Jason Zengerle of New Republic recently published an excellent, timely article entitled The New Racism which focuses on the political career of Hank Sanders, who took his diploma from Harvard Law back to his home in Alabama to make it a better place for African Americans, like himself, to live and learn and work . . .
Hank Sanders was one of 13 children who grew up during the 1950's in a 3 room shack, sans electricity and running water, built by his father in rural Alabama. By the early '60s Sanders had worked his way through Talladega College, a black school in central Alabama, became active in the Civil Rights movement and literally risked his life to register black voters in what was known, locally, as "Bloody Lowndes" County. In 1967, Sanders left Alabama to attend Harvard Law but as soon as he graduated he returned to Selma, AL. In the meantime, Hank Sanders married another Harvard Law alum and the two of them went to work
. . . filing the lawsuits necessary for blacks in rural Alabama to become sheriffs, school board members, and city councilmen—translating the right to vote into actual political power. In 1983, Sanders ran for office himself in a newly created black-majority Senate district.And for the next thirty years, Sanders kept at it, rising through the ranks in the Alabama state house and, according to Jason Zengerle:
Sanders tried to exercise his power to represent people who were unaccustomed to having a voice in Montgomery—namely poor, black Alabamans. He helped bring more money to their schools and their hospitals, better infrastructure to their neighborhoods, and greater fairness to their tax bills. Thanks to Sanders and a growing caucus of African American legislators, many of whom also chaired crucial committees, it was a period during which black people in Alabama enjoyed their most substantive political representation since Reconstruction.