Chokwe Antar Lumumba Wins Mayoral Race in Jackson, Mississippi

By teleSUR

07 June 17

Antar Lumumba captured 93 percent of votes, according to the Jackson Press.

ocial justice activist Chokwe Antar Lumumba has won the Jackson, Mississippi mayoral race, the Jackson Press reported on Tuesday night, adding that he captured 93 percent of votes.

With 100 percent of precinct votes counted, Republican rival Jason Wells garnered only 4 percent of the votes. During his victory speech Antar Lumumba stated, "We have a lot of work to do," adding that "if you have the best ideas, that's what we're moving with." Antar Lumumba received 55 percent of the vote during the Democratic mayoral primaries, cruising past his opponents while running on the historically anti-Dixiecrat ticket of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. His closest competitor received only 21 percent of the vote.

We will fix our infrastructure. We will improve our education system. We will decrease crime. We will do it together. #RestoringtheVision pic.twitter.com/vR9JpIP37J

— Chokwe Antar Lumumba (@LumumbaForMayor) March 20, 2017

“What we have been engaged in are initiatives to see a solidarity economy come to fruition for the people of Jackson; give people more control over their destinies and looking to do it in a comprehensive fashion through the engagement of electoral politics,” Antar Lumumba stated during an interview with the Baffler.

When asked by reporter Sarah Jaffe about political opposition confronting his campaign he said, “There is the opposition from the big power brokers who have benefited from the way the system currently exists. We have a situation which is much like the nation where you have so many with so little and so few with so much. They represent those interests and want to fight against any type of change that might level the playing field.”

Antar Lumumba also spoke about misinformation being disseminated about his campaign, purposefully causing confusion amongst voters. He also emphasized the need to build stronger international relationships with like-minded politicians and leaders.

During his campaign, Antar Lumumba reiterated that people should be granted their right to education, jobs, decent infrastructure and restorative justice for communities that have been historically cast onto the fringes of society.

His campaign was the antithesis of the established Black political class in the U.S. As outlined by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Kevin Alexander Gray, this class is representative of those who've turned a blind eye to demands for systemic change in favor of maintaining power through accommodation of the status quo. The U.S. South, albeit not endemic to this situation, presents a particular historical bedrock of this lack of direct engagement by Black politicians and leaders who've coalesced around the “American way of life” nationwide as opposed to seeking justice in general.

In contrast, Antar Lumumba's campaign platform can be summed up by three popular slogans that cross several generations of African Americans: "Free the land," "serve the people," and "by any means necessary."

Antar Lumumba, the son of two life-long community organizers, Nubia Lumumba and Chokwe Lumumba, is a lawyer and activist with a degree from Tuskegee University and the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University. He's a member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Cooperation Jackson, the Coalition for Economic Justice, and the Human Rights Collective.

He explained that all of these organizations are “steeped in the idea of creating self-determination and seeing human rights for human rights” and that real democratic alternatives are the only solution to the pervasive state of socio-economic exploitation, exclusion, and environmental destruction.