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“There is some sense of, oh my god, like all of this that's going on,” said Deanna Fowler of Alabama Forward.


Fowler is referring to the U.S. Supreme Court decision ordering deep red Alabama to redraw its Congressional map to better represent African Americans. She was left uneasy that the same Justices who overturned Roe V. Wade thought Alabama was being unfair to blacks. It doesn’t help that new GOP court challenges are already underway to flip the map back to the conservatives.

Please find enclosed Alabama Public Radio’s entry for the RTDNA Murrow Award for Best Series, titled…a U.S. House seat, if you can keep it.”

Please click here to listen to the program...

"...a U.S. House seat, if you can keep it." An APR News series

The APR news team spent nine months investigating critical issues in Alabama’s new Congressional District 2. Rural healthcare was just one.

“It was a freak accident. My five-year-old daughter was rolling down the hill and her arm snapped in half,” said Caila Savage said of rural healthcare in District 2. “I think about an hour, maybe two hours, we had to wait on the ambulance.”

Minority business owners in District 2 are looking for support from their new member of Congress. The Democratic candidate is promising money, the Republican wants fewer regulations.

“A lot of people don’t see us making it,” said D’Angelo Harrison who works at his family’s minority owned seafood restaurant in Monroeville in District 2. “But you know we don’t let these people you know tell us what we cannot do. We just keep our head up and we keep going.”

Then, there’s the issue facing Alabama’s only black U.S. House member, Terri Sewell.

“I think that it's a matter of, I definitely think I can say this as a black voter like I think that it is a matter of, we trust you more,” that how one of Sewell’s staffers describes the typical phone call from outside the district from an African American.

If a black voter needs help in Alabama, and they live in a U.S. House District with a white Republican, they typically call Sewell. She’s just one house member out of seven in the state, but the de facto representative of one third of Alabama’s population that’s black.

Alabama’s new District 2 was created by the U.S. Supreme Court case Allen versus Milligan. That may sound like a one-of-a-kind event from this part of the state, but it’s not. APR finishes out our investigation by looking back at the 1960 SCOTUS case Gomillion versus Lightfoot. Fred Gray, the attorney to Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, argued the Tuskegee case that codified the constitutional rights of black voters years before the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Respectfully submitted.

“There is some sense of, oh my god, like all of this that's going on,” said Deanna Fowler of Alabama Forward.

Fowler is referring to the U.S. Supreme Court decision ordering deep red Alabama to redraw its Congressional map to better represent African Americans. She was left uneasy that the same Justices who overturned Roe V. Wade thought Alabama was being unfair to blacks. It doesn’t help that new GOP court challenges are already underway to flip the map back to the conservatives.

Please find enclosed Alabama Public Radio’s entry for the PMJA Award for Best Documentary, titled…a U.S. House seat, if you can keep it.”

Please click here to listen to the program...

"...a U.S. House seat, if you can keep it."

The APR news team spent nine months investigating critical issues in Alabama’s new Congressional District 2. Rural healthcare was just one.

“It was a freak accident. My five-year-old daughter was rolling down the hill and her arm snapped in half,” said Caila Savage said of rural healthcare in District 2. “I think about an hour, maybe two hours, we had to wait on the ambulance.”

Minority business owners in District 2 are looking for support from their new member of Congress. The Democratic candidate is promising money, the Republican wants fewer regulations.

“A lot of people don’t see us making it,” said D’Angelo Harrison who works at his family’s minority owned seafood restaurant in Monroeville in District 2. “But you know we don’t let these people you know tell us what we cannot do. We just keep our head up and we keep going.”

Then, there’s the issue facing Alabama’s only black U.S. House member, Terri Sewell.

“I think that it's a matter of, I definitely think I can say this as a black voter like I think that it is a matter of, we trust you more,” that how one of Sewell’s staffers describes the typical phone call from outside the district from an African American.

If a black voter needs help in Alabama, and they live in a U.S. House District with a white Republican, they typically call Sewell. She’s just one house member out of seven in the state, but the de facto representative of one third of Alabama’s population that’s black.

