My political mentor once told me not to jump into fights that were not mine. But he also taught me never to stand by when someone is being mischaracterized, especially when you know there is more to the story than what is being presented. I do not claim to know all the facts surrounding Mullins McLeod’s arrest in May 2025, but I do understand South Carolina political shenanigans. I understand the history, and I am familiar with the players involved. That is why I am adding my two cents to the conversation about whether Mullins McLeod should drop out of the Democratic primary. This is not an endorsement. It is an effort to add context. I first became familiar with Mullins McLeod and his work years ago through his involvement in a case out of Cottageville, South Carolina. What follows is not a defense of an incident, but a broader look at a record and a narrative that deserves to be fully understood before judgment is rendered.
There is no denying that Dr. Jermaine Johnson is a rising star in the South Carolina Democratic Party. His candidacy represents real momentum, real promise, and a moment that deserves respect. If he were to win the Democratic primary, he would become the first African American to carry the party’s banner for governor, a historic milestone in a state where history has rarely bent easily toward us. That matters. It should be acknowledged plainly, without hesitation, and without anyone trying to diminish the weight of that moment.
But I’ve been around South Carolina politics long enough to remember another rising star. I remember the optimism, the sense of possibility, the belief that something new was finally taking shape. In 1996, a 23-year-old named Clementa Carlos Pinckney was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives, the youngest elected official in the country at the time. Brilliant, soft spoken, deeply rooted in faith and service, he went on to the State Senate carrying not just his own promise, but the hopes of a community that believed the future could look different. That future was violently stolen on June 17, 2015, inside Mother Emanuel AME Church, a moment that didn’t just scar Charleston, but changed South Carolina forever.
And after the vigils ended, after the speeches were made, after the national spotlight drifted elsewhere, the real fight began.
This is where Mullins McLeod enters the story.
A Record That Doesn’t Fit the Headline
While politicians issued statements and institutions closed ranks, Mullins went to work. Quietly. Methodically. Relentlessly. When federal officials insisted there was no liability, when the Department of Justice treated the FBI’s background check failure as an unfortunate error rather than a deadly one, Mullins chose confrontation over comfort. He took on the federal government itself and forced it to answer for the system that allowed Dylann Roof to legally purchase a firearm and walk into a Black church intent on murder.
Few believed he could win. Fewer thought the families would ever see justice that matched the scale of their loss.
They were wrong.
The result was an $88 million verdict for the families of the Charleston Nine, the largest of its kind in the nation at that time. It was not symbolic. It was not performative. It was accountability. And it did not happen because the system suddenly found its conscience. It happened because a lawyer refused to let power escape responsibility.
That victory was not an anomaly. It was part of a pattern.
What $183 Million in Civil Rights Verdicts Actually Represents
Years earlier, in Cottageville, South Carolina, Mullins stood with the family of former mayor Bert Reeves, who was shot and killed by a police officer. Once again, the odds were steep. A small town. Law enforcement. The familiar expectation that nothing would come of it. Mullins fought anyway. The jury returned a $97 million verdict, one of the largest police misconduct verdicts in the country at the time. Even when later reduced through settlement, the message was unmistakable. Accountability had a price.
Then there was Christopher Smith, a mentally disabled Black man forced into modern day slavery by a restaurant owner. Worked without pay. Isolated. Abused. Forgotten. Mullins took that case too. No headlines. No national outrage. Just a vulnerable man who needed someone willing to fight for him. Mullins did, and he won restitution that finally acknowledged the humanity that had been denied.
This is who Mullins McLeod is.
Not a man defined by a single moment. Not a caricature shaped by a video clip. But a fighter with a long record of standing between Black families and the institutions that failed them. A lawyer who has made powerful enemies because he does not flinch when the opponent is the government, law enforcement, or corporate power.
Which brings us to the present.
Why Moments Are Easier to Share Than Context
In May 2025, video footage of Mullins McLeod’s arrest in Charleston surfaced and quickly began circulating. As is often the case in modern politics, a clip became a verdict before any facts were fully known, before context was established, before questions were answered. Days turned into headlines. Headlines turned into assumptions. And assumptions turned into pressure.
By mid-August 2025, South Carolina Democratic Party Chairwoman Christale Spain publicly called on Mullins McLeod to step aside and suspend his campaign for governor. The message was clear. Do not run in the primary. Do not test the process. Step away.
When party leadership calls on a candidate to step aside, it is not democracy, it is election interference. Candidates run so voters can decide outcomes, not so party officials can rush to judgment and attempt to shape the field before the public has heard the full story. While Mullins McLeod is a white man, the rush to judgment on display is one the Black community knows too well. It is the same reflex that has too often labeled Black people as guilty or threatening before facts are known, a reflex that has cost innocent lives. That is why it is especially disappointing when a leader of color participates in that impulse rather than resisting it.
