In 2021, when Keisha Lance Bottoms, then Atlanta’s mayor, revealed plans for a brand new $90 million police coaching facility, she informed the Atlanta Journal-Structure that the venture was important “if we wish the perfect, most well-trained officers defending our communities.” Its lecture rooms, taking pictures vary, and simulated metropolis streetscapes would, in keeping with the venture’s web site, assist legislation enforcement “be taught de-escalation and hurt discount methods that scale back using power.”
However some Atlantans who had taken to the streets for the earlier 12 months’s demonstrations over the police homicide of George Floyd didn’t assume Atlanta wanted any extra cops—regardless of how nicely educated. Protesters shortly mobilized towards the venture, dubbing it “Cop Metropolis” and describing it in very totally different phrases. The power would “enable police not simply from Atlanta, however globally, to be taught repressive ways, in order that protests and rebellions could be simply crushed,” warned the American Associates Service Committee. Different critics fear concerning the environmental influence of the ability—the woods for its proposed location are one in all 4 forests referred to as the “lungs of Atlanta.” Nonetheless, the development started, with the primary section set to open two years later.
Then, in 2023, Georgia state troopers killed Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, an activist generally known as Tortuguita, who had taken up residence on the deliberate facility’s wooded web site hoping to dam development. Outraged by Tortuguita’s loss of life, organizers supercharged efforts to place the venture up for a voter referendum within the fall. Extra radical protesters allegedly have broken development gear and thrown rocks and Molotov cocktails at police automobiles; 42 are at the moment going through state home terrorism prices. In August, 61 opponents of the venture had been indicted beneath Georgia’s RICO legislation—the identical broad anti-racketeering measure behind Trump’s Fulton county election interference case.
The protesters, in the meantime, have doubled down, sending groups out to gather signatures for the poll measure, chartering buses to pack occasions, and hiring attorneys to defend these going through prices. This sort of activism doesn’t come low cost—however fortunately for the protesters, they’ve a deep-pocketed ally: Fergie Chambers, a 39-year-old self-proclaimed communist with a web value within the a whole lot of tens of millions of {dollars}. Chambers’ wealth comes from his father’s household’s firm, Cox Enterprises, a worldwide conglomerate with automotive and media holdings, together with AutoTrader, Kelley Blue Ebook, Cox TV, the political web site Axios, and the Atlanta Journal-Structure. With a fortune of some $26.8 billion, the Cox household, a strong power in Atlanta philanthropy, made the second-largest contribution in 2022 towards the coaching facility, with their basis offering $10 million of a deliberate $60 million in personal funding. (Georgia taxpayers are placing up $31 million.)
In distinction, Chambers estimates he’s donated “a pair million {dollars}” within the final 12 months to teams opposing the very facility that high-profile members of his household wish to be constructed. Not solely has he financially supported signature gathering for the referendum, he’s sponsored buses to shuttle protesters to the positioning, and contributed “a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars}” to funds that paid for bail and attorneys for these who had been arrested.
Whereas the broader Cox household’s political popularity is squarely centrist, Chambers’ is someplace within the neighborhood of Chairman Mao. Once we spoke—after a number of weeks of telephone tag that concerned me lacking some pre-dawn calls again from Chambers—he appeared to relish defying mainstream orthodoxy, calling Russian President Vladimir Putin “one of many higher statesmen of our century,” and describing Hamas’ October 7 assault as “a second of hope and inspiration for tens of tens of millions of individuals.” Whereas he denies a latest declare in Los Angeles Journal that he chants “loss of life to America” day by day, he permits that the concept is kind of true. “I feel an important factor for the prosperity of humanity is the destruction of the US,” he informed me.
Due to these extremist views, Chambers’ beneficiant funding of Cop Metropolis protests has repercussions past the coaching facility itself. Some Atlanta Democrats fear that his views, together with what they see as more and more belligerent ways by the protesters he funds, may alienate the suburban voters who helped Georgia flip the Senate blue in 2020. A ballot final 12 months confirmed {that a} majority of the state’s voters—and 43 p.c of Democrats—help the ability.