Alabama’s new District 2 was created by the U.S. Supreme Court case Allen versus Milligan. That may sound like a one-of-a-kind event from this part of the state, but it’s not. APR finishes out our investigation by looking back at the 1960 SCOTUS case Gomillion versus Lightfoot. Fred Gray, the attorney to Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, argued the Tuskegee case that codified the constitutional rights of black voters years before the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Respectfully submitted.

I think that it's a matter of, we trust you more.” 

That’s what African American voters in Alabama typically say when they call U.S. House member Terri Sewell. If a black Alabamian needs help, and they live in a U.S. House District with a white Republican, they often call Sewell. She’s just one house member out of seven in the state, yet the de facto representative of one third of Alabama’s black population. 

Please find Alabama Public Radio’s entry for the NABJ Salute to Excellence Award for Best Public Affairs, titled “A day in the life of Terri Sewell.”

Please click here to listen to the program.
"A day in the life of Terri Sewell."

Sewell was among the people who anxiously watched the campaign for the state’s newly redrawn Congressional seat in District 2. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered deep red Alabama to change its U.S. House map to better represent black voters. Those are the same Justices who overturned Roe Versus Wade and ended affirmative action at the nation’s universities. That’s leaving supporters of the new District 2 uneasy. 

The APR news team spent nine months investigating issues related to black voters in the new Congressional District. Terri Sewell and her staff handling phone calls from outside the District, is an example. The news team arrived in Washington, D.C. on the day Sewell cast her very first “no” vote for the Pentagon budget as a member of the Armed Services Committee. That opposition, delivered from the floor of the U.S. House, was prompted by “poison pill” amendment from Republicans against diversity and reproductive health provisions in the measure.

Sewell remained hopeful that Democrat Shomari Figures would win, so that the burden of representing Alabama’s black population would be more evenly split, and that there would be another Democrat voicer to advocate on behalf of African Americans in the State. Even if a Democrat were to win the new District 2 seat, Republicans in Alabama are already sharpening up their legal arguments to try to upend the court decision that created the new African American majority U.S. House district.

Respectfully submitted.

“There is some sense of, oh my god, like all of this that's going on,” said Deanna Fowler of Alabama Forward.


Fowler is referring to the U.S. Supreme Court decision ordering deep red Alabama to redraw its Congressional map to better represent African Americans. She was left uneasy that the same Justices who overturned Roe V. Wade thought Alabama was being unfair to blacks. It doesn’t help that new GOP court challenges are already underway to flip the map back to the conservatives.

Please find enclosed Alabama Public Radio’s entry for the RTDNA Murrow Award for Best Democracy Coverage, titled…a U.S. House seat, if you can keep it.”

Please click here to listen to the program...

Alabama Public Radio Democracy/Election Coverage 2024

The APR news team spent nine months investigating critical issues in Alabama’s new Congressional District 2. Rural healthcare was just one.

“It was a freak accident. My five-year-old daughter was rolling down the hill and her arm snapped in half,” said Caila Savage said of rural healthcare in District 2. “I think about an hour, maybe two hours, we had to wait on the ambulance.”

Minority business owners in District 2 are looking for support from their new member of Congress. The Democratic candidate is promising money, the Republican wants fewer regulations.

“A lot of people don’t see us making it,” said D’Angelo Harrison who works at his family’s minority owned seafood restaurant in Monroeville in District 2. “But you know we don’t let these people you know tell us what we cannot do. We just keep our head up and we keep going.”

Then, there’s the issue facing Alabama’s only black U.S. House member, Terri Sewell.

“I think that it's a matter of, I definitely think I can say this as a black voter like I think that it is a matter of, we trust you more,” that how one of Sewell’s staffers describes the typical phone call from outside the district from an African American.

If a black voter needs help in Alabama, and they live in a U.S. House District with a white Republican, they typically call Sewell. She’s just one house member out of seven in the state, but the de facto representative of one third of Alabama’s population that’s black.

Alabama’s new District 2 was created by the U.S. Supreme Court case Allen versus Milligan. That may sound like a one-of-a-kind event from this part of the state, but it’s not. APR finishes out our investigation by looking back at the 1960 SCOTUS case Gomillion versus Lightfoot. Fred Gray, the attorney to Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior, argued the Tuskegee case that codified the constitutional rights of black voters years before the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Respectfully submitted.