SEPTEMBER 18, 2026
Learn more about the prospective governor placements ahead of this year’s midterm election

With only seven weeks left until Election Day, voters are diving deeper into their understanding of candidates. Across both major parties, there are Black candidates seeking election to be governor of their respective states. If these candidates are elected, they have the potential to make history, as only three people have previously been appointed governor who are African American. One of the three previous elected governors is Maryland Governor Wes Moore, who is currently seeking reelection. 
While Moore has been vocal about his desire for there to be more Black governors alongside him, candidates must appeal to a larger audience of voters than before, beyond just Black voters. Similar to the wave of Black female candidates who were running for Senate earlier this year, this is another historic number of Black candidates for this election cycle. This could be what sets the tone of a new era commencing for more minority representation in political leadership. 
John James

John James. Credit: Nic Antaya/ Getty Images
With a blend of military service and political leadership roles. John James is running to be governor of Michigan. James served as a Ranger-qualified aviation officer in the Army for eight years before being elected to Congress in 2022.  He won the Republican primary election earlier last month and will now compete against Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. James is also tied to President Trump as someone who has shown vocal support of his presidency. As well as, being personally endorsed for the governor position, which was what led to his win in the Republican primaries. Some of the priorities he’s emphasized along his campaign trail have included removing income tax for the state, strengthening the cannabis regulatory agency, and even a parents’ bill giving parents a heavier hand in their children's education. If James wins the election, he would be the state’s first Black governor. 

Byron Donalds

Byron Donalds. Credit: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Similar to John James, Byron Donalds is also running for governor as a republican candidate. He currently serves as the U.S. representative for Florida’s 19th congressional district. He’s not only been endorsed by President Trump, but has made it a point to amplify his conservative perspective throughout his campaign. This has included vocalizing his stance on border control, property taxes, and data centers. The issues that he’s platformed during his campaign trail have included pushing back against illegal immigration, environmental preservation and restoration, and deepening economic opportunities for Florida residents through education and lower taxes.  In the event Donalds is elected, he will succeed Gov. Ron DeSantis in leadership.
Keisha Lance Bottoms

Keisha Lance Bottoms. Credit: Nykieria Chaney/Getty Images
Former mayor of Atlanta Keisha Lance Bottoms is seeking to take things up a notch in her political career as she campaigns to be elected governor of Georgia. With a background of serving in all three branches of government, Bottoms’ background in political servitude has prepared her for the campaign she’s currently running. Some of the areas she’s highlighted during her campaign include lowering housing costs, retaining land ownership for farmers, and increased state support of local law enforcement to help improve public safety. Bottoms has also introduced a grocery and essentials tax relief plan that she hopes will lower the cost of groceries for families to have necessary essentials in their homes, with additional taxes on items. If elected, Bottoms would not only become the state’s first Black governor, but also the first Black female governor.
David Crowley

David Crowley. Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Serving in his second term as the seventh executive for Milwaukee County, David Crowley is vying for governor of Wisconsin. Much of his campaign has emphasized empowerment for residents, affordability in health care and housing, and climate advocacy. He has even been vocal about the recent emergence of data centers and their impact on residents across the state, expressing his belief that restrictions should be put on these entities to ensure residents’ resources and perspectives are being prioritized. Being endorsed by fellow political leaders such as Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Congresswoman Gwen Moore, and current Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers has helped Crowley keep strong footing in exposure ahead of Election Day.

Aaron Ford

Aaron Ford. Credit:Ian Maule via Getty Images
Aaron Ford, who currently serves as Nevada’s attorney general, is also vying to be the state’s next governor. Going against Republican nominee Joe Lombardo, Ford is bringing his experience as a lawyer and former member of the Nevada Senate as minority and majority leader to the table. His priorities during his campaign have touched on public safety, living costs, and education. While in his role as attorney general, he helped to advocate for reproductive freedom and fought for Nevada residents who were experiencing predatory lenders and difficulty receiving medical insurance coverage. After being the first Black person to hold a statewide constitutional office in Nevada as attorney general, Ford could make history again as the state’s first Black governor.
Jermaine Johnson

