On the campaign trail, Arkansas congressional candidate Chris Jones has been hell bent on breaking down racial barriers to Black political representation, even as Republican-led redistricting efforts have undermined Black voting power across the South.
With a slight lead in polls, Jones, 49, believes that there’s just too much at stake for him to slow down now.
A Democrat challenging Republican U.S. Rep. French Hill for Arkansas’ 2nd Congressional District, Jones could become the first Black person the state sends to Congress. The redrawing of Arkansas’ congressional map after the 2020 census split Pulaski County, which is partly in the 2nd and includes heavily Black Little Rock, among three districts.
But Jones argues that the map designed to make Hill’s seat safer for Republicans might not be enough to stop Jones in November. He first introduced himself to voters across Arkansas during his unsuccessful 2022 bid for governor, an experience that he says gave him relationships beyond Little Rock that have been helpful for his congressional run. An August poll of likely voters put Jones at 48% and Hill at 44%.
For Jones, a minister with a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the struggle for Black voting power is personal. He had a recent campaign stop in Little Rock that included Martin Luther King Jr.’s son Martin Luther King III. The two men — both Morehouse College alumni and members of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. — stopped at First Missionary Baptist Church. It’s the only church in Arkansas where the slain civil rights leader preached.
Jones’ connection to this history extends even further. Decades after King preached at First Missionary Baptist, Jones’ father became the church’s pastor. Jones and King III posed for a photograph outside the building. The image connected two generations of civil rights advocates in a state where some political barriers have proved to be remarkably stubborn.
Capital B spoke with Jones about the history he hopes to make, the fight over Black voting rights in the South, his observations from Black Arkansans about why this race feels different from those in the past, the diverse influences in his life, and the challenges facing Black political hopefuls in the state. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Capital B: Arkansas has never sent a Black American to Congress. What would it mean to you to be the first?
Chris Jones: We’re the only former Confederate state that has never sent a Black American to Congress or elected a Black American to a statewide office. When I think about that context, it certainly means a lot to me, particularly given that my family has been in Arkansas for more than 200 years.
But the other part of this is the future. I have three girls, and having them potentially witness this barrier breaking is critical. The biggest part of this story is what I would do if I’m elected. It’s not so much about making history as it is about changing the future.
How does what’s happening in Arkansas fit into the larger fight over Black voting power across the South?
There’s crucial context here that fits into the overall narrative of what has been happening in the South. It’s important to note that this is a very winnable race. We’re at a point now where we’re four points ahead of the incumbent in a recent poll. The energy is on the ground. Folks are looking for something different from what they’ve had in the past.
One of the reasons people overlook Arkansas is because it’s in the South, it’s considered a flyover state, and it’s seen as a place that’s been under Republican control forever, though we haven’t.
Arkansas was also one of the earlier states in the South to say, “Hey, let’s take a Black city and break it up into three districts.” Little Rock is in Pulaski County, and what they did to Memphis, they did here four years ago. French Hill almost lost the race in 2018 and 2020. They cracked it [Pulaski County], thinking that they were making it safer for him for good, but it turns out that they didn’t anticipate a candidate who, instead of coming from Little Rock and then trying to expand out, actually ran statewide first. I ran for governor and was all over the state, which meant that I was all over the district. And that effort makes this race more winnable now.
I think that you’re seeing that unexpected shift in a lot of places — Tennessee, Louisiana — where the plan that the Republicans had to gerrymander and lock folks out of power is working against them for one reason or another. We know that polls are only a snapshot of time, so it’s all about turnout. But this is a winnable race.
What are you hearing from Black Arkansans this year? What feels different from your 2022 campaign?
There are a couple different factors that are motivating them. For one, folks are frustrated and in pain. They’re frustrated at the silence from the Republican Congress. Even some Republicans are saying, “Wait, we didn’t vote for another foreign war or to increase the national debt. We wanted fiscal conservatism to bring the debt down. We don’t want conditions to be such that farmers in Arkansas are going bankrupt.”
But the other side of the coin is that people are feeling a lot of hope because they see that things can change. I’m not just limiting my campaign to Democrats in Little Rock. I’m showing up and talking with folks everywhere about their pain and telling them that they don’t have to accept that.
What I’m also hearing is that people are kind of sick of the party labels, too. They’re not for folks who are blindly embracing either major party. They’re looking for folks who will say, “No, actually, you’re my boss, and the power belongs to the people.”
Things weren’t at this level when I ran for governor. I’m a physicist, so I’ll throw this in. There’s a signal-to-noise ratio. The signal is the pain that people are feeling. That’s gas prices and so on and so forth. The noise is the distraction that some are attempting to create. They want to say, “Actually, it’s migrants’ fault. It’s welfare queens’ fault.” When I ran for governor, the noise drowned out the signal. Now, the signal is too strong. The pain is too strong.
You’re both a minister and a scientist. How do those two parts of your life shape the way you think about democracy?
I’m an ordained minister and a rocket scientist, which means that I understand faith and math. We need elected officials who understand both. Part of what I learned from my faith is that we are all created in a special way to do a special thing. No one is better than the other, and we need one other to survive — we need one another to thrive. My faith teaches me: Love your neighbor as yourself. Period. Not: Love your neighbor as yourself if they also have a Ph.D. or if they’re also Black or if they also have nine zeros in their bank account behind the first digit.
My science teaches me how much we need to stick together. When I was working on a plasma rocket, we needed an electrical engineer. We needed a mechanical engineer. And when we think about the technology at NASA, you need social scientists, communications folks, historians. My work as a scientist made me realize that diversity helps us to get to better solutions. The importance of inclusion and diversity is critical on both aspects.
What do people misunderstand about Black politics in Arkansas?
Black candidates have to have a real wide range, particularly in the South. We have to be able to do what I did two nights ago and go to a restaurant — I went to Daiquiris & Dawgz — and host a karaoke night where we played dominoes and spades and Uno, and the place was packed, and we were getting folks registered to vote. We registered about five formerly incarcerated people. We had two people who checked their registration status. They had been kicked off the rolls, so we re-registered them.
And we have to show up in places like Clinton, Arkansas. When I walked up, they literally said, “We can’t believe that you came, that you would show up.” And they said — their words, not mine — “We’re nothing but rednecks out here, and no one cares.”
We have to show up everywhere and go everywhere and be engaged. If you look at the Black candidates across the South, we’re showing up everywhere. We’re engaging communities that the Democratic Party itself hasn’t paid attention to. It’s the way the cards are, and I think that we’re doing a good job showing up.