Final fall, former Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux, a Democrat who represented a metro Atlanta district from 2021 to 2023, wrote an op-ed within the Journal-Structure: “Definitely, from my suburban vantage level, it seems like downtown progressive activists, supported and funded by nationwide activists and donors, are going loopy over a well-intentioned effort,” she wrote. Once I spoke along with her, she mentioned she fearful that property-destroying protesters had been a foul look. “Nobody must be subjected to police brutality—exhausting cease,” she wrote to me in an e mail. However “most reasonable Democratic voters of my acquaintance don’t even perceive why on earth this facility would generate such ferocious protest…higher coaching would appear to be an answer to downside of police brutality.”
Invoice Torpy, a veteran columnist for the Journal-Structure, put a finer level on it: The “form of rhetoric” from probably the most strident protesters, he mentioned, “is one thing that may get Trump reelected.”
However opponents of the ability I spoke with dismissed these considerations. “I feel it’s a very good factor that Cop Metropolis is inflicting elevated polarization and fracturing amongst Democrats and so-called progressive politicians” who’re “extra involved with their financial institution accounts than they’re with doing what is definitely proper,” argued Sam Beard, an organizer of a gaggle referred to as Block Cop Metropolis. Equally, veteran Atlanta organizer Kamau Franklin informed me he thinks the ability “ought to be a wedge situation as a result of institution Democrats haven’t sided with the folks in relation to problems with cops and capitalism. Institution Democrats are on the identical facet as right-wing Republicans.”
If Chambers’ rhetoric and politics are brash and unapologetic, when he speaks about his early years, he’s totally different—tortured, bashful, virtually self-loathing. “It was very typical—type of nepo-baby or, like, wealthy child journey to seek out oneself,” he informed me throughout our first telephone name.
Whereas the Coxes have formed Atlanta for generations, Chambers was raised in Brooklyn, the place his father felt extra at residence with the Patagonia-clad higher crust of the Northeast than his household’s Southern opulence. So Chambers’ publicity to Georgia as a baby was restricted to yearly visits to his grandmother’s home within the tony neighborhood of Buckhead. Her “loopy fancy” residence was a showier model of wealth, he recollects, than the brownstones-and-progressive-private-school model in Brooklyn. He recollects pondering of Atlanta as a “bizarre oasis of ultra-elite folks.” Chambers grew to really feel uncomfortable round them, partially, he says, due to his troubled life at residence. As a young person, he received into medicine, which led to run-ins with police.
It wasn’t till Chambers was in his 20s—lately married, a Bard School dropout, and “going by means of a Christian section”—that he relocated to Atlanta to try a traditional life. He moved to the middle-class suburb of Smyrna and took a job coaching managers at his household’s car public sale firm, Manheim. By the point he was 25, he had three kids. Although his function on the firm was decidedly white collar, “I used to be mates with numerous common, actually working-class guys,” he mentioned. “I associated to that and needed to suit into that.” As he informed me about this chapter of his life, Chambers appeared keen to go off any accusations of slumming it. “I’m not making an attempt to say some class id that I don’t have,” he mentioned. “I’m simply speaking concerning the social environments that I’ve been in.”
Working on the plant rubbed him the improper manner—he was unsettled by the ability dynamic between the white managers and the largely Black staff and appalled by the low wages and the “extremely poor situations the bottom ranks of staff had.” Then, the 2008 recession hit, and the corporate laid off hundreds of staff, but “there was nonetheless income within the billions,” he recalled. “I hated it—I hated the entire thing.”
Disillusioned, Chambers left Georgia later that 12 months. For a number of months, he made a half-hearted try to complete his diploma at Bard however then determined to maneuver his household to Russia, the place his spouse was born and nonetheless had household. Surrounded by a brand new tradition, Chambers grew to become enthralled and dove into studying every little thing he may concerning the nation and its politics. He determined to attempt to end his diploma at Bard, returned together with his spouse to upstate New York, and threw himself into understanding and studying extra about radical leftist actions.