Jermaine Johnson. Credit: Sean Rayford/Getty Images
Jermaine Johnson currently serves in South Carolina’s House of Representatives, where he sits on the committee for labor, commerce, and industry. His doctoral degree in organizational leadership from Northcentral University, alongside his experience working in education and the nonprofit sector, is the perspective he could bring to the table if elected governor. Some of the policies he’s emphasized during his campaign trail have included lowering taxes on property and income, providing more resources to trade schools, and passing more hate crime bills. Johnson is running alongside Sam Skardon, a well-known businessman in the area, to be his lieutenant governor.
Lisa Demuth

Lisa Demuth. Credit: Star Tribune via Getty Images.
As one of the few Black female candidates for governor, Lisa Demuth is making a name for herself as one of the only women vying for office as a Republican candidate. Demuth currently serves as Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives. Her background spans entrepreneurship, education, and political leadership, including being House Minority Leader and Speaker of the House, making her the first Republican woman and Black lawmaker to do so. Like other Republican candidates vying for governor, her priorities center on tax relief for residents, along with stricter parental controls and transparency in education. Demuth’s win would be historic for the state as it would make her the state's first Black and first female governor.

Wes Moore

Credit: Jamie Sabau/Getty Images
Almost four years after being elected to the role of governor of Maryland, Wes Moore must now advocate for himself again to remain in the position. He made history as the state’s first Black governor in 2023 and has made it a point to support economic growth through raising wages for workers, investing funds into HBCUs, and creating new roles as businesses opened across the state. Though he didn’t have an extensive political career prior to being elected governor, he is a combat veteran of the U.S. Army after years of service. His re-election campaign centers around continuing the work he’s already done for the state and ensuring that affordability is at the forefront for Maryland residents.

It didn't suck as bad as usual.

Having Pike off the bridge and Admiral Reeger in command was a huge improvement.

Having a veteran stage actor at the helm does wonders for elevating SNW's shitty writing.

Joe Morton (the Admiral Reeger actor) should have his own Trek show.

I usually highlight quotes i find interesting and then type that out into my notes for future research. I wanted to ask, of the quotes i've listed below which do you find most important and why? I definitely recommend purchasing the book. Lots of great information.

"President Ulysses Grant wrote with uncommon candor about the true objectives of southern whites in the aftermath of slavery. Southern whites, by force and terror intended to... deprive colored citizens of the right to... a free ballot; to suppress schools in which colored children were taught, and to reduce the colored people to a condition closely akin to that of slavery." p2

"Despite the government's failure to live up to its promise, African American farmers persevered. By 1910, they had acquired approximately 16 million acres of farmland. By 1920 there were 925,000 African American farms in the United States. Today, there are fewer than 18,000 African American farms in the United States, and African American farmers now own less than 3 million acres of land." p7

"Congress apologized to Japanese Americans for their removal and internment during World War II and made its apology believable by legislating a host of reparations, including $20,000 for each victim. These movements are less about money and more about atonement-apology plus reparations." p12

"One of the largest life insurance companies in the United States, AETNA, based in Hartford CT, which traces its roots to 1853 and once wrote life insurance policies on slaves, naming slave owners as beneficiaries, made two significant moves toward slave redress in 2000. First, it issued a formal apology to Black Americans for its participation in sustaining the institution of slavery. Second, it voluntarily created a minority internship program and established a diversity scholarship fund as forms of reparation for its financial support of slavery." p15

"Another CT company made a positive contribution to the slave redress movement in 2000. Connecticut's largest daily newspaper, the Hartford Courant, issued a front-page apology for running advertisements for slave auctions and for committing other acts in support of slavery." p15

"The Vatican has also supported slave redress. In August 2001, it issued a statement that reads in part: The evil which has been done must be acknowledged and, as far as possible, corrected. This statement was perhaps timed to coincide with an important international human rights conference scheduled for that month." p16

"As an example of what he called The Solidarity of self-interest, the black black author and newsweek columnist Ellis Cose, who attended the Durban Conference, cited a disturbing development involving black africans and black americans. Although both came to the conference advocating for reparations for slavery and colonialism, self-interest eventually drove them apart. African nations were interested in debt relief, foreign aid, and investments (called the new africa initiative) and abandoned the call for reparations to close the deal. During intense backstage negotiations over world conference documents, African governments found it relatively easy to drop demands for reparations in return for assurances of support for their own initiatives, Cose notes. The Africans willingness to negotiate away the issue prompted one Afro-Latino delegate to quietly suggest that the Africans were abandoning their brothers in the new world. They sold us once, and now they're doing it again, she quipped." p18

