Democratic Socialists Rising: A View from My Atlanta

Posted on June 19, 2026 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

(Mathewos Samson, Georgia House District 58 Representative-elect with his parents.)

Before I do another happy dance over the victory of Democratic Socialist Mathewos Samson who, as of this writing, is the state of Georgia’s House Representative-elect of District 58, let me quickly share a few things about Democratic Socialism’s growing appeal.

The Democratic Socialist Association’s membership is now roughly and only 100,000 members give or take a few. There are now over 250 Democratic Socialists currently holding public office. And roughly 60% of Americans under the age of 30 view socialism favorably. The uptick in interest in Democratic Socialists began in 2016, with over 90% of them elected after 2019.

Just last year in 2025 after my euphoria over Zohran Mamdani’s win as the newly elected Mayor of New York city, the Washington Examiner published an article titled “Democratic Socialists quietly capture city councils across America” giving credence to the old adage that “All Politics is Local.” It is. And you should pay attention to it.

Yet the point of and the work of the United States’ Democratic Socialists is to build from the ground up—local politics and local accountability are where the people can see the work and the attempts to get the work done.

I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge Atlanta’s first elected Democratic Socialist Liliana Bakhtiari, a native Atlantan elected to the Atlanta City Council in 2022. A native Atlantan of Iranian descent who was raised in Southeast Atlanta, who was also the first Queer and nonbinary Muslim elected. “She/They” was followed by Kelsea Bond as the second nonbinary Democratic Socialist elected to the Atlanta City Council in November 2025. What does this mean? It means that grassroots activism is back. Mathewos Samson campaigned for her (or I should say “they/them”) back in November 2025 and Bond won.

My first introduction to the concept of Democratic Socialism came when I was in my early teens. Salvador Allende of Chile won the presidency as a socialist devoted to democracy. When he was assassinated the talk ranged from him committing suicide (not at all likely) to his being eliminated in a U.S.-backed military coup (completely likely).

Salvador Allende’s nephew Dr. Juan Allende was my Political Science professor at Agnes Scott College. He never flinched in his moral and ethical convictions. Dr. Allende (who had a Master’s degree in theology) often called himself a “failed preacher.” It was Dr. Allende who not only introduced me to the many African syncretic religions of the Caribbean and Latin America brought here via the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, but also to the philosophy and ethics of Afro-American theologian James Cone. Dr. Allende stood firm in his belief in the sanctity of every human being having the right to live the life they saw fit.

As for the old cynics: You have every right to be cynical and to be discouraged. We are living in some very troubling times. Yet, let me remind you what young people are for. They are here to remind you that when we elders put down our batons for the last time that someone else will pick it up.

If you are Afro-American, Afro-Latin, Afro-Caribbean and all others in the great Afro dispersion you have a duty to your ancestors to place your efforts and your faith in the young, to sit down and let them do the work, and to answer the damned telephone when they call and say “I hit a brick wall, what do you think I should do?” Your wisdom, as well as your restraint, should kick in if you have not indulged yourself in your ego and your own victimization to the point where you no longer understand that you were never intended to finish the race, only to hand over the baton.

©️Leslye Joy Allen

I am an Independent Historian, Oral Historian and Dramaturge. Please consider supporting my work and research with a few bucks for Coffee and Eggs via my CashApp or PayPal; or become a paid subscriber to me on Substack to help me sustain my research and commentary.

All blogs written by Leslye Joy Allen are protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen, or any total or partial excerpt of any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: https://leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly stated as the author. Postings or blogs placed here by other writers should clearly reference those writers. All Rights Reserved.

The Hungry Constituents

Posted on March 15, 2025 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by ©️Leslye Joy Allen

If you blow up the photo below you will see a letter written to me from the late Congressman John Lewis from 2008. If you look in the lower right corner of this photo you will see a photo insert of a red file folder about an inch thick. These are all the letters I have received from my representatives over about 4 decades. This was when you received their responses via snail mail.

Letter from Congressman John Lewis and File folder of letters

These days, your representatives respond to you by email. I urge you to call them, contact them, and then print their email responses.

I miss my phone and letter debates with the late John Lewis. I still remember one of our debates that descended into a full fledged argument in a grocery store parking lot in our town of Atlanta. That’s the beauty of being in Atlanta. Many of your elected officials live and shop where you do. So, you can give them your opinion while you check out your groceries.

I bring this scenario up because there is something very different when you receive a physical letter as opposed to an email. The letter has a real signature. Each one of these letters are a personal piece of history. Politics today is quite impersonal—and it is messing everyone up.

We are now confronted with politics as only spectacle—the pithy quote on social media, the doctored video that creates a sense of urgency when there is no need for urgency, or the edited video that creates a fictional persona instead of showing the real person behind the title.

I’m glad Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez are hitting the road and going on tour to talk to people all across the United States to find out what real people are thinking.

Communication from a distance is fine. Technology has made it possible for us to share an idea with thousands of strangers. Yet…

No matter how easy posting on social media, text messaging and sending emails are, there is no replacement for speaking to someone face-to-face or listening to a live voice or reading a real letter with a real signature. That personal touch is sorely lacking in both the Democratic and Republican Parties, and it is destroying democracy with almost the same degree of swiftness as Felon 47’s cruel policies.

It is one thing to put your finger up in the wind and assume what you need to do to be re-elected. It is quite another to look a constituent in the eye and answer a tough question or admit you don’t have the answers. Democratic voters are starving for that attention; and I pray our elected officials figure this out before it is too late.

©️Leslye Joy Allen

I am an Independent Historian, Oral Historian and Dramaturge. Please consider supporting my work with a few bucks for Coffee and Eggs via my CashApp.

