Alabama’s capital removes Confederate names from 2 schools
Two high schools in Alabama’s capital, a hub of the civil rights movement, will no longer bear the names of Confederate leaders. The Montgomery County Board of Education on Thursday voted for new names for Jefferson Davis High School and Robert E. Lee High School, news outlets reported. Lee will become Dr. Percy Julian High School. Davis will become JAG High School, representing three figures of the civil rights movement: Judge Frank Johnson, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, and the Rev. Robert Graetz. The schools opened in the 1950s and 1960s as all or mostly white but now serve student populations that are more than 85% African American. “Our job is to make our spaces comfortable for our kids. Bottom line is we’re going to make decisions based on what our kids’ needs may be, not necessarily on sentiment around whatever nostalgia may exist,” Superintendent Melvin Brown said, as reported by WSFA-TV. Julian was a chemist and teacher who was born in Montgomery. Johnson was a federal judge whose rulings helped end segregation and enforce voting rights. Abernathy was a pastor and leader in the civil rights movement. Graetz was the only white pastor who openly supported the Montgomery bus boycott and became the target of scorn and bombings for doing so. The new school names were given two years after education officials vowed to strip the Confederate namesakes. A debate over the school names began amid protests over racial inequality following the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. Someone ripped down a statue of Lee outside his namesake school during the demonstrations. Like many other Confederate-named schools, Lee — named for the Confederate Army general — opened as an all-white school in 1955 as the South was actively fighting integration. Davis, named for the Confederate president, opened in 1968. But white flight after integration orders and shifting demographics meant the schools became heavily African American. The Montgomery City Council last year voted to rename Jeff Davis Avenue for attorney Fred D. Gray. Gray grew up on the street during the Jim Crow era and went on to represent clients, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. After the street name change, the Alabama attorney general’s office told city officials to pay a $25,000 fine or face a lawsuit for violating a state law protecting Confederate monuments and other longstanding memorials. The city paid the fine in order to remove the Confederate reference. Republished with the permission of The Associated Press.
Steve Flowers: Prison issue tackled, new prisons on the way
The problem of overcrowded prisons is a dilemma that has been facing Alabama for close to a decade. It was not something that Kay Ivey created. She simply inherited the situation, and the chickens have come home to roost during her tenure. To her credit, she did not hide from the issue. She has tackled it head-on and with gusto and resolve. She and the legislature were and are under the gun because the U.S. Justice Department is breathing down their necks to resolve the inequities and unconstitutional conditions in our prisons. When you get into a scenario where the Justice Department adamantly demands some concrete resolutions, you have to act. Otherwise, they will take over the state’s prison system, mandate the resolutions, and hand you the bill. Just ask California. The Justice Department is not only building new prisons at the Golden State’s expense but also releasing a good many of their prisoners. The bottom line is if the Justice Department will mandate and take over the California Prison System, you can bet your bottom dollar that they will do the same to Alabama. We have been down this path before. Years ago, in the 1960s, during all the segregation and civil rights wars raging in the Heart of Dixie, the federal courts took over Alabama’s prison system. Governor George Wallace and Justice Frank Johnson were law school classmates and friends. Johnson was married to his lovely wife, Ruth Jenkins, while in law school. Ruth was an excellent cook, and they would have George over for dinner. Their friendship ended when they clashed over civil rights and integration. Johnson handed down most of the rulings that integrated schools and other institutions throughout the state, while Wallace lambasted Johnson daily as a scallywagging, carpetbagging, integrating liberal. Wallace won the demagogic battle and rode it to being governor for eternity. However, Johnson and the federal courts won the war. Judge Johnson took over the state prisons, and the bill was so costly that it took the State of Alabama 25 years to dig out of the financial hole. Kay Ivey is old enough to remember this disastrous solution for Alabama. That is probably why she took the bull by the horns and declared boldly in her State of the State address over two years ago that this is an Alabama problem and we need to find an Alabama solution. Gov. Kay Ivey and probably, more importantly, the state legislature has worked to resolve this imminent and pressing problem. This current Special Session called by Governor Ivey to address the need for new prisons will more than likely resolve the issue for at least the next 25 to 30 years. The legislative leadership and governor have worked prudently and harmoniously to implement a solution to this prison overcrowding issue. This joint success follows months of negotiations between Ivey and legislative leaders in determining the scope and scale of the project. The two General Fund Budget Chairmen, Representative Steve Clouse and Senator Greg Albritton deserve a lot of credit and accolades for orchestrating the pieces of the puzzle. Ivey and legislators knew that the gravity of the situation required the governor calling a Special Session. The solution will be to build two new men’s prisons with at least 4,000 beds, one in Elmore County and one in Escambia County, in addition to a new 1,000 bed women’s correctional facility in Elmore County. The new Elmore men’s facility will provide enhanced medical and mental health, substance abuse and educational programming as suggested by the Justice Department. The two new men’s prisons will cost an estimated $1.2 billion, and the women’s prison and renovations of existing prisons will cost between $600 to $700 million. The prisons will be paid for by a $785 million bond issue. The salvation for the plan was the state receiving $400 million from the federal American Recovery Plan ACT (“ARPA”), which was like manna from heaven. The heroes for their area and constituents were Senator Greg Albritton of Escambia and Senator Clyde Chambliss of Elmore, who won the new prisons for their people. These prisons are an economic bonanza for Elmore and Escambia. Chambliss got two. Hopefully, this will resolve this issue for at least a few decades. We will see. See you next week. Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His weekly column appears in over 60 Alabama newspapers. He served 16 years in the state legislature. Steve may be reached at www.steveflowers.us.