"Political coalitions with other victim groups are likely to founder on the shoals of self-interest. It was not just the Africans who were prepared to sell out their friends for selfish reasons; it was other groups as well. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out, "The Indians were willing to support the U.S.'s attempts to remove the language about zionism, provided that India's skeleton in the closet, the caste system, wasn't mentioned." p18

"Where legislative enactments dared not tread, informal practice-newly established, but anointed with the force of custom- served the same proscriptive function. By general consent, white employers barred free blacks from trades they had practiced openly as slaves, driving them deep into poverty. Unable to gain employment except as...day laborers and domestics, black people then found themselves ridiculed for their lack of ambition and irregular work habits. " p33

"One visitor, a British solicitor, summed up the views of many of his fellow visitors when he observed that, With close, though perhaps unconscious, copy of the policy of ancient Egypt towards the children of Israel, America denies to free men of colour every liberal motive and every generous style, solace and recompense of industry; and then insults them with the calumnious reproach, Ye are idle, ye are idle." p34

"Some 30 years after the  cheating stopped with the passage of the civil rights legislation, the racialized distribution of the poker chips- power, wealth and privilege- continues to limit opportunities for black Americans. These assets, often invisible, are passed down intergenerationally. Indeed, some economists estimate that up to 80 percent of lifetime wealth accumulation results from gifts from earlier generations, ranging from the down payment on a home to a bequest by a parent. Thus, power, wealth and privilege are  more than just comforts or indulgences. They create the starting point for the next generation. When power, wealth and privilege are racialized, the starting point for each succeeding generation is necessarily racialized." p36

"In some states a Negro was defined as a person with one eigth  part or more of Negro blood, while in other states she was defined as a person with one African ancestor in the previous two generations. But some states, like South Carolina, treated as white, a person of mixed race who appeared to be white, and was socially accepted as white." p52

"Similarly, Patricia Williams argues, If a thief steals so that his children may live in luxury and the law returns his ill-gotten gains to its rightful owner, the children cannot complain that they have been deprived of what they did not own" p102

"After the Tulsa race riot of 1921 The City of Tulsa denied restitution claims made by every black resident of Greenwood, but allowed restitution claims made by whites." p131

"A scholarship program for African Americans as a form of redress for slavery is a reparation. But a scholarship program for, minority and women students, even when presented as a form of redress for slavery is no more a reparation than are Holocaust payments to American gentiles, including blacks." p155

"In my view, compensatory reparations are inappropriate for slave redress. Rehabilitative reparations are far more appropriate, for two reasons. First, they are structurally designed to reach a greater number of victims. As such, they are likely to be both more effective than compensatory reparations in solidifying the apology for slavery and Jim Crow and more helpful in fostering racial reconciliation." p157

"The two rehabilitative  reparations I favor most are a museum of slavery and an atonement trust fund. The former would be a memorial to the slaves, and the latter would be a governmental response to some of the capital deficiencies today's blacks have inherited from their ancestors." p157

"Slavery museums modeled on the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC and the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles should be built in Washington D.C., and every state capital to commemorate the contributions slaves made to our country and educate Americans about them, as well as about the lingering effects slavery has on blacks today. These objectives can be realized through high-tech, interactive experiences. Visitors will be led back in time to witness the horrors of racial slavery, from capture in Africa, to the middle passage, and finally to the peculiar institution." p157

"Visitors will also be able to listen to recordings of slave narratives spoken by the slaves themselves." p157

"Reenactments of the debates on slavery at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and in Congress  on the eve of southern succession can be presented in a, Point of view Diner, that serves a menu of slave-related topics on video jukeboxes." p158

"Visitors will listen to the debates on these and similar topics, and then input their opinions as to which side of the debate won. After instant tabulation of the results, the visitors might be surprised to learn how little our opinions may have changed over time." p158

"The museum of slavery will pull a racially divided nation together through a mixture of awareness, understanding and in some cases empathy."p158

"The museum of slavery, in short, will be a national symbol that gives voice to the millions of nameless slaves who made possible the aspirations of others." p159

"If it was worth constructing memorials to mourn the dealth of the some 3,000 innocent people who perished in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and on the field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at the hands of terrorists, then it is surely worth constructing a tribute to the millions of slaves who died in forced service to this country." p159

"The purpose of the trust fund is to provide a core group of blacks with one of the most important resources slavery and Jim Crow have denied them- financial capital, family resources, or an estate, handed down from generation to generation." p159

