Herschel Walker’s primary residence remains in Texas, but he is a Georgian through and through. That, he said Tuesday, is why he felt compelled to tweet at Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Monday.
The former University of Georgia and NFL star said he has watched with keen interest the situation that unfolded in southwest Atlanta after resident Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed by police in the drive-through line of a Wendy’s on June 12. Since then, the restaurant was destroyed by fire and the area has been occupied by protesters, some of them armed.
On Saturday night, 8-year-old Secoriea Turner was fatally shot as she rode with her family in a car through the area, allegedly by one or more of the armed protesters. That led Mayor Bottoms to make an impassioned plea for dissidents to stand down.
“Enough is enough,” she said Monday, with Turner’s grieving family alongside her.
Bottoms’ speech moved Walker, who still maintains a residence in Atlanta. He had been critical of Bottoms’ support of calls to defund police at the outset of the original incident. So he felt compelled to offer his support when he saw Bottoms’ impassioned plea on television Monday.
As the sitting president that Walker also supports tends to do, Walker sent a tweet.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reached out to Walker on Tuesday to find out if he wanted to expound on his social-media post. He did.
“I disagreed with (Bottoms) letting them take over that place to begin with,” Walker said Tuesday. “I thought that was wrong. And I disagree with anyone who wants to defund the police. I don’t think that’s right. …
"But, you know, she did something that was absolutely incredible. She said, 'This has got to stop. This has to stop and can't go on anymore.' And I applaud her for that because she's a leader, and the only way it's going to stop is she has to stop it. The police department can't go out there and stop it. But the mayor of Atlanta can say, 'no more.'"
The area was cleared by Atlanta police Tuesday, and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp deployed 1,000 Georgia National Guard troops this week to protect state buildings in downtown Atlanta.
Walker would like to help, too. He said Bottoms’ speech spurred him to want to take action.
“The reason I threw myself in the middle of it, the reason I’ve got to help, is because she said something that was very powerful to me right at the end (of her speech),” Walker said. “She said, ‘If you’re not going to be part of the solution, you need to get out.’ Well, I want to be a part of the solution in the state of Georgia. I absolutely love the state of Georgia. I love America. So whatever I can do to help America or the state of Georgia, I want to do it.”
Walker said he has not heard from either Bottoms or any of her representation, and he's not certain that he will. Bottoms announced Tuesday that she and members of her family have tested positive for COVID-19.
It might seem unusual that Walker is so attuned to what’s going on in Atlanta. While he maintains residences in Atlanta, Athens and Savannah, he’s rarely in Georgia. The multimillionaire former athlete spends the majority of his time in Texas, the Dallas area specifically. There he oversees several companies under the umbrella of Herschel Walker Enterprises, which includes a chicken and food distribution business that he said employs about 60,000 people.
But as Walker has gotten older and grown more financially independent, he finds himself becoming increasingly outspoken on social and political issues. He doesn’t shy away from his allegiance to President Donald Trump, with whom he has had a relationship since he played for Trump’s USFL team in the mid-1980s.
That, he said, has put him at odds with a lot of fellow Blacks.
“Now it is even wrong for any African-American to agree or disagree with someone else,” he said. “You get called every name in the book because you’re a free-thinker. And I have been. People can’t think on their own; they can’t decide for themselves. Now you’re this and you’re that if you don’t think like everybody else. I’m like, ‘Guys, where did this come from?’”
That’s what has Walker so up in arms about all the social unrest across the country. He said he was just as upset as everybody over the police incidents that resulted in the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick and Brooks.
But he also believes that unlawful protests, violence and defunding police are not appropriate responses.
“This country was built on law and order and that’s the way we’ve got to have it,” Walker said. “There’s no doubt we need better training for police, but we still need police. …
“My father taught his kids to be respectful. He taught his kids to educate themselves and do what’s right to get where we want to be. There’s no doubt we have to work harder sometimes, but from where my father came, I am so much better, from where Martin Luther King came, I am so much better.”
Walker sounds very much like a politician himself sometimes. But the 58-year-old native of Wrightsville, who has competed in football, track, karate, Olympic bobsled and ultimate fighting said he’s not interested in entering that arena.
“Everybody’s pushing me to do that; that’s not for me,” he said. “I’m going to continue to fight like I’m fighting now. I’m trying to be honest. I’m just trying to follow the bible and the teachings of my parents.”
In the meantime, if Mayor Bottoms or anybody in her office calls for Walker’s services, he insists he’ll answer.
“If she asks me to do anything, I will try to do it, as long as it’s the right thing to do,” Walker said. “I wish I could do something.”