Steve Flowers: Prison issue unresolved
There were two major issues not resolved during the just-completed regular legislative session. Gambling and prisons were left on the table and up in the air. It is foolish to not address a resolution to get some revenues for the state from gambling which currently exists in Alabama. However, it is not imperative that the problem be solved. The prison problem is another question. It has to be addressed. The federal courts will take over Alabama’s prisons and tell the governor and legislature what to do to alleviate the crisis. The federal courts will win that fight every day of the week. They will act and give the legislature the bill for the expenses. It is happening now in California, and the same scenario happened in Alabama five decades ago during the George Wallace versus Frank Johnson era. Judge Johnson prevailed and told Alabama what to do with prisons and sent them the bill. The legislature, governor, and U.S. Justice Department agree that Alabama has to have three new prisons to alleviate unconstitutional overcrowding. The governor proposed privatizing leasing three new men’s prisons. Governor Kay Ivey and the Alabama Department of Corrections proposed a lease project as the solution to replace many of Alabama’s aging overcrowded and understaffed prisons. In February, Ivey signed a 30-year lease agreement for two of the three new prisons unilaterally, without legislative authority or input. The national firm, Core Civic, was chosen to receive the lease agreement and to build new prisons in Elmore and Escambia counties. However, the privatization plan has been thwarted by the Private Prison Firm’s inability to garner financing. In May, Bloomberg News reported that all three banks that were to finance the venture were backing out completely. The lease plan expired on June 1. Therefore, the route that legislative leaders prefer is that the state owns the prisons and pass a bond issue to pay for them. Legislative leaders, primarily and importantly Finance Committee Chairmen Steve Clouse of Ozark and Arthur Orr of Decatur, believe that there needs to be a Special Session called by Governor Ivey to address the building of three new men’s prisons and floating a bond issue to pay for them with the state owning the prisons. Representative Clouse has brought up another valid reason for there to be a Special Session regarding prisons. The state received guidelines in the waning hours of the session from the Treasury Department on using the four billion dollars Alabama is expected to receive for state and local governments under the American Rescue Plan passed by Congress. The legislature will be the appropriator of that money. It may well could be used by the state for prisons. Another factor that will be on the table are the locations of the prisons. A change from the lease plan to a prison bond issue would probably alter the locations to land already owned by the Department of Corrections. This land is available and was actually purchased adjacent to the current prisons at the time new prisons were last built over three decades ago during the last Wallace Administration. This land around the prisons was purchased for future expansions. During the planning, a blue-ribbon study commission was hired to determine the best locations for the prisons. The commission suggested that they should be near the metropolitan areas of the state. Wallace looked at the proposal and said that looks good, but I think we will probably put those prisons in Barbour County. Gov. Wallace’s home county was Barbour. The bottom line is that the prison lease plan proposed by the governor is dead. The other given is that new prisons have to be built to address a myriad of problems that have been outlined in the Justice Department suit. This issue has to be addressed. Therefore, it looks imminent that at least two Special Sessions are in store for this year – one on reapportionment of legislative and congressional districts and one on prisons. We lost our oldest past governor, Gov. John Patterson, on June 5. Gov. Patterson passed away at his ancestral home at age 99, surrounded by his family. Patterson was governor from 1959-1963. He defeated Gov. Wallace in the 1958 Governor’s Race, which featured a field of 14 candidates. Patterson was attorney general of Alabama prior to being elected governor. See you next week. Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His column appears in over 60 Alabama Newspapers. Steve served 16 years in the state legislature. Steve may be reached at www.steveflowers.us.
Steve Flowers: New Year Begins. It’s a Presidential Year
Steve Flowers discusses the upcoming Presidential election.
Steve Flowers: Frank Johnson the Legend and the Free State of Winston
Those of us who are Baby Boomers remember the tumultuous times of the 1960’s. We lived through the Civil Rights revolution. Those of us who grew up here in the Heart of Dixie witnessed the transpiring of racial integration first hand. Most of the crusades and struggles occurred here in Alabama, especially Montgomery. A good many of the landmark Civil Rights court decisions were handed down in the Federal Court in Montgomery. The author and renderer of these epic rulings was one, Frank M. Johnson, Jr. Johnson served as Federal Judge in the Middle District of Alabama for 24 years from 1955 through 1979. Johnson’s judicial decisions brought death threats to him and his family from whites opposed to integration. He was vilified by most white Alabamians at that time and became George Wallace’s favorite whipping boy. Wallace referred to him as a “lying, scalawagging, carpetbagging integrationist.” Frank Johnson, Jr. was born in Winston County in October, 1918. Winston County attempted to stay neutral during the Civil War. It was a Republican stronghold in an overwhelmingly Democratic Alabama. In contrast to the Black Belt planters in South Alabama, the people who settled North Alabama were small farmers. The land they settled on was hilly and not as conducive to growing cotton. Rather than large plantations and slaves, the fiercely independent hill country farmers had 40 acres and a mule. Therefore, when the winds of division between North and South began to blow in the 1850’s, an obvious political difference between North and South Alabamians arose. In 1860 there were only 14 slave owners in Winston County. With the election of Abraham Lincoln, the crucial decision of secession arose. Contrary to what most present-day Alabamians think, it was not an easy unified decision that we should leave the Union. A secession convention was held in January, 1861, in Montgomery. The vote was extremely close. The delegates split 54-46 for secession. The Black Belters from South Alabama were for creating a confederacy of southern states to protect their slave ownership and way of life. The hill farmers from North Alabama preferred to not secede. These North Alabamians voted against secession from the Union at that time. Shortly after the secession convention, citizens of Winston County met at a local establishment, Looney’s Tavern. These yeoman farmers of the