Lucy McBath's Democratic nomination for Georgia's 6th Congressional District representative is a move she credits to the senseless murder of her son, Jordan Davis. In a recent interview, she revealed his shooting death was the “catalyst” that motivated her to run for office.
"I am walking in the path I thought I had laid for him," McBath told BuzzFeed News. "I come from a family of civil rights leaders…I grew up in the movement."
McBath's father was the president of the Illinois NAACP chapter for over 20 years. She told the outlet that watching activists strategize in her house partially prepared her for her journey ahead. Being a political science major and working for the first senator of color in Virginia also sparked her inclination toward congressional leadership. However, it was her son's murder that was the catalyst to unleash her journey to politics.
“Everything I was teaching him to be, and I thought and assumed that I was grooming him for, I’ve ended up assuming that role,” McBath said. “I can’t be a hypocrite, so I very much have to walk out what I was trying to teach him.”
Davis was only 17 years old when 47-year-old Michael Dunn murdered him due to a dispute about his music being too loud. His untimely 2012 death, in part, helped to spawn the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2014, Dunn was convicted of first-degree murder in Davis' killing and sentenced to life without parole.
“It’s a phone call that no parent ever wants to get,” McBath said. “And every fear that I had about protecting Jordan as a young, black male, it all converged on me in that one moment.”
The former Delta Airlines flight attendant has also been a huge advocate against gun control.
"It's not enough to just have the movement," she told CNN. "It's just not enough to have the marches and the rallies and the speeches and the remarks unless we have people who are willing to create the bills to make this a safer nation."
In November, Davis will face off against Republican Congresswoman Karen Handel.
You can watch BuzzFeed's full interview with McBath here.
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