Former Alabama Senator Doug Jones recently made a trip down to the University of North Alabama.
Jones is a native of Fairfield, Ala., and is one of the most notable democrats in the state. Jones held one of two senate seats for Alabama from 2018-2021. He ran against Roy Moore and was the first democrat to be elected for the Senate in the state of Alabama. Even then he was considered to be a last resort for most.
Jones came to speak to the UNA College of Democrats. According to the organization manager Tyler Rollins, the idea was brought to their attention by Jones’s team, as Jones was already scheduled to be in the area to speak to the Shoals Democratic Club at Pickett Place in downtown Florence.
Jones’s team reached out to Jose Cifuentes, the College of Democrats’ advisor, to see if any students would be interested in hearing the former senator speak. There was, so the UNA College of Democrats came together again to start planning for the event. The event took place on Sept. 26 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Jones’s team thought this would be a good opportunity for both the students of the university, but also for him.
Jones spoke on many things, starting with his struggles he experienced with being a democrat in the south. He has been in politics for decades and is in the minority party in Alabama, which can come with a lot of hatred directed toward him and his family. Secondly, Jones touched on the importance of voting in the younger generations. He closed his talk by speaking on the work that Justice Kentanji Brown is doing in the Supreme Court.
After his speech, he then opened up the floor for a Q&A for the students to ask him anything.
“Personally what I took away was that Democrats can still succeed in the south,” Rollins said. “Especially with how progressive our generation is, along with that it is not a futile effort to have an organization like the College of Democrats here.”
Although Jones is not holding any office at the moment, he is still a very heavy voice in the Democratic Party. He is also very adamant that democrats in the south are not for nothing.
