Dr. Jumelle Brooks: From Flipping a Seat to Filling the Gaps
After flipping South Carolina’s House District 12, Dr. Jumelle Brooks is preparing to bring a persistent question to Columbia: What do people need, and what is standing in their way?
By Javar Juarez | NPJ Feature | November 13, 2026
Willington, S.C. - Two days after her election victory, Dr. Jumelle Brooks was already studying.
Her phone would not stop ringing. The congratulations kept coming. After months of campaigning, she was adjusting to the sudden arrival at a finish line that carried its own set of responsibilities.
“It’s surreal,” Dr. Jumelle Brooks said in a November 5 interview with the New Progressive Journal. “I’m in study mode now.”
Brooks had just defeated Republican incumbent Daniel Gibson to win South Carolina House District 12, representing Greenwood and McCormick counties. Her victory returned the seat to Democratic hands four years after Gibson defeated longtime Representative Anne Parks.
Asked about the win, Brooks quickly shared the credit.
“It was the people.”
Over the next 40 minutes, she returned repeatedly to those people: families who need dependable water, residents who struggle to find fresh food, children whose needs go unrecognized, and rural communities weighing promises of investment against the resources they stand to lose.
The description she offered of herself was direct.
“I’m a gap filler.”
For Brooks, that means examining the conditions surrounding a problem, identifying what others have missed, and staying with it long enough to find a solution. It is the approach she says she intends to bring to the Statehouse.
She draws inspiration from community leaders such as Dr. ErNiko Brown, who sponsored the 2026 Juneteenth celebration where the photographs accompanying this feature were taken. Brown works across McCormick County, partnering with leaders including Brooks to mobilize voters and connect vulnerable rural residents with essential services.
That work reflects the needs Brooks says should guide public investment: making sure rural residents have access to the resources, opportunities, and support they need for a fair shot.
Before the investment, the groundwork
That approach is already shaping how Brooks talks about data centers.
Asked about potential development in McCormick County, she acknowledged the pressure facing rural leaders searching for new revenue. A major investment can be attractive to a community working to expand its economic opportunities.
But Brooks wants South Carolina to establish safeguards before communities commit.
“I do think you need oversight,” she said. “I do think you need to have the ground level parameters set.”
Water is central to her concern. She wants the state to consider how a development’s demands could affect neighboring communities, rather than leaving each locality to assess a project in isolation.
Her position also has a local boundary.
“I’m not saying no to data centers,” Brooks said. “I’m just saying not here.”
She recognizes the role these facilities play in everyday digital life, from accessing medical records to shopping online. Her questions concern location, capacity, and who bears the consequences of development.
For Brooks, a community’s need for investment makes careful scrutiny more urgent.
The promise of revenue must be weighed against what residents need to build their lives there.
Growing what is already there
Brooks sees economic possibilities in McCormick’s landscape, history, and quieter pace.
She envisions restored downtown storefronts, small shops, cabins, trails, and activities that give visitors reasons to stay. She wants entrepreneurs to find opportunities alongside the county’s recreational assets.
At one point, she described the possibility as an “Asheville style setting without the mountains.”
The comparison was aspirational. Her broader point was that McCormick has assets worth developing on their own terms.
“What we don’t want to do is we don’t want to grow McCormick in a way that it steals that beauty,” she said.
That requires recognizing differences within her district. Greenwood and McCormick, she emphasized, need economic strategies suited to their particular circumstances.
Agriculture belongs in that conversation, too.
Brooks wants stronger connections between local farmers and larger markets, along with more opportunities for residents to buy directly from growers. In communities where a full grocery store may be difficult to sustain, she sees potential in regularly scheduled farmers markets and support for local food production.
Her phrase for it is “grow your own.”
Making that possible, she said, requires resources. Residents need access to the tools, knowledge, and infrastructure that allow local efforts to succeed.
“You can’t, as I say, grow your own if you don’t have the resources and the materials necessary to do so.”
Clean water, food, shelter, and safety form the foundation of her thinking. Until those needs are addressed, she argues, a community’s ability to advance remains constrained.
The persistence of a mother
Brooks’s professional background spans healthcare administration, education, and business. She holds a doctorate in healthcare administration and has worked in teaching and academic leadership. She also owns and operates The Nest Home Health Care, LLC. Official biography
When asked what shaped her leadership, however, she turned to her family.
Brooks and her husband have three grown sons. Raising Black boys, she said, made her attentive to struggles that others can overlook.
She recalled reading to her youngest son every day when he was three, approaching four. When he began reading some words back, the family was overjoyed. “Oh my God, this kid is gonna be stellar, little baby Einstein,” she recalled thinking.
But once he entered a K4 program, she said, he cried throughout the day, and his father had to pick him up. Teachers repeatedly described him as immature, an explanation that continued into K5. Brooks questioned it: “He’s four years old. What would you like for him to be?”
Brooks kept asking questions.
She spoke with his pediatrician, researched the difficulties she observed, and continued seeking answers. Physical and occupational therapy eventually helped him thrive, she said.
The experience remains a reference point for how she responds when something appears wrong.
“I did not stop,” Brooks said. “I kept digging to find out the why.”
Her account reveals the persistence behind the “gap filler” description: a willingness to question an initial explanation and examine what a person needs to succeed.
A public education commitment
Brooks speaks about public schools with the attachment of someone whose own life was shaped by them.
“I’m a public school baby,” she said.
Her defense of public education centers on access and consistency. She wants children to encounter dependable expectations and opportunities as they move between communities. She worries about an education system in which a family’s options depend on securing a place at a particular school.
“I think that grades K through 12 should not be a part of free market,” she said.
Her concern is whether every child can get the education and support they need when they need it—and what happens when families are told to wait.
The mother who kept seeking answers for her son is evident in the incoming legislator’s questions about schools. When children struggle, Brooks wants adults to examine the conditions around them and the opportunities they have been given.
Representing the whole district
Brooks also knows that winning an election does not mean everyone has agreed to support her.
During the campaign, she said, she asked residents to tell her what mattered to them regardless of how they planned to vote.
“Whether you vote for me or not, I’m going to need to know how you feel because my goal is to represent you as well.”
She intends to bring that same focus to negotiations in Columbia. Her approach is to identify problems shared across districts and make the case for solutions that can serve more than one community.
“My focus will still be on the people,” she said.
Her agenda remains a set of commitments that will require legislative work, funding, local partnerships, and public scrutiny. The interview did not establish costs or timelines for the tourism, agriculture, or infrastructure ideas she described. Those details will help constituents judge what follows.
For now, Brooks has offered them a clear starting point: pay attention to basic needs, investigate what is failing, and keep asking why.
The congratulations are still coming. She is studying for the work ahead.
Javar Juarez is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Urban Broadcast Network (CUBN), an independent investigative news outlet based in Columbia, South Carolina, and a member of the South Carolina Press Association.
