Over the course of 2017, Doug Jones went from a respected Alabama attorney and empty nester to one of the most well-known US Senators in the country. In this conversation, we talk growing up in the shadow of segregation and George Wallace, starting to see those walls come down as he’s in high school, learning under his mentor Senator Howell Heflin, his time as US Attorney seeking justice against the Klan for the 1963 bombing of a Black church in Birmingham, the upset win and political hurricane in his 2017 special election, and memories of 3 influential years in the US Senate.
IN THIS EPISODE…
Sen Jones talks growing up in the segregated South and then seeing the world change before his eyes…
He remembers the toxic legacy of Governor George Wallace…
He remembers his time as an aide for his mentor, the iconic Alabama Senator (Judge) Howell Heflin…
His memories of the Senate Judiciary Committee of the late 1970s…
The twists-and-turns that lead to the opportunity to become US Attorney in 1997…
US Attorney Jones helps deliver justice decades-later in the cold case of the KKK bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham…
He talks his aborted race against Jeff Sessions in 2002…
Why he decided to run for Senate 15 years later in 2017…
Inside the 2017 Senate race when the entire political universe turns its eyes toward Doug Jones…
The role Republican Senator Richard Shelby played in the 2017 race…
Senator Jones talks the historic Black voter turnout in 2017…
What surprised him about the Senate when he’s sworn in…
What he’s most proud of from his tenure in the Senate…
Senator Jones talks his No vote on the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings…
He weighs in on the current debates in the US Senate…
AND Lamar Alexander, Jim Allen, Arent Fox, Bill Baxley, Birch Bayh, Joe Biden, Amelia Boynton, Brown vs the Board of Education, Build Back Better, Center for American Progress, the Civil Rights Trail, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Thad Cochran, Susan Collins, Bull Connor, constitutional compasses, John Culver, Joe Donnelly, Dwight Eisenhower, the Equal Justice Initiative, Medgar Evers, Christine Blasey Ford, Cory Gardner, Gold Star widows, Chuck Grassley, HBCUs, Claude Harris, Kamala Harris, Chris Hastings, Orrin Hatch, Heidi Heitkamp, Mike House, human infrastructure, the International Association of Culinary Professionals, Johnny Isakson, Mick Jagger, Kelly Ingram Park, Caroline Kennedy, JFK, Ted Kennedy, Kay Ivey, John Lewis, MLK, Paul Laxalt, Pat Leahy, John McCain, Claire McCaskill, Chris McNair, Howard Metzenbaum, Walter Mondale, money from heaven, the only game in town, Mike Pence, Giles Perkins, Janet Reno, Right Side of History PAC, Rosa Parks, Alan Simpson, Tina Smith, John Sparkman, Frank Stitt, Jon Tester, Strom Thurmond, Joe Trippi, Doug Turner, unprofessional demeanors, US Steel, Hosea Williams, the Women’s March, a Yoda doll….& more!