President Joe Biden went down to Georgia this week, and I don’t blame him. Good things have been happening in the Peach State and he wants to be a part of it.
One year ago, two Democratic Senators (including a Black Baptist preacher!) were sworn in as U. S. Senators from Georgia. What a watershed moment this was, breaking the stranglehold powerful white men have had on the state for, well, hundreds of years.
Biden, of course, carried the state as well, on his way to winning the presidency; but that was in 2019 and I am focused on just the last 12 months.
Which brings me to the state legislature. They did two things of significance, even while controlled by Republicans. They repealed a slavery-era law that allowed for citizen’s arrest, and they adopted (almost in its place) a hate crime law.
Both of these changes to the state criminal code were pushed in the aftermath of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. The three now-convicted men appealed to this old law to justify their lynching of the young man running through their neighborhood. Their appeal failed in court, but it contributed to the drive to delete the law from the Georgia books.
Ahmaud Arbery was a Black man, and he was targeted for chasing because he was black—so contends the federal indictment against them, a move necessary because the state of Georgia had no hate crime bill. But that omission has also been addressed by the Republican-led legislature.
Those same lawmakers, however, saw fit to put in place restrictions to voting that will impact primarily those who vote Democratic: use of ballot boxes and mail-in ballots, the number of days open to voting, and the freedom of third parties to provide food and water to those standing in line to vote. These unnecessary regulations, designed to limit voting by specific demographics, is the very reason the President came to Georgia to promote a new voting bill now before Congress.
They were also the reason Major League Baseball moved the 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta. But not all the powerbrokers of politics and sports could prevent the Atlanta Braves from hosting the World Series and winning the World Series—their first since 1995!!
Shortly after that great achievement in the state of Georgia, the three men local to Brunswick went on trial for what they did to Ahmaud Arbery. It took six weeks, but in November, all three men were convicted of murder and other multiple crimes. This was a major achievement of the criminal justice system of the state of Georgia and largely the work of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, a prosecution team from Atlanta, and a judge from Savannah. Hopefully, it signals a new day of fairness, equity, and justice in the American South.
Finally, during just one weekend in January of 2022, two momentous things occurred. Last Friday, those three White men in Brunswick were sentenced to life in prison. The judge said the most important words: “The death of Ahmaud Arbery should force us to expand our definition of what a neighbor is and how we treat them.”
Perhaps that will happen, but very little during the trial convinced anyone that the three White men felt any remorse, spoke any regret, or practiced any repentance.
Three days later, the football team of the University of Georgia beat their archrival Alabama to win their first national NCAA championship since 1981 (when Vince Dooley was coaching, and Herschel Walker was running). I watched the whole thing!
This double exclamation at the end of 12 months of drama is worth noting, even as the President did. Then this: “Will we choose democracy over autocracy,” Biden said in his speech, “light over shadow, justice over injustice?” It is a good year to be optimistic!
While the fate of the voting rights bills is yet uncertain, it is clear that for twelve months the people of Georgia have chosen fairness in the courtroom, progress on the criminal code, and hard work on the athletic fields.
Alas, Georgia still has a long way to go on the basketball court. Last Saturday, Kentucky defeated Georgia 92 to 77. And that is as it should be. I mean, Georgia can’t win everything!!
(January 2022)
