My Father Sued the Klan into Bankruptcy. I’m in Congress Because of Him.

U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, 40, the Democratic representative of Alabama’s embattled congressional district, sees his 2024 election as the continuation of a long Black civil rights history.

This account has been condensed and edited for clarity.

I’m as excited to represent the district today as I was the night I got elected.

The reason I approach this work the way that I do goes back to how I was raised. I had the privilege and the blessing to be raised by parents who were both very socially conscious and civically conscious. My father was one of the first Black state senators ever elected in Alabama post-Reconstruction when he was elected in 1978. He ascended to the highest position a Black person has ever held in the state, and that was president pro tempore of the state Senate.

After my father passed away in 1996, my mother — who was already serving on the city council in Mobile — ran for that Senate seat and is still in it. I grew up in an environment that was rooted in public service, rooted in the idea that you have to take what God has given you and use it for betterment of the people and places responsible for you being who you are. For me, that has always been home.

That foundation steered me toward a career in government that took me across all three branches of the federal government. I had the opportunity to learn how the government works from the inside out and from the outside in.

I also grew up under the shadow of the case that my father brought on behalf of Beulah Mae Donald after her 19-year-old son, Michael Donald, was lynched in Mobile in 1981. My father represented Michael Donald’s mother in the lawsuit against the Ku Klux Klan, and they were ultimately successful in securing a judgment that bankrupted the United Klans of America.

That case has always stood out to me as a testament of courage, but also as a reminder of how close we still are to that history. 1981 was not 1951. It was not 1941 or even 1961. It was just a little more than 40 years ago. That reality provides a lot of context for the type of environment we have overcome and are still working to overcome here in Alabama.

When I made the decision to return home and seek out this seat, we knew the risks associated with the litigation surrounding Alabama’s congressional map. We knew that the attacks would not stop. We knew that the efforts to undermine the court would likely not stop. None of this is unexpected.

What we are seeing now is a renewed effort by Republicans who feel emboldened to try to redraw district lines and weaken representation. But we expected that in Alabama and across the South. They’re going to keep trying, and we’re going to keep, first and foremost, representing the people and fighting back.

At the end of the day, I feel a deep sense of gratitude for the people who made it possible for me to have this seat — from the plaintiffs in the case that established my district to the people who literally risked their lives to get us the Voting Rights Act. You feel like you are fulfilling the purpose they had in taking those risks and making those sacrifices.

That’s why there’s no difference between how I felt the night I was elected and how I feel now. I was blessed and fortunate then, and I’m blessed and fortunate now.