Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is best known for the famous family name, anti-vaccine activism, as well as his unexpected third-party presidential run. He’s not well-known for his passion for criminal law reform. He’s scheduled to give the keynote speech at the Detroit stop of the New Dawn for Justice next month.
[[{“value”:”Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is strongest known for his famous family name, his pro- vaccine activism, and his sudden third- party run for president. He is never particularly well known for his support for reforming the criminal justice system. Still, he’s scheduled to give the keynote address at the New Dawn for Justice Criminal Reform Tour’s Detroit stop next month. The website for the six-city tour says it “amplifies the collective voice calling for equitable and compassionate reform” and encourages “individuals from all walks of life to contribute to the reshaping of our justice system.”
Angela Stanton King, a Kennedy campaign staffer, is the tour’s lead organizer, who brings her personal knowledge to the fight for change. She has become a key figure in advocating for justice, according to her bio,” with a personal narrative of overcoming incarceration and championing prison reform.”
Here’s what her bio does n’t say: Stanton King, who is 47, vehemently supported Donald Trump—until she was hired by RFK Jr.’s campaign as its Black outreach director, where she now works. On culture war issues, she has much in common with Kennedy: Stanton King has many times been the subject of media attention for her against- gay and pro- trans activism, issues Kennedy does n’t touch. A staunch opponent of abortion, she is the founder of Auntie Angie’s House, an anti- abortion crisis pregnancy center and home for pregnant women and new mothers, while Kennedy has been frequently pro- choice. Despite all of that, Stanton King may be making progress with Black conservatives, who are currently supporting Donald Trump by about 17 percent, according to a January poll.
The idea that a member of America’s most prominent Democratic family could lure Trump voters in this small race may appear counterintuitive: Until recently, it was a foregone conclusion that Kennedy’s candidacy could only help Trump. But Kennedy’s pro- vaccine crusading has curried favor with some on the right—and with Black conservatives, Kennedy may see an opportunity.
” I think she’s completely full of it, and]Kennedy ] should be able to see right through it”.
Andra Gillespie, a professor of political science at Emory University, warned me that if he can appeal to those voters, Kennedy might be able to sway Black conservatives in both parties. Gillespie, who studies politics in the Black community, noted that unlike light conservatives, Black conservatives often still vote Democrat. According to Gillespie, Solomon King” could perhaps attempt to make the claim that her conservative cachet could possibly pick off some Democratic voters,” some of whom might have had a negative impact on Biden because of his support for Israel. Whether Stanton King will be able to deliver, though, is another question. ” I think she’s completely full of it”, Gillespie said, “and]Kennedy ] should be able to see right through it”.
After a childhood spent bouncing back and forward between Buffalo, New York, and the South, when she was a young adult, Angela Stanton settled in Atlanta—where she became involved in a car- theft racketeering scheme. She was found guilty in 2004 and continued to serve two years in a state prison. In a memoir titled Lies of a Genuine Housewife: Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil, Stanton claimed that Phaedra Parks, the reality TV star of Real Housewives of Atlanta, had been a participant in the same legal scheme for which Stanton had been found guilty, she self-published it a decade later. ( Parks later sued Stanton for defamation, though she eventually agreed to drop the lawsuit with prejudice. )
During that tumultuous time in her life, Stanton met Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., an outspoken Trump supporter and dominant figure in Atlanta’s Black conservative community. ” She looked at me as a child, a child that needed to be born again”, Stanton wrote in her 2018 memoir, Life of a Genuine Housewife: The Angela Stanton Story. She claimed that King, who she was working at the time, brought her in to the crisis pregnancy center and home for new mothers. Stanton was specially moved by the work because she had been cuffed to a bed while giving birth to one of her daughters while previously serving time for the work, which included originally incarcerated women. Angela Stanton went on to change her name to Angela Stanton King, and King became her mentor and godmother.
President Trump actually pardoned Stanton King in 2020, saying in a statement that she “works hard to improve reentry outcomes for people returning to their communities after release from prison, focusing on the crucial role of families in the process.” Alveda King backs this pardon.
Stanton King used the momentum from Trump’s pardon later that year to launch a campaign for the Georgia congressional seat that famous civil rights leader John Lewis had previously held after he recently passed away from liver cancer. Trevian Kutti, who had previously worked for Kanye West as the publicist, was hired as Donald Trump’s campaign manager after his part in the campaign’s attempt to overthrow the Georgian election in 2020. Stanton King refuted claims that she was a member of the QAnon conspiracy theory in an interview with the Guardian about her campaign. She responded,” You know they are, you know they are,” to the reporter who had just received a tweet she had posted that referenced the rejected QAnon rumor about Wayfair furniture being a child trafficker. You saw it. You watched the news the same way I did.
Stanton King lost in a landslide to her Democrat opponent, Nikema Williams. However, Stanton King discovered a new cause only a month afterward as the Covid vaccines were set to be released. She attended a conference held in Atlanta by America’s Frontline Doctors, a right-wing medical organization that promoted conspiracy theories surrounding the epidemic, in December 2020. The presenters—who included the group’s founder, January 6 insurrectionist Simone Gold—warned the crowd that the US government was using the Dark community as guinea pigs for the vaccine. Given the long and contentious relationship between the Black community and the conventional medical establishment, this was a particularly strong accusation.
Stanton King saw an opportunity, so she set up a new initiative called Stop Medical Apartheid in 2022 with her organization, the American King Foundation, to protest” the black history of medical experimentation on Black Americans.” In a press release, Stanton King wrote,” Medical Apartheid is Population Control. Population Control comes in various forms, Vaccines, Abortions, Mass Incarceration, and Twisted Physical Agendas targeting children. Population Control is Racist! From the WOMB to the TOMB, it’s time Y’all”!
