Why black men in Martin Luther King’s hometown won’t vote for Kamala Harris

The Democratic candidate is struggling to win the support of African Americans who feel she is prioritising identity over policy

The race for the White House is being fiercely contested in Atlanta’s barbershops.
Amid the bustle of these busy, makeshift public squares in a city known as a bulwark of Democratic support, there are warning signs for Kamala Harris.
Nowhere more so than in Atlanta’s West Side, perhaps best remembered as a one-time meeting point for Dr Martin Luther King Jr and other civil rights icons.
Between cuts and shaves, barber Umar Thames explains that he is preparing to cast a ballot for Donald Trump for the first time.
The 48-year-old was once a supporter of Barack Obama, but says Democrats can no longer take his vote for granted.
Ms Harris, and her historic candidacy, have done little to sway him.
“She’s playing on the fact that she’s black, and we’re black,” he says of the US vice-president, accusing her of prioritising identity over policy.
For him, the White House race “is not about colour”, but the flow of business into his swivel chair.
Its current occupant, Lawrence Gates, listens attentively as his barber pulls an apron over him and debates the merits of Trump’s third White House bid.
Mr Gates is not a fan of Ms Harris either, but as an employee of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, he says he cannot countenance voting for a convicted felon.
“We have got to have checks and balances in our system,” Mr Gates said, arguing Trump’s actions disqualified him from the highest office. “I think he should have been charged with murder [for] what he pulled on January 6,” he added, in reference to the 2021 Capitol riots. Trump could still face election interference charges in Georgia.
Both the barber and his patron are part of a demographic that may hold the key to winning the swing state, and possibly the White House, as black voters comprise a third of Georgia’s electorate.
Joe Biden’s strong appeal to this group in 2020 helped him paint the southern state blue for the first time since Bill Clinton in 1992.
His victory hinged on the smallest of margins – just 11,779 votes – and the support of almost 90 per cent of black voters.
But with just over two weeks until the election, polls show Ms Harris has lost ground with the critical constituency, and young black men in particular.
A recent Siena College/NYT poll found Trump’s support among black men has grown by around five points since 2020, a small but significant figure in a close race.
A second survey by Howard University of black voters across battleground states found more than a fifth of black men under 50 said they plan to support Trump.
He has made an open play for the group, who could prove decisive in the battleground states, potentially costing Ms Harris not just in Atlanta, but also imperilling her margins in Detroit and Philadelphia.
Trump told African Americans thinking of voting Democrat that they needed their “head examined, because they are really screwing you” at a recent rally in Atlanta.
His appearance in the deep blue city was just the latest sign of his campaign’s confidence in making gains here.
Persistently high inflation and immigration are key drivers, and the ex-president has connected the two by suggesting that illegal immigrants are hurting the economy and “taking black jobs”.
The ex-president found a receptive audience at his event in the Atlanta suburbs.
Jimmy, a 38-year-old black man attending his first rally, said illegal immigration had disproportionately affected workers like him in the construction business.
“A lot of the things that black people have done in this country for a long time are now being done by illegal immigrants,” he said. “I believe that Trump will at least get the country back on track for putting American citizens first.”
As for Ms Harris, he said, everything she is proposing “to try to win black voters back, she could have already been doing. She’s in office now”.
Jimmy, who is sporting a red MAGA cap trimmed with a tuft of orange hair in tribute to his Republican idol, says he may be in a minority, but he is certainly not alone.
“A lot of black supporters of Trump are really discreet. It’s hard to convince our parents who have been voting Democrat for 30 years to see something different. But I think when the polls come out we’ll really see it’s changing,” he said. Men of his age, he argued, “don’t care about colour… only dollars and cents”.
Sensing danger, Ms Harris has rolled out a string of policies to shore up support.
The somewhat crudely named “opportunity agenda for black men” includes offering a million small business loans forgivable up to $20,000, apprenticeships in “high-demand” industries, and research into diseases that disproportionately affect black men such as diabetes and sickle cell anaemia.
She has also reiterated her support for decriminalising marijuana and stressed her support for restoring abortion access, which has been severely curtailed since the Supreme Court overturned constitutional protections with the backing of three Trump-appointed justices.
In her own appearance in Atlanta on Saturday night, Ms Harris highlighted the death of Amber Thurman, a young mother whose delayed treatment she blamed on Georgia’s restrictions. “Donald Trump still refuses to take accountability for the pain and the suffering he has caused,” she told around 11,000 supporters.
Earlier Usher, the Grammy award-winning R&B singer, addressed the crowd and endorsed Ms Harris as a candidate that has “a vision for our country that includes everyone”.
Ms Harris has even enlisted Mr Obama, who will campaign alongside her for the first time in Atlanta this week.
The former president has already admonished black men whom he claimed “just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman president”.
The intervention appears to have done little to move the needle. Some Democrats fear it may have smacked of condescension and backfired.
Vernon Jones, a former Democratic state legislator turned Republican, certainly believes so.
“He’s talking down black men,” he said. Mr Jones believes it’s not that they won’t vote for a woman, but this particular one. “They don’t see her as competent,” he said.
It may seem surprising to some that a city so synonymous with America’s civil rights movement, and its decades-long connection with Democratic politics, may now offer an opening to such a contentious figure as Trump.
But Mr Jones noted that the shift away from the Democrats was pronounced among “mostly younger black men” who had limited experience of the legacy of Jim Crow but were well aware they could “be the most powerful vote broker in this election”.
In Atlanta’s West Side, Dr King’s legacy is visible everywhere. His achievements are commemorated through statues, his name memorialised on streets and buildings.
Mr Thames’s barbershop lies in the shadow of Morehouse College, the storied institution the preacher-activist attended.
Both Mr Thames and Mr Gates, his 37-year-old customer, are acutely aware of the generational scars of racism on America’s psyche.
While Mr Gates believes Trump has “made racist statements”, reciting some of the former president’s fruitier comments, Mr Thames argues he represents the “lesser of two evils”.
“I would rather stare a racist right in his face,” he said, prioritising Trump’s policies over his character. Ms Harris he dismisses as “all talk”.
One thing both Mr Gates and Mr Thames can agree on is that more of their community intends to vote for Trump than is willing to publicly declare.
The pastor who now holds Dr King’s pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church does not buy the hype.
“I don’t believe there are waves of black men supporting Trump,” Rev Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s first black senator, said as he stumped for Ms Harris. “We’re not confused about who Donald Trump is.”
Record-setting turnout in Georgia for early voting – typically favoured by Democrats – offers Ms Harris a reason for optimism.
A short drive from Mr Thames’s place, another barbershop has signs in its windows encouraging customers to cast ballots early.
During a visit on a busy weekday lunchtime, just one of the dozens of young men inside Upper Cuts salon on MLK Jr Drive says he is considering backing Trump.
Kevin, a 36-year-old airport worker, is impressed by the Republican’s wealth, and believes he can help the middle class.
But he is swiftly interrupted by 29-year-old barber Christopher Lee, who jokingly warns his customer he is “on thin ice”.
“You like Trump? The dude makes politics into a reality show,” he tells him.
Mr Lee goes on to predict what Trump’s return to the White House would entail: “A national abortion ban, bro. Police immunity. Stop-and-frisk.”
Kevin, now cowed, concedes he doesn’t “agree with any of that”.
After 40 minutes of debate, he seems none the wiser as to how to cast his vote.