A Black prosecutor was elected in Georgia – so white Republicans made their own district

After Jared Williams was elected Augusta DA, a lawyer and state lawmaker made an unusual proposal: that the whitest county split from the circuit

Since 1870, the Augusta judicial circuit has been home to the criminal justice system of a three-county area on Georgia's border with South Carolina. In that time, no African American has been elected district attorney of the circuit - until 2020, when a Black lawyer named Jared Williams upset a conservative, pro-police candidate with just more than 50% of the vote.

But that historic win was short-lived. The day after his election, a lawyer and state lawmaker in the area proposed something unusual: that the circuit's whitest county separate itself from the Augusta circuit, creating a new judicial circuit in Georgia for the first time in nearly 40 years.