MACON, Ga. — When the crush of inflation became too much to bear a year and a half ago, Rashad James and Justin Williams began hauling their smoker into an abandoned parking lot off Macon’s Route 41, dishing out $10 to $20 platters of pork chops, ribs and chicken four days a week.
That side hustle formed with family and friends — Smoke’s Grill — has provided a financial safety net for the two commercial truck drivers in an economy that has felt unrelenting. Both men cast ballots for Joe Biden in 2020, hoping he could usher in more opportunity, higher-paying jobs and less expensive health care for Black men like them. But this year they are undecided — frustrated by how little has changed nearly four years after Black voters helped Biden flip Georgia and gave Democrats control of the Senate by electing Raphael G. Warnock and Jon Ossoff in the 2021 Georgia runoff elections.