"unlike Asians and Latinos, blacks did not volunteer for this tour of duty. Blacks were kidnapped from their homeland and brought into this country by brutal force, the likes of which we have not seen before or since in American history." p161

"As Patricia Rodriguez has observed, White means mostly privilege and black means overcoming obstacles, a history of civil rights. As a Latina, I cant try to claim one of these. Black Americans carry the weight of the atrocities- slavery and jim crow- for which atonement is being sought. But again, all racial minorities, including Blacks, should continue to receive the protection of symmetrical social measures, including the civil rights laws." p161

"Money accumulated in the atonement fund would only be spent  for education or to start or invest in a business. Good primary and secondary education, graduation from a prestigious college or university, and small businesses are important ingredients in building family resources and sustaining their accumulation from one generation to the next." p162

"Finally wealthy black families would be excluded from this program. Because wealth is relative- $100,000 in Tupelo, Mississippi, is not the same as $100,000 in New York City- The income level would be set regionally by the board of commissioners." p162

"In this unprecedented legislation, congress, on behalf of the federal government, apologized and provided atonement money of $20,000 each to citizens and permanent resident aliens of Japanese ancestry who were forcibly relocated and placed in internment camps during World War II. The act also apologized and provided reparations awards of $12,000 each to the Aleuts who were forcibly relocated from their homelands in Alaska during the war. The Civil Liberties act is asymmetrical; no other groups are entitled to compensation under the act. A German American who was detained with his German father during the war challenged this feature of the act on grounds that it denied him equal protection of the law. Finding that there was ample evidence in the legislative history of the act demonstrating that Japanese American and Aleutian internees were the victims of racial prejudice at the hands of the federal government, while German American internees were not (e.g. no mass exclusion or detention of German or Italian Americans was ordered, and those detained, including the plaintiff and his father, were first given due process hearings to establish their threat to national security), the court ruled that the act passed constitutional muster under both the intermediate scrutiny test, which, based on Metro Broadcasting, was the controlling standard of the review at the time the case was decided, and the strict scrutiny test. Congress had clear and sufficient reason to compensate interns of Japanese but not German descent; and the compensation is substantially related, as well as narrowly tailored, to congress's compelling interest in redressing and shameful example of national discrimination." p177

"A similar discriminatory predicate can certainly be established for the atonement trust fund. As chapters 2 and 3 indicate, slavery and Jim Crow were more than mere acts of everyday societal discrimination. They were mandated and sanctioned by the U.S. government, undeniably shameful examples of discrimination, to use the language of Jacobs. Congress can certainly find ample evidence of this in the historical record should it decide to enact legislation creating the atonement fund. Passing H.R. 40, which, as discussed in Chapter 1, would establish a national commission to study slavery and its lingering effects, would help greatly in developing this historical record." p177

"Must the beneficiaries of the atonement fund, like those of the Civil Liberties Act, be direct victims of the federal discrimination in question? Certainly, there are current victims of slavery and Jim Crow, as discussed in Chapter 3. But privy (a close and direct relationship) between beneficiary and perpetrator may not be legally required for at least two reasons. First, as we have seen, the Supreme Court's constitutional regime governing affirmative action upholds race-conscious remedies designed to redress the perpetrator's past discrimination. Because such discrimination can occur, and often occurs, years, even decades, prior to the crafting of the race-conscious remedy, the beneficiary and victim are not necessarily one and the same person. Thus the absence of privity between the beneficiary and victim seems to be built into the controlling constitutional law." p177

"If white southerners wish to be emancipated from the legacy of slavery, they must reject that legacy. They must burn the Confederate flag, that brazen symbol of white hegemony. Thus, in the context of slave redress, white southerners carry additional responsibility. They must, as one southern historian has said, stop venerating a heritage that was centered on slavery and a flag that came into existence to represent the defence of slavery." p190

"White immigrants have another reason to support measures aimed at honoring the slaves and redressing the lingering negative effects of slavery. Immigrants necessarily assume the liabilities as well as the assets- the negative legacies as well as the positive legacies, slavery as well as the Declaration of Independence- of our country or any other country to which they emigrate. A Russian immigrant to the United States will enjoy the freedoms this country has to offer, but she will also spend a good portion of the rest of her life paying off the national debt, even though she had nothing to do with its establishment or accumulation. Whether a recent arrival or a member of an old-line family, an inhabitant of a country cannot pick and choose from among aspects of the country's history. Certainly the nation's largest and longest moral debt, slavery carries over from generation to generation until it is paid off. There is a corporateness to any country that cannot be gainsaid." p190

