All photos via: AL.com
Thanks to Black women, Democrat Doug Jones defeated Republican Roy Moore in Alabama’s historic senate race to become the first Democrat to win a senate seat in the state since 1992. According to NBC News exit polls, 98 percent of Black women voters and 96 percent of Black voters supported Jones.
“Let me be clear: We won in Alabama and Virginia because Black women led us to victory,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said. “Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party, and we can’t take that for granted. Period.”
Included in that 98 percent was 59-year-old Perman Hardy, who spent over 10 hours on Tuesday driving people in Alabama’s majority-Black Lowndes County to the polls. Most of which were supporters of democratic candidate now Alabama senator. As reported by AL.com, Lowndes County is a “rural area that was once home to several cotton plantations that employed generations of slaves and sharecroppers.”
“That’s my goal is to make sure everyone votes. That’s always been my goal. This is what I do every election,” Hardy, a former sharecropper herself and home health nurse, told AL.com. “We’re in an epidemic poverty county so it’s so important for us to vote today. I took some people today who’ve never cast a ballot before.”
On top of driving her neighbors to various polling stations, Hardy also called other residents to make sure they voted. Lowndes County has a population of about 10,458 people.
When Doug Jones served as the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, he convicted the KKK members who were responsible for the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four little Black girls: Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Carol Denise McNair.
“If you can’t reach down and pick somebody up, just don’t do anything at all. But don’t ask me how I do it, don’t ask me how. It’s just what I do,” Hardy said. “Everyone’s got a purpose and God made me a person who goes out and serves the public and serves the community.”
Visit AL.com to read their full profile on Perman Hardy.