn't fought hard enough,” he says.

Lumumba references Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, and Medgar Evers as some of his models for progressive, radical, and impactful historical figures.

“Mississippi has been known for some of the most horrible sufferings over time. It’s been known as a haven for racism and bigotry,” ” Lumumba says. “If we can progress in the belly of the beast, we can have progress anywhere.”

Birmingham, Alabama, also recently elected a lefty progressive as mayor, changing course by electing in October 2017 relative newcomer Randall Woodfin over incumbent Democratic Mayor William Bell.

With Birmingham’s poverty rate at just over 29 percent, Woodfin says the city needs to “hit the reset button on economic development.”

“You can look at the whole Amazon HQ2 process—everything is about incentives to bring some headquarters or office to your city,” he explains in an interview. “What we want to do is engage workforce development, specifically around women and minority business owners or aspiring women and minority business owners.”

The city of Birmingham pushed through a minimum wage increase from $7.25 an hour to $10.10, but the legislation was halted by Republicans in the Alabama State Legislature.

The prior administration pushed through a minimum wage increase for the city of Birmingham, from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour, but the legislation was halted by Republicans in the Alabama State Legislature who passed a law banning municipalities from raising their minimum wage. A lawsuit over the wage hike is pending.

And Woodfin plans to push the issue. “We can’t be silent on the livable wage conversation,” he says, explaining that he is pushing state legislators to discuss the issue. He’s also talking to local business owners about how wage increases can help their business and the local economy.

Woodfin has also addressed social justice issues, replacing the city’s police chief, creating Birmingham’s first LGBT liaison for the city, and allocating unused city funds and philanthropic donations to neighborhood restoration efforts. Woodfin has also created an online portal making the city’s finances accessible on the internet in efforts to expose corruption and establish transparency in city government.

Electoral evidence suggests the path to victory in Republican strongholds of the South is one where candidates embrace progressive policies over a centrist Democratic approach of trying to adopt moderate policy stances to avoid offending Republican voters.

“If we want change, we can’t complain and sit on the sidelines hoping something changes,” Woodfin says. “The more progressive candidates run, I think the more Alabamians will see there are more viable options here, not just in representation but in policies.”