In 2012, Chambers was summoned to Atlanta for his grandmother’s ninetieth birthday, and throughout the journey, he met a man promoting two gyms, one within the metropolis, and one within the Northern suburb of Alpharetta. Impulsively, Chambers purchased them and relocated to Atlanta once more, commuting between the 2 gyms. On the Alpharetta location, he remembered that one in all his trainers was a “bored, rich housewife” who aspired to open a fitness center. Her identify was Marjorie Taylor Greene, now a Republican member of Congress representing Georgia. At the moment, Chambers recalled, Greene needed to change into “an essential particular person on the earth of CrossFit.” Once I requested Rep. Greene’s workplace about Chambers’ account, a spokesperson responded, “We aren’t taking part in any article written by Mom Jones, however for readability, I can’t affirm as a result of it’s not true in anyway and you must chorus from printing any nonsense about Congresswoman Greene from this avowed Communist.”
Chambers’ first few months again in Atlanta had been tumultuous: He received divorced, started utilizing medicine once more, grew to become concerned with one other lady, received sober, married the opposite lady, and opened a espresso store within the upscale enclave of Virginia Highland together with his new spouse. Close by, within the quickly gentrifying neighborhood of East Atlanta Village, he opened a brand new fitness center, which he marketed as “a radically aligned, left-friendly fitness center and group.” A posted signal provided one thing of an ethos: “Do regardless of the fuck you need, appropriately, besides CrossFit cultism. No fucking cops.”
However he was making inroads with the town’s radicals—particularly the police abolitionists. In 2014, he traveled to Ferguson, Missouri, to protest the police taking pictures of Michael Brown. The journey was one other turning level—and it coincided with a household transaction that, he mentioned, took his personal fortunes from “theoretically rich” to “instantly rich,” within the “single digit tens of millions of {dollars}.” However Atlanta, Chambers informed me, was “a troublesome place to prepare, as a result of there was a extremely sturdy Democratic Get together mechanism there,” he informed me. “It simply felt like dancing round with these NGOs.” He found that a number of of the racial justice teams he had been working with had ties to the Democrats, so he deserted the mainstream teams and started to supply direct help to activists.
In the course of the subsequent seven years, Chambers received divorced once more and began a commune within the Berkshires, however he stayed in contact together with his police abolition mates in Atlanta. In 2021, shortly after Bottoms introduced plans for the police facility, Chambers realized of the necessity for funds to mount a strong protest. He gave generously—first within the tens of hundreds, after which within the a whole lot. “It was unbelievable to folks—within the wake of a fairly sturdy decade of anti-police sentiment rising particularly in Atlanta—that then this could be dropped on the town,” he mentioned. “They had been demolishing a forest—that was simply completely insane.”
Regardless of his contributions, it wasn’t simple mobilizing opposition to the ability. Particularly, Chambers noticed Atlanta’s Black Democrat centrists—reminiscent of former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and Sen. Raphael Warnock—as obstacles to progress. “I perceive how the Black radical group views them,” Chambers informed me. “You already know, advancing the white company agenda of [Atlanta’s wealthy] North Facet.” In 2021, Reed informed the Atlanta Journal-Structure, “I help the event of a best-in-class coaching facility for our law enforcement officials, however I’ve not made a judgment on the place it must be positioned.” Final 12 months, Sen. Warnock criticized the protesters who destroyed property.