Men, Women, Amnesia and Jimmy Carter

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by ©️Leslye Joy Allen

My last few blogs have largely been laments about illiteracy, sexism, and an assortment of problems we are facing with the incoming administration of Felon 47.

This particular blog is not really about men and women who have amnesia, but rather about those among us who conveniently try to forget uncomfortable truths. I am thinking about the now late Jimmy Carter as I write this. He was one of the few American men to write boldly about sexism and misogyny as a worldwide crisis.

So, let’s consider this. Felon 47 is not a new phenomenon in American history. I hear all this bluster from people about his abuse of women, his racism, his rape charges, and etcetera, but…

Back in the late 1700s Thomas Jefferson was having illicit sex (rape) with his 14-year-old slave Sally Hemmings. You notice how folks never bring up her age? Jefferson also knew that little Sally Hemmings was his wife’s half sister because his father-in-law was—like many slaveholders—taking advantage of their “white male privileges” to do whatever the hell they wanted to do to women, particularly Black women.

Now, before any of my Black brothers and sisters get too comfortable, let’s acknowledge that Elijah Muhammad who founded the Nation of Islam did damned near the same thing when he was screwing around with and impregnating his teenage secretaries.

Whenever I hear someone say that Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam, I want to scream because Malcolm X did not leave. He, along with Wallace Muhammad, was put out of the Nation for daring to raise questions about Elijah Muhammad’s behavior.

In spite of some of the sheer depravity we all have heard about in recent months, you would have known so much more IF most people actually listened to women in general, and Black women in particular.

The same Black women that most men and too many women never pay any attention to could have told you that there is not a nickel’s worth of difference between Harvey Weinstein, R. Kelly, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. All of these men had different illicit methods of making money and illicit methods of chasing underage tail.

For the next 4 years every American will learn that the very high price of sexism and misogyny exacts far more than most are willing to pay. And the very high price of not fighting against these ills will ultimately cost you your soul.

Goddess Bless Jimmy Carter for not blinking, for owning his missteps and for speaking out when others were too cowardly to do so.

©️Leslye Joy Allen

Wine and Guns

Posted on March 25, 2018 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by Leslye Joy Allen

Wine and Guns

This blog is going to be really short…Last week I went to purchase my seasonings, cooking oils and wines at Trader Joe’s on Monroe Drive here in Atlanta. I had a conversation with the man checking out my groceries. After talking about some of my favorite Rosés, he said, “You know, we almost didn’t get a license to sell wine because we’re so close to Grady High School.” Henry W. Grady High School’s Stadium is approximately 217 feet from Trader Joe’s door; about a one-minute walk.

As we began to talk about the problem of underage drinking, I fully understood the logic of lawmakers. We don’t ever want to encourage underage drinking or make it any easier for teenagers to buy alcohol. But later after the March For Our Lives rallies, I decided to look up the legal age for purchasing and owning firearms. You can buy and legally own a gun at the age of 18 in the state of Georgia.

Now this is not a blog to condemn gun owners who never bother anyone. Yet, it does make one wonder why anyone 18-years-of-age (or older) needs and has the right to buy an assault rifle which is primarily designed to kill as many people as quickly as possible. I’m not going to go off on a tangent about the NRA, except to say that a group of kids has managed to put them on notice in a way that no member of Congress or the Senate ever has. But here it is, at least in Georgia, you can legally own a gun, any kind of gun, before you can legally buy an alcoholic beverage. Just let that sink in.

#NoMore

This blog was written by Leslye Joy Allen and is protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to this or any blog authored by Leslye Joy Allen, or any total or partial excerpt of this or any blog by Leslye Joy Allen must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: https://leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly stated as the author. All Rights Reserved.

5 Memorable Comments Made to Me by My Teachers

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Leslye Joy Allen (Ayọ)

by Leslye Joy Allen

Trying to pick five favorite quotes by former teachers and professors is a real chore. Blessed with some of the greatest teachers on this earth, I have no other choice but to acknowledge their intelligence and their wit. It is also impossible to remember what so many of them said to me verbatim. Yet, when I start to count my blessings, I can hear them. We may not be able to remember who won the World Series in 1990 or what film won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2000, but we remember our teachers. On so many occasions I hear their wisdom and humor, loud and clear. So here are my favorite five; at least my “first” favorite five. This one is short and sweet. Enjoy.

1. “It was a joy to teach you!” – Mrs. Doris Prather, 7^th Grade English Teacher

2. “You are too intelligent for this!! If I catch you and Louis with Cliffs Notes again, I will call both of your mothers!!” – Sister Barbara Sitko, 12^th Grade English teacher

3. “The only good thesis and the only good dissertation is a finished thesis and a finished dissertation.” – Dr. Jacqueline Howard Matthews, Africana Women’s Studies Professor

4. “You write very well. But relax, you won’t hit it out of the ballpark every time.” – Dr. Waqas A. Khwaja, English Professor (when I received a grade of “B” instead of an “A” on an English paper)

5. “Scholars say that there was a heavy concentration of lead in the water back in Ancient Rome. They believe that the reason why so many of those old Roman Emperors went crazy was due to lead poisoning. But just between you and I, I think a lot of them were crazy due to all of that family inbreeding.” – Dr. Sally MacEwen, Latin Professor

Àṣé!!

This Blog was written by Leslye Joy Allen and is protected by U. S. Copyright Law and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Any partial or total reference to this blog or any total or partial excerpt of this blog must contain a direct reference to this hyperlink: http://leslyejoyallen.com with Leslye Joy Allen clearly and visibly stated as the author. All Rights Reserved.

Leslye Joy Allen

Social Commentary, History, Theatre, Jazz, and the Environment

Tag Archives: Georgia

Wine and Guns