Alabama congressional candidate Shomari Figures stepped into the national political spotlight tonight at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Figures joined a parade of speakers warming up the crowd of delegates for Vice President Kamala Harris, who will accept her party’s nomination later tonight.

During a three-minute speech, Figures talked about Alabama’s heroes of the civil rights movement – the Tuskegee Airmen, Rosa Parks, attorney Fred Gray, and Congressman John Lewis. He closed with a call to elect Harris and a cheer for his home state’s beloved football team.

“America, it’s time we pop out and vote,” Figures said. “It’s time we pop out from California, to Alabama, and all across America, and we show them that we are not going back, we are going forward. And we are going forward with Kamala Harris as the next president of the United States of America. Thank you. God bless you. Roll Tide. Let’s go win this thing.”

Figures, 39, is a Mobile native and attorney who worked in the Obama administration and in the Justice Department under President Biden before returning to Alabama to run in Alabama’s redrawn 2nd District.

Figures faces Republican nominee Caroleene Dobson, an attorney from Montgomery, in the Nov. 5 general election. Dobson grew up in Monroe County in the south part of the district. Both Dobson and Figures are first time-candidates.

Figures’ mother, Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, has represented Mobile in the Alabama Senate since 1997. She is one of Alabama’s delegates at this week’s convention.

His father, Michael Figures, served 18 years in the same Alabama Senate senate before his death in 1996, when Shomari Figures was 11.

“My pathway to this stage was paved by a legacy of fighters,” Figures said. “Fighters that include my mother, Alabama state Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, who is here at her 11th DNC.

“And it also includes my father, my late father, Michael Figures, who was also a state senator and civil rights lawyer who sued the Klan into bankruptcy.

“All of America, all of us owe a debt to courageous freedom fighters. Both known and unknown, a debt that can never be repaid. But what we can do is ensure that the work of those fighters who came before us continues. And that our sacred right to vote is always protected.”

“Kamala Harris gets this. She’s working to protect our freedoms every single day.”

A federal court redrew District 2 after ruling that Alabama’s previous congressional map most likely violated the Voting Rights Act because it packed too many Black voters into one majority Black district, District 7. The new District 2 takes in all or part of 13 counties from Phenix City to Mobile. It’s about 50% Black, giving Democrats a chance to flip the seat and add a second Democrat to the state’s seven-member U.S. House delegation.

The National Republican Congressional Committee is also making the Alabama race a priority and named Dobson as one of 26 Republicans added to the “Young Gun” list, a program that provides mentorship and support for Republican candidates for Congress.