‘The stakes are so high’: Austin Davis and a new generation of Black leadership are running against a rising MAGA tide

Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.

In this crucial midterm election season, democracy is on the ballot, and that’s real. Issues such as reproductive justice, voting rights and many basic freedoms hang in the balance as Trump acolytes hope to take power at the state and federal level, gain control of the electoral process to steal elections and wipe away our civil rights.  

In numerous statewide races around the country, a new generation of bold and dynamic Black leadership is running for office, and many are favored to win. Black turnout will be crucial. Running against MAGA ideologues and election deniers, insurrectionists and outright white nationalists, these Black hopefuls are on the frontlines of the war for the future of America.  

One of the youngest of these candidates is Austin Davis, 32, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania—where candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run separately in the primary and the party nominees run together as a pair in the November general election—Davis won two-thirds of the vote and carried every county in the state. He joins Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, on the November ballot. Polls suggest Austin Davis is poised to become the first Black lieutenant governor of the Keystone State.  

A Black state representative whose district is in McKeesport in Allegheny County, Davis became one of only a few Black lawmakers to represent a majority-white district in Pennsylvania and the first in Western Pennsylvania outside of Pittsburgh.

Davis’ upbringing in a Black working-class family informed his decision to pursue public service and take it all the way to the state house in Harrisburg.

“My dad’s a bus driver in Pittsburgh and my mom’s a hairdresser. You know, my parents worked really hard to be sure my sister and I had every opportunity to succeed, and that wasn’t always easy, right? My family struggled with many of the same things that families are struggling with today,” Davis said on the campaign trail in West Philly in a one-on-one interview with theGrio. “And it really gave me a perspective that folks don’t necessarily want anything handed to them. They just want a fair shot. They want an economy that allows them to have a family-sustaining job and to get ahead and build the foundation for what can lead to their children living a better life than what they had before, and so that’s really kind of informed my background.” 

The legislator’s experience with gun violence as a teen propelled him into politics. “No person should have to live in a community that has to deal with gun violence. I got my start in politics when I was 16 years old when somebody got shot on my block. I decided that I wanted to go to a city council meeting,” Davis said. “There were two things that I noticed when I was in that meeting: One, nobody looked like me in government. And two, nobody was talking about the issue of gun violence. Instead of waiting for somebody else, I started a violence-reduction program in my community when I was 16 years old.” 

After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, Austin Davis did not leave his community but stayed in the old industrial town that was devastated when the steel industry collapsed in the late 1970s, leaving white and Black people in poverty. Now, he is preparing the community for a new economy with new jobs such as the legalized medical marijuana industry.

And when an unarmed today! 

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