If the protesters had been going to win, they wanted extra folks on their facet. And in the event that they needed extra folks, they wanted extra money. So, Chambers determined to do one thing he had been considering for some time: Final July, he struck a cope with his household. As a substitute of inheriting an unlimited portfolio of investments, he obtained $250 million and can get extra within the coming years—he declined to say how a lot or precisely when. A few of his cash, he mentioned, is in irrevocable trusts, so he can’t personally entry it—but it surely’s designated to go towards the causes he cares about, together with protesting the ability in Atlanta. Chambers sees his divestment as an act of protest—towards capitalism, sure, but in addition towards his family’s elitism and greed. “I used to be able to let go of no matter illusions I had about doing anything with myself,” he mentioned, “besides making an attempt to be of service to destroying the factor that had created me.”
If Atlanta’s police and political powers have their manner, Cop Metropolis can be completed by the top of this 12 months. They seem undeterred by the protesters, besides for infrequent complaints concerning the inconvenience and expense they’ve triggered. In January, metropolis officers mentioned 23 acts of arson had taken place on the web site, leading to a $20 million rise in prices, which they promised wouldn’t be handed on to taxpayers.
The leaders of the protests declare that they’ve collected 116,000 signatures, practically double the quantity they wanted to carry the ability earlier than voters as a poll initiative. However a December evaluation by 4 Atlanta information retailers discovered that as many as half of these signatures might be invalid—one signature that they discovered, for instance, was that of “Lord Jesus” with the handle of “homeless.” In February, the Atlanta Metropolis Council voted to start out an official depend of the signatures, which is able to decide the destiny of the proposed poll measure.
On X as of late, Chambers is prolific, musing in rapid-fire model about Palestine, the battle in Ukraine, his latest conversion to Islam, and, after all, Cop Metropolis. On the January anniversary of the killing he posted that as a result of they supported the venture, “my household, the Cox household, continues to have Tortuguita’s blood on their fingers.”
Just lately, he’s additionally been mocking those that recommend that Democrats should unite behind Biden to defeat Trump. “Why any of you ever put ANY religion in liberals continues to be past me,” he posted in January. As he later added, “The Democrat base is about as uncritical as any political bloc, ever…Thank God that base is growing older out of relevance.” In Georgia, latest polls predict a Republican victory within the 2024 presidential election.
Bipartisan politics, Cop Metropolis, Palestine, Russia—one will get the sense that for Chambers and lots of of these he helps, these are all a single trigger. Once I spoke to Franklin, the group organizer whose demonstrations towards the ability Chambers has funded, he provided related context, telling me that his fellow protesters “see Cop Metropolis when it comes to the connection that police right here in america have with the Israeli Protection Forces and Israeli policing company” and “US imperialism driving in direction of Russia’s border or utilizing Ukraine as a proxy for that.”
However after we spoke, different, extra private points demanded his speedy consideration. Once I requested him in December if I may be part of him at an Atlanta protest occasion someday, he informed me that may be unlikely; he had moved to Tunisia. “I simply wanted to take a break,” he informed me. “Parts of people that name themselves the left and the state wish to come after me.”
I requested him what was subsequent with the protest motion. He didn’t know, he mentioned. “What if there’s a scandal that we don’t learn about?” he questioned aloud, hoping {that a} political curveball may kill the venture. However largely, he simply appeared overwhelmed with the magnitude of his latest inheritance. “No person’s used to working with this scale of assets and, like, the way to use it strategically—I must create totally different trusts and, like, donor-advised funds.” He sighed anxiously. “I don’t perceive this shit.”
In March, after we spoke once more, he was nonetheless in Tunisia; he had gotten married once more the earlier month, this time to the mom of his fourth youngster. He informed me that the Cop Metropolis organizing had slowed, largely as a result of he’s devoting extra money and time to Palestine, as are lots of the different activists he works with. There are, he mentioned, “undoubtedly murmurings of the FBI me.” Nonetheless, he mentioned he plans to maintain supporting the protesters and their authorized protection, to the tune of nonetheless extra tens of millions of {dollars} if mandatory. “They’ll have actually important prices which are going to come back up as a result of it’s going to be a reasonably drawn-out factor,” he mentioned. “I do know we’re going do one thing appreciable.”