Hometown Residents Champion Herschel Walker, Reject Media Claims of ‘Racial Divide’ in Rural Georgia
ASHLEY OLIVER | 19 Oct 2022WRIGHTSVILLE, Georgia — Those who knew Herschel Walker before he gained national fame and launched a bid for U.S. Senate are standing up for him after mainstream media attempted to tie the beloved football legend to a “racial divide” in their small town.
A number of residents of Johnson County, a rural county near central Georgia with a population of less than 10,000, spoke highly of Walker in interviews this month with Breitbart News.
They took issue with a recent New York Times report that zeroed in on race in Wrightsville, the county seat of Johnson where Walker was raised.
The report charged that Walker had been ostracized by Wrightsville’s black community because of Walker’s decision to steer clear of tense protests against racism that took place in the area four decades ago.
Joseph Sumner, a local attorney, viewed the Times report as “an attack on rural Georgia,” he said in the driveway of his modest home, which was surrounded by acres of farmland and cottonfields.
“Growing up in rural Georgia, knowing people from all across the socioeconomic strata, I mean, we have a lot of poverty here. You know so many of these people that, they struggle. There’s no jobs here. I felt like there was an arrogance in that you would have a reporter from the New York Times that would come down here to do what I would say was kind of a hit piece, and the people here, and the problems that we’ve had here have been going on for years,” Sumner said. “The truth is they don’t care about these people. … They want to write about their virtues, but they don’t care about the poverty. They don’t care about the drugs.”
Sumner, whose father was a drugstore pharmacist in Wrightsville, has known of the Walkers his whole life and encounters Walker’s family members in and around town frequently.
Walker’s mother, as well as his father when he was alive, are “just a portrait of good, decent, hardworking people” who raised their seven children “to be exceptional,” Sumner said.
“Those comments about [Walker] forgetting where he came from, I completely disagree with that,” he said.
The Times had quoted a former coach of Walker’s saying Walker “forgot where he came from” and that he “is not part of the black community” in his hometown.
Citing mostly anonymous sources, the paper added that “such feelings toward Mr. Walker have been present for decades” and are “flowering” ahead of Georgia’s U.S. Senate race, a highly competitive election that could determine which party controls the majority next year.
Benny “Chubby” Hodges, a 44-year-old truck driver who has lived in Wrightsville all his life, said, “From what I know about Herschel, he’s a good guy, man. He don’t see no, what they say, a racial divide of black and whites or whatever? That’s not Herschel, come on.”
Hodges, who is black, said he plans to vote for Walker.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/10/19/hometown-residents-champion-herschel-walker-reject-media-claims-racial-divide-rural-georgia/
