I may not be a native son of Alabama, but I did spend my formative years here. Many of the experiences that made me who I am today happened here. While I might not have spent my entire life in Alabama, something has always brought me back, and over the years, I have learned to love and appreciate my home city of Huntsville as a shining beacon of progress in the South. Unfortunately, the politics of this great state do not match the promise of what it is.

We are the home of the Marshall Space Flight center, Red Stone Arsenal, a leader in industry, science and technological advancement, and diversity. But our district is represented by a man who believes that diversity, equity, and inclusion are not values we should uplift. Dale Strong believes that those values, that our country was founded on, are detrimental to society. Huntsville was the first city in Alabama to integrate its schools. Diversity is the bedrock of who we are here. North Alabama is a richly diverse community. People of all races, religions, sexualities, ideologies, and gender identities live together, work together, and stand shoulder to shoulder as an example that we are not the barefoot, backwoods state that many believe us to be. Our diversity is our strength, despite what my conservative counterparts may say.

As a Democrat, mentioning Alabama is usually met with a recoil, but those people don’t understand that Democrats exist in Alabama. There are blue dots spread all across this state who, like me, believe in the promise of what Alabama could be if we stopped clinging to “the old ways” of thinking. The Alabama that raised our parents and grandparents isn’t the Alabama that we live in now. Looking to the past, we must acknowledge the mistakes of our forefathers and foremothers. Looking at the present, we must determine what needs to be fixed to move us forward, and we must right those wrongs. Looking to the future, we can show the rest of these great United States that Alabama will no longer be a follower and a punchline. We will show them that we can lead with the strength and determination that we all know is what makes Alabama great.