This is what city council district 4 incumbent Bill Kling said in an al.com article published this week.

While its true that a wealthy old white man does not experience racism in this city, that does not mean racism does not exist here. ~2 weeks ago, just a few hours after my wife got off work from Food City, someone walked into the store and started yelling racial slurs at customers and staff. It was so bad that a police report was filed.

Huntsville is still a heavily segregated city. Let me show you this fascinating map

The dots represent population density and the color represent race, with blue being white, black being green, and orange being hispanic. Notice how memorial parkway and interstate 565 act as physical walls separating the majority black and hispanic neighborhoods from the majority white neighborhoods. This was not a coincidence. Highways and interstates were built through minority neighborhoods all across the country.

Huntsville is still under federal court oversight in desegregating our schools. Huntsville city schools have been under federal oversight since 1970, and have still not achieved unitary status. 56 years, Huntsville has struggled to desegregate our schools. Bill Kling has been on the board of education or city council for 42 of those 56 years.

We are no longer in Jim Crow Alabama, but the scars from that era are still here. Segregation is still visible in our city in several aspects, from our neighborhoods to our schools. Huntsville is a city growing in diversity, especially district 4, but we still have work to be done to recover from the racist segregation of our past.

Lastly, and most relevant to the city council, it was just one year ago that district 1 councilwoman Michelle Watkins received a racist letter.

My family, friends, neighbors, and supporters all come from diverse backgrounds. I’m in touch with the experiences that all our residents have, whether they’re black, brown, white, immigrants, native born, muslim, christian, jew, gay, straight, or a mix of all of the above. I listen to a large swath of the diverse communities we have in Huntsville and hear the experience they have in our city. Just this week I held a potluck celebrating our diverse city in which I talked to people who were Chinese, Ukrainian, Jewish, Hispanic, and Black.

If you want someone who will represent you and address your concerns, please vote Nick Frevold on August 25th and consider donating. Every vote and donation matters.