"The identity-politics, or victimhood, argument, which is a recurring protest among black conservatives levied against anything that does not smack of black self-help, can be quickly disposed of. Pursued through the atonement model, the claim for slave redress does not reduce itself to identity politics, any more than redress claims advanced over the years by Japanese Americans, Native Americans, black South Africans, Jews, or the Comfort Women. Slave redress under the atonement  model is about standing up for one's human dignity." p191

"Finally, as I mentioned earlier, atonement, apology and reparations, cannot logically begin until the atrocity ceases. Ending slavery itself cannot be viewed as redress for slavery. That undertaking simply brings the injustice to an end, a precondition for atonement, but it does not itself constitute atonement for the injustice. Atonement can only come after the injustice has ended. For example, the act of liberating the Jews from Nazi concentration camps is not a reparation or an apology for the Holocaust." p194

"Ward Connerly and Dinesh D'Sourza argue that blacks have nothing to complain about because they are better off as a result of slavery. Should American Jews then be thankful for the Holocaust because it caused many of them to leave Germany for the United States and helped to establish the state of Israel in 1948?" p194

"There is little logic in atoning for the holocaust by providing general aid to the citizens of Germany, or in atoning for Japanese American internment by strengthening Title VII or opening welfare eligibility. " p196

"Martin Luther King is a national hero today, but when he was alive pushing for civil rights, both symmetrical and asymmetrical, he was vilified by the majority of whites. Had he ceased his efforts so as not to upset whites, the nation's civil rights record would be far worse than it is today. " p196

"A frequently asked question by white persons goes as follows: "I'm sure there is some black blood in my family. Am I entitled to a reparation?" The recipient should be a person who has always represented himself as a Black person. There was a case in Boston where two Italian brothers sought to benefit from an affirmative action program created in the city's fire department by claiming their grandmother was black. The judge convened an evidentiary hearing for the purpose of determining their race sociologically; that is, whether they self-identified as blacks in their private and public lives. The photo they presented of their grandmother looked suspicious, and they could not establish that any of their friends or co-workers saw them as black. Their claim was a sham, and so it failed." p197

"If the reparations claimant can establish that she or he is sociologically black, then he must satisfy another requirement- namely, a familial connection to slavery or the first fifty years of Jim Crow. The family history requirement would naturally disqualify foreign-born blacks from the redress program for slavery and Jim Crow. They are not, however, left without remedy. The race based discrimination they face in America will have to be dealt with through our normal, symmetrical civil rights laws and enforcement." p197

"It would help if blacks stop talking about money and begin talking about atonement." p211

Ex-Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum is back in jail after he was previously arrested in Alabama in July and charged with meth possession.

Per the Tallahassee Democrat, an order of commitment to jail signed by Baldwin County District Judge Scott Taylor indicated that Gillum’s bond was revoked during a court appearance on August 6. That was after the 47-year-old missed a drug screen and then tested positive for meth. 

The court docket also made mention of Gillum participating in drug court. People who participate in that diversion program have their charges dismissed if they undergo successful treatment. 

As previously reported by Face2Face Africa, Gillum was arrested for drug possession in Alabama back in July. 

Per TMZ, court documents stated that the 47-year-old was charged with one felony and two misdemeanor counts. The criminal complaint further stated that Gillum was charged with felony possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine) as well as misdemeanor possession of marijuana for personal use and possession of drug paraphernalia. 

Officers arrested Gillum in Daphne after he was pulled over for driving waywardly. Authorities said officers found 3 grams of methamphetamine, 8 pre-rolled marijuana joints, 4 cut straws, 3 pipes and a bong in the car. 

Gillum checked into rehab for alcohol abuse in March 2022. He said in a statement that he had arrived at the decision after “conversation with my family and deep reflection.”

Gillum’s personality in 2018 drew parallels with former US President Barack Obama. Beyond their personalities, Gillum, just like Obama for America, ran in Florida as a progressive with refreshing ideas for an electorate who were skeptical of the future.

In the end, Gillum lost to Republican nominee Ron DeSantis by a close shave, a percentage margin of 0.4. But pundits and the Democratic believed the story had only begun for a young bright star.

The 47-year-old previously served as mayor of Tallahassee from 2014 to 2018.