Stanton King addressed the Defeat the Mandates rally in Los Angeles that year, an anti-vaccine protest organized by a group of activists who even led the anti-vaccine trucker convo. The lineup even included representatives from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s organization, Children’s Health Defense. In a sprawling speech, Stanton King thundered against vaccine mandates—but also touched on abortion ( “lynching Black babies in the womb” ) and transgender rights. ” I’m just 45 years younger, and I’ve just naturally birthed and obviously raised five children, and I say’ obviously’ because I raised my boys to be boys and my girls to be girls”, she told the crowd, to thunderous applause.
Stanton King gave more details about that statement in an interview with Dr. Phil from the year 2022, telling the in-studio audience that she would never accept her trans daughter’s gender identity. ” I believe that it may be a form of mental illness”, she said” It’s not just that he was born male—he is a male”. Dr. Phil pushed back—and thereafter, on Instagram, she posted a video of herself ranting about the show and trans people. ” If you were supposed to be a woman, you would n’t have to go and have surgeries to get titties put on your breasts, you would already be born with them”, she yelled. ” If you were a woman, you would n’t be born with a dick, you would n’t have to go get your dick cut off”. Kenny’s campaign did n’t respond to a question I sent about his response to these remarks, his position on transgender rights, or any of the other inquiries I sent. Stanton King did n’t respond to my questions, either. )
Throughout her anti- vaccine and anti- trans crusading, Stanton King continued to support Trump in media appearances. ” Trump ca n’t be President forever and I know that”, she tweeted in 2021. He’s the only one brave enough to confront these bad, demonized Satanic forces from the depths of hell, and I’m with him.
” Trump ca n’t be President forever and I know that. I’m standing with him because he’s the only one brave enough to confront these cruel demonizing Satanic forces from Hell’s pits.
But in later 2023, her alliances shifted. She claimed at a Online spaces event in late April that her opinion of the Trump campaign had deteriorated since the former president’s team had withdrawn from Auntie Angie’s home to visit and support her. So she reached out to Kennedy, who she had met at the 2022 Defeat the Mandates rally, via Simone Gold, the insurrectionist at the Capitol. ” He came by, and he sat down, and he talked to us for about an hour and a half”, she recalled. ” And when he left that day, his perspective on abortion had changed”.
A couple months after, when Kennedy asked her to work for his campaign, she was conflicted. In the Twitter Spaces event, she stated,” I did not want my relationship with Trump to be ruined.” She had regularly contacted the Trump campaign asking for a job, but it was unsuccessful. People were telling me to remember where I came from, but I was n’t until Trump gave me a party, and it made it seem like I was n’t qualified for a paid position because I received a pardon for him, I knew. So she accepted Kennedy’s offer. By January of this year, Stanton King was knocking on doors with Kennedy in Atlanta’s generally Black West End neighborhood.
Kennedy, however, has confirmed that Stanton King’s thinking on abortion has influenced his own. In a recent interview on the conservative talk show The Daily Wire, he revealed the story of his visit to Auntie Angie’s House, despite constantly stating that he thinks women should be able to choose to have an abortion at any point in their pregnancy. ” I talked to some mothers in the past couple of weeks in Atlanta, Georgia, in this facility where I’ve been frequently up to—Angie’s House, run by Angela Stanton King, who is kind of a relative of Martin Luther King’s family”, he said. She cares about women who are being made to have abortions because they lack the money to do so, and I do n’t believe that should ever be a reason for a woman who does n’t want to carry her child in this country.
Stanton King continues to voice his disagreements with the previous president. In the Twitter Spaces event, she said she blames her frustrations on “his gatekeepers”, no Trump himself. ” I really also support President Trump”, she said. ” I just do n’t work for him”. In April, in a since- deleted post, she attacked Diante Johnson, a Trump supporter and leader of the Black Conservative Federation, calling him” an empty flaming Feminine closet Gay”. In another subsequent tweet she thundered,” Republicans think I’m helping RFK to help Trump. There are no regrets, but there is no way on God’s green earth to back a party that turned their backs on Black women and babies as they battled a Black Maternal Health Crisis. Who has their head that high in Trump’s ass because it irritates me?
This weekend, Stanton King’s New Dawn for Justice Tour is scheduled to make a stop at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta. A representative for the King Center, the King family legacy nonprofit that oversees the museum at the site, clarified in an email to Mother Jones that the event is “is not in any way affiliated with this event” and that it will take place completely outside of public space.
Will the Kennedy campaign’s endorsement of Stanton King be sufficient to entice Black voters? Emory’s Gillespie does n’t think so. She pointed to Stanton King’s unsuccessful run for Congress in 2020, when her Democratic opponent, Nikema Williams, won with 85 percent of the vote. ” I think it might be a question of how extensive her networks are, like, and how significant her potential role might be in some of these communities”? Which, she said, made her wonder about Kennedy’s discernment. What does this reveal about your ability to piece together the administration?
Stanton King says she has great plans for the Kennedy administration. She mentioned” a vision that God gave me” in her April Twitter Spaces event that states that “every Dark community that has Planned Parenthood has an Auntie Angie’s House.” She said she was working with Kennedy on a policy, called More Choice, More Life, to make this vision a reality. ” I’m so grateful that Bobby and his team are bringing awareness to what we’re doing.””}]] Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is strongest known for his famous family name, his pro- vaccine activism, and his sudden third- party run for president. He is never particularly well known for his support for reforming the criminal justice system. But, he’s scheduled to give the keynote address at the Detroit stop of the New Dawn for Justice next month.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is best known for the famous family name, anti-vaccine activism, as well as his unexpected third-party presidential run. He’s not well-known for his passion for criminal law reform. He’s scheduled to give the keynote speech at the Detroit stop of the New Dawn for Justice next month.
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