24 MAY 8, 2022
“I just found out the other day I was
Black.” They laugh louder.
But race has not been a laughing
matter for Walker. His senior year of high
school (1979-1980), racial tensions roiled
Wrightsville. A pastor led weekly marches
on the courthouse to protest the lack of
Black people employed by the sheriff and
local businesses, and to demand sewers
and roads in Black neighborhoods be
repaired. On one occasion, a mob of White
residents assaulted the marchers, who
later claimed the sheriff had joined the
attack. Another night, a suspected mem-
ber of the Ku Klux Klan fired a shotgun
into a Black teacher’s trailer home from
his pickup, striking a girl inside. On yet
another night, the sheriff raided a Black
neighborhood and arrested 38 men and
women, though none were convicted of
any crime.
The tensions inevitably reached the
high school, where one day six Black
students pulled a jacket over the head of a
White boy and beat him up. The two
starting guards on the all-Black basket-
ball team were suspended after a fight
with White students. One day White
parents stormed the school to demand
their children come home. Georgia State
Patrol troopers were sent in to keep
peace. Nine of Walker’s track teammates
quit the team as part of the protests. The
Black activists implored Walker to join
them, but he demurred, in part dissuaded
by his track coach. “I told him, ‘Herschel,
we have practice at 3 o’clock,’ ” Tom
Jordan says. “You got to be here. You can’t
be [leading marches].”
Walker’s refusal to use his national
platform to advocate on their behalf
alienated him from some of his Black
neighbors, which he resented. “I never
really liked the idea that I was to repre-
sent my people,” he writes in “Breaking
Free.”
That stance — especially now, coming
from a Senate candidate — has drawn
sharp criticism from Black leaders. “Her-
schel Walker won’t advocate for anybody,
only for what’s in his best interest,” Harry
Edwards says. “He’s irrelevant to the
Black community, and we should treat
him as such.” A representative from
Walker’s campaign declined to address
the comments.
But Walker might be impossible to
ignore, calling the leaders of Black Lives
Matter “trained Marxists” who don’t be-
lieve in American values, mocking the
defund police movement as the brain-
child of a drunk and testifying at aport will serve Walker, though. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution
poll published in late January found 42 percent of Georgia
Republicans said that a Trump endorsement would make them
more likely to support a candidate, while about as many — 43
percent — said they were unsure and the remaining 15 percent
said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate with a Trump
endorsement.
In the January 2021 runoff for the two U.S. Senate seats,
Trump’s picks both lost to Democrats, in part because his
baseless complaints about not being able to trust the election
process seemed to discourage some Georgia Republicans from
voting. Those same voters could stay home in this November’s
general election.
What’s more, a significant number of college-educated White
male voters in Georgia who cast their ballots for Trump in 2016
did not do so again in 2020. The popular wisdom is that Walker
will need their support to beat Warnock. While that might be
possible with Biden’s slumping favorability, Trump’s stumping
for Walker could, in fact, hurt his chances. “Trump is going to be
all over Georgia,” says Charles S. Bullock, a professor of political
science at the University of Georgia. “The more they’re reminded
of what they don’t like about Trump will make [winning them
back] problematic.”
Several days after I met Walker at the Republican Jewish
Coalition event and he told me he would sit for an interview, he
called to say he’d changed his mind. “Someone overheard you say
you didn’t think I could win this thing,” he explained.
I hadn’t said that, but he couldn’t be convinced otherwise.
Regarding Walker’s chances of winning the general election,
many Republicans worry that Warnock, with his superior oratory
skills, experience as a senator and knowledge of the issues, will
eviscerate Walker if he does win the Republican nomination and
agrees to debate Warnock. Says Wynter, the radio host, “The
overwhelming fear is that he wins the primary and flames out in
the general election.”
R
ight now you’re teaching kids critical race theory,” Walker
tells the mostly White audience in Dahlonega. “I don’t even
know what that is.” They laugh.
Above: Walker shakes
hands with Donald
Trump at a rally in
Perry, Ga., in
September 2021. The
two have known each
other since 1984.
Trump encouraged
Walker to get into
politics. Opposite
page: Walker playing
for the Dallas
Cowboys in 1987.