Just an Old Sweet Song
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 19 October 2018
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kai Wright of WNYC and Slate’s Jamelle Bouie on the governor’s race in Georgia. Plus, Deadspin’s Dvora Meyers explains the implosion of USA Gymnastics.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When I wanted to know a little bit more about the governor's race in Georgia, I knew exactly who I wanted to talk to. My friend Kai Wright, he just got back from a trip down south this past weekend. So I got him on the phone. So you flew into Atlanta? |
| 0:15.2 | Yeah. It's a lot of driving. The place he went is pretty rural, Clay County, population about 3,000. It's the part of the state where Hurricane Michael just passed through. |
| 0:25.9 | I mean, there's still a lot of folks when I was there that didn't have power yet. And so in the middle of all of this, the selection is unfolding. You've got people lining up to get food because they don't have power to keep food in their houses. |
| 0:37.9 | Wow. |
| 0:38.8 | Yeah, it's a pretty tough area. |
| 0:40.2 | It's a tough area. |
| 0:41.2 | Kai told me about this woman he met while he was down there, Shirley Cody. |
| 0:49.4 | Shirley, the 74-year-old black woman. |
| 0:51.3 | She grew up in Clay County, but left and spent her career, you know, |
| 0:56.6 | uh, in Atlanta as a nurse. She was back to Clay County to take care of her parents as they |
| 1:06.0 | were getting old and passing. And when she got back, she was like, what is this place? I remember this thriving |
| 1:12.8 | community of black people. She drove me around, and she was like, that farm, that used to be |
| 1:17.1 | black owned, that place that used to be black owned. You know, and when she got back, it was instead |
| 1:23.0 | this place with a lot of poverty and with a lot of black folks who just really have their backs |
| 1:28.8 | to the wall and where the government, the county commission in particular, is dominated by |
| 1:34.8 | whites. Georgia's governor's race is getting people fired up because the Democratic nominee, |
| 1:39.4 | a woman named Stacey Abrams, if she wins, she'd be the first black woman elected governor in the U.S. |
| 1:46.5 | So down in Clay County, Shirley Cody is stepping up. She's going church to church every Sunday |
| 1:52.0 | and saying, hey, you know, if you want to vote, one, you should vote, and I can help you. I can help you |
| 1:57.9 | do that. Georgia has early voting, and one of the big ideas is to get as |
| 2:01.0 | many early votes in as possible. So she's traveling around doing that. She didn't have a car herself. |
| 2:06.3 | So she has to have these sort of network of volunteers who do have cars when they're not at work |
... |
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