TheGrio’s “Running Black” election series profiles Black candidates running for office in the 2024 elections. If successful, each candidate profiled could make history in their state. Hear from them in their own words about what’s at stake in their races, for the country, and for Black and brown communities on the political margin.
As a former NFL linebacker and Big-12 college football player, Colin Allred knows much about competition. This November, the U.S. congressman from Texas is confident in his chances of winning the biggest battle of his political career as he attempts to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a two-term, high-profile Republican who has been an outspoken and loyal ally to former President Donald Trump.
“We can’t afford six more years of Ted Cruz,” Allred told theGrio. “Texas is this incredibly diverse, dynamic state. We’re not the state that [he], I think, represents us as.”
If victorious, Allred would make history as the first Black American from Texas elected to the U.S. Senate. The 40-year-old would be etched in the history books, following in the footsteps of groundbreaking Black politicians from Texas like Barbara Jordan, the first Black woman from the South elected to the U.S. Congress, and Eddie Bernice Johnson, the first Black woman to represent Dallas in the U.S. House.
“Here in Texas, we have such a rich history, particularly as African-Americans,” said Allred, whose family’s lineage in Texas dates back four generations during U.S. slavery. He noted that during the Jim Crow era, his grandparents didn’t have the right to vote.
However, the congressman and former voting rights attorney acknowledged that Texas, a former confederate state, also “produced some of our biggest progress,” including former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, two critical pieces of legislation that enfranchised Black…
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