Willie J. Lenard said that when the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a ruling that meant Alabama would have a second majority Black or nearly majority Black congressional district, he saw an opportunity to become a forceful advocate for changes he said are long overdue.

Lenard, 78, who lives in Pike Road, believes he can be the voice for change in the redrawn 2nd District. He is one of 13 Democrats running for the nomination in the district, which changed from one that was strongly Republican to a district where Democrats can win.

Lenard said he will propose an $8 billion grant program for career training, affordable housing, and other initiatives in the district, as well as a $5 billion bond issue for Tuskegee University to develop a medical school, regional hospital, and programs intended to quadruple the enrollment to 10,000 students by 2035.

Lenard acknowledges that his ideas are ambitious but said that is needed to reverse a history of neglect that has led to poverty, crime, and a lack of affordable health care, housing and opportunity. Lenard, who worked in cotton fields and said his stepfather was the son of a slave, said Black voters in what is now the 2nd District have been underrepresented since the end of the Civil War.

“The Supreme Court said that the voices of these people in the state of Alabama have not been heard and we’re going to give them a voice,” Lenard said. “I want to make sure that that voice that they’re being given is being heard and heard prominently.

“There are some problems that are the result of our voices not being heard in 158 years, there are some things that we need to solve. And I want to make sure that this district that they’ve created has the resources or receives the resources that it needs in order to start resolving those problems.”

Alabama’s new 2nd District goes from the Georgia line to the Mississippi line and includes Montgomery and Macon counties at the north end and a portion of Mobile County at the south end. The voting age population is 49% Black, up from 30% on the old map. The new map gives Democrats a chance because most Black voters support Democrats in Alabama.

Eight Republicans are running for the seat, which is open because the current representative, Republican Barry Moore of Enterprise, is running in the 1st District instead. The new map put Moore’s hometown in District 1, where he is challenging Rep. Jerry Carl, R-Mobile. The primary is March 5.

Read more: Who’s running? 21 candidates join race in Alabama’s redrawn 2nd Congressional District

Lenard said he would donate his congressional salary of $174,000 a year to programs for hungry children, senior citizens, and other families in need in the district.

Lenard is a Tuskegee University graduate and Air Force veteran, according to the biographical information from his campaign. He holds master’s degrees in information technology and human resources from Webster University. His long career includes employment in the public and private sectors. He worked in an administrative position for the South Carolina Department of Corrections for 10 years. Lenard now runs a travel business that specializes in trips to Africa.

“But my basic career has been mostly in training,” Lenard said, “either at the college level, at the technical school level, or at the national level with Job Corps.”

Lenard said he grew up in poverty and worked with his family in cotton fields because there were few other opportunities for Black people in Alabama. His said his stepfather was a sharecropper.

“So I’ve experienced some things,” Lenard said. “I know what it took for me to get from out of that poverty situation to being a wealthy person. I can offer that same thing to my kids.”

When he says “my kids,” Lenard means young people in the 2nd District. He said too many are being lost to gun violence.

“I’m tired of seeing my kids being shot,” Lenard said.

Lenard said the $8 billion grant program would be used to develop training programs in high-tech fields that he said would be open to everyone. He said it would be available in every county in the district through an online program. A central training hub for the district would be developed for in-person, hands-on training. He said the idea was to try to remove all barriers to participation and include as many support services as possible.

“My proposal is to provide them with substantive training,” Lenard said. “Open an avenue up for them to receive the type training that they would want to pursue. And allow them the avenues to pursue that. The financial resources that they might need. The mental support that they might need. All the support, the health issues that they might have, help them with that.”

Affordable housing, Lenard said, is another priority. He proposes rural, suburban, and urban programs to rehabilitate vacant houses and make them available at affordable prices.

“It’s difficult to buy a house at current market price and then turn around and pay to repair that house,” Lenard said. “If that house is 30, 40, 50, 60 years old, all of the plumbing, all of the electrical everything in the house, you’ve got to replace it. It takes money to do that.”

Lenard said state government has ignored the blight and waste caused by neglect and abandonment of houses.

“The political system, the state Legislature, they have not passed any kind of rules, any kind of laws, any kind of substantive assistance to provide the people in resolving this issue,” Lenard said. “We just have housing that is available that no one can afford.”

Lenard met his wife, Delorias Macon Lenard, when they were students at Tuskegee. Delorias Lenard became a veterinarian who retired in 2018 after 36 years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Dr. Lenard died in December 2020.

The political race will be Lenard’s first. He tried to run for sheriff of Montgomery County in 2022 but could not because of a law that passed in 2020 requiring the Montgomery County sheriff to be a certified law enforcement officer for at least three years. Lenard said he opposed the law because it unnecessarily excluded the vast majority of county residents. He filed a lawsuit to challenge the law but it was unsuccessful.

In the congressional race, Lenard said he knows it will be a challenge to establish name recognition with voters. But he said the confidence that he can be their advocate has motivated him since the Supreme Court order changing the district map.

“At that point I said I’ve got to run for this office and I’ve got to give these people a voice,” Lenard said. “And a voice that can be heard that is not going to acquiesce. We’re going to deal with our problems no matter what they are. And face them.”