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Mayoral candidate claims dirty politics in race
An Atlanta mayoral candidate is claiming dirty politics in a recent ad that would appear to give them darker skin.
ATLANTA - There is a skin color controversy in the race to be Atlanta's next mayor.
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That may sound illogical given that both contenders are indisputably Black candidates.
The simmering dispute between Andre Dickens and Felicia Moore centers around Dickens' claim that a group of Moore supporters "darkened" photos of Dickens to make his skin color look darker.
The association Dickens is concerned about is that a more ebony shade might be undesirable, or even threatening to some voters. Dickens labeled the purported altering of a campaign photo "racist"
An ad from the Andre Dickens campaign showing the alleged "darkening" of his skin tone by a Felicia Moore super PAC.
"What is disingenuous," Moore said, "is that he is fundraising off this".
Moore said that "as a Black woman" she would never be involved in something like this. Plus, Moore contends that a Dickens flyer regarding the purported altered photograph shows two different images of the candidate.
Michael Bond, a light-skinned political leader, said it is a "stain" on the mayor's race that skin color is being debated. But the topic has come up often.
For more than 40 years, the Black mayors - Maynard Jackson, Andrew Young, Bill Campbell, and Shirley Franklin - were all light-skinned.
Former Mayor Kasim Reed broke that pattern if you can call it such.
Wednesday is the final day of early voting in the election.
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