When a glass door shattered on the arm of 19-year-old De'Mari Benham, with blood running down his limb and with few other options, he was rushed to the fire department in a friend's car. Firefighters bandaged him and encouraged him to go to a hospital the next town over, but he declined due to lack of funds. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.
In Tuskegee, a rural Alabama city with less than 9,000 people, over 80% of them African American, nearly one in three people live in poverty. There's no general hospital or 24-hour emergency-care clinic. Fire department captain Dondrell Hopson says they get calls for bullet wounds and bleeding.
When Shomari Figures was elected to the US House of Representatives in 2024, becoming the first Black person to represent Tuskegee in Congress in modern history, he sought to help. Barely a year later, he helped secure $1m (£746,885) from the US government to build a civic centre that will serve as a storm shelter and house the police and fire departments.
But in April 2026, the US Supreme Court struck a blow to a part of the Voting Rights Act, allowing Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps. Figures' district was dissolved, and he now faces a redrawn, white-majority seat in November's midterms.
Tuskegee Mayor Chris Lee says the city depends on federal funding and needs a representative who has their back. Research shows roughly 83% of Black voters support the Democratic Party, while white voters lean Republican.
Before Figures, Tuskegee was lumped into a more white, conservative district. Mayor Lee cannot recall seeing the previous congressman. Republican Mike Rogers did not respond to BBC's request for comment.
States customarily redraw maps every 10 years. In 2023, the Supreme Court struck down Alabama's map for violating the Voting Rights Act, leading to two majority-Black districts. Liberals support such districts to overcome discrimination, while conservatives see it as racial gerrymandering.