And as a journalist, I know how difficult it usually is to get basic transparency from police departments. Video footage is typically withheld, delayed, or fought over for months, sometimes years. When footage is suddenly and eagerly released without being requested, by institutions known more for stonewalling than openness, it raises legitimate questions about motive and context. That alone should have prompted caution, not conclusions.
A primary is not a coronation. It is a test. It is where candidates are supposed to be examined, challenged, stressed, and measured. It is where durability is revealed, where character is weighed, where voters see how a candidate responds when the pressure is real. The primary exists so that by the time a nominee reaches a general election, they have already been tested by fire.
That is precisely what does not happen in a South Carolina Democratic Party primary. You don’t have to take my word for it. Ask Mia McLeod.
Instead, party leadership has a long history of putting its hand on the scale. Candidates are quietly chosen long before voters ever show up at the polls. Not because they are the strongest. Not because they are the most capable. But because they are liked, familiar, connected, or useful. Primaries become formalities. Cakewalks. The illusion of democracy without the discipline of competition.
The result is predictable. Untested candidates. Underfunded campaigns. Weak general election performances. And a statewide losing streak that now stretches back roughly three decades.
If the party were serious about winning, it would welcome a real primary.
Jermaine Johnson should be tested. Mullins McLeod should be tested. That is not disrespect. That is respect for voters. That is how strong candidates are forged.
Who Benefits From a One-Sided Narrative
Mullins has already been tested in arenas far more unforgiving than a campaign trail. He has fought cases everyone said he could not win and walked away victorious. He has stood across from the federal government, from law enforcement institutions, from corporate power, and forced accountability when none was expected. He has resources. He has experience. He has a documented history of winning when the odds are stacked against him.
And this moment in America demands that kind of fighter.
We are living in a country where a former president with dozens of felony convictions dominates national politics. Where members of Congress harass workers in airports and chase people into bathrooms. Where civil rights protections are being rolled back by courts and legislatures. Where equity programs are dismantled openly and proudly. This is not a moment for politeness. It is not a moment for safe candidates. It is not a moment for polished silence.
This is a moment that requires someone who knows how to fight when they are down. Someone who understands how to endure pressure. Someone willing to take hits and keep moving.
I cannot speak to the events of May 2, 2025. But I can speak to the man and to his record long before that date, especially when it comes to standing with those the justice system has failed.
In a state where the Black community has too few allies, I am not quick to condemn a man who has shown up again and again for Black families, not just in moments of mourning, but in sustained battle. Mullins McLeod has stood against corporate giants, government bureaucracies, and a justice system that too often delivers Black families more injustice than justice. That history matters, and it should not be erased by a rush to judgment.
When corporations treated Black lives as expendable, he made them pay. When government agencies failed and hoped no one would notice, he forced accountability. And when law enforcement acted recklessly in ways that sent the message that Black lives did not matter, Mullins McLeod showed them exactly how wrong they were, through verdicts totaling more than $183 million, and that figure reflects only the cases referenced here.
It seems like I receive a donation request from the South Carolina Democratic Party at least twice a week. So I would urge Black voters to pause and ask a simple question. How much money has the South Carolina Democratic Party state leadership actually put into the hands of Black families?
Then ask a second question. How much money has that same leadership funneled to party elites, lobbyists, and high-priced consultants while delivering nothing but loss after loss at the ballot box?
The contrast is stark.
A Question for Voters, Not Party Leadership
Mullins McLeod has spent years trying to right wrongs and bring some measure of accountability to families whose lives were forever altered by negligence, violence, or injustice. No verdict can restore a life, and no amount of money can replace a loved one, but the scale of a judgment tells the world how grave the wrongdoing was and how deeply a jury understood the harm and the grief. These victories are symbolic in the most serious sense, a public declaration that injustice carries a cost, and Mullins has built a record of making sure that cost is paid.
For South Carolina Democratic Party leadership, burdened by a thirty-year losing streak, to tell a man who has consistently won the hardest fights to step aside is more than laughable. It is a stunning act of political self-delusion, the audacity of habitual failure attempting to discipline success, and it exposes just how disconnected state party leadership has become from both reality and accountability.
For years, Mullins McLeod has stood in courtrooms across this state and this country, arguing cases before juries of ordinary citizens, asking them to weigh facts, history, and context before rendering judgment. Now it is his turn to stand before a different jury, the voters of South Carolina, and especially African American voters, to give an account of his actions, his words, and his record.
He should be allowed to do that without interference. Not blocked by party leadership, not rushed to judgment, not subjected to a process manipulated behind closed doors. That is what justice looks like. That is what democracy demands. He should be judged not by a single incident, but by the full weight of his history, his willingness to fight, and his ability to continue fighting for the people of this state.
Anything less is not accountability. It is election interference. And South Carolina voters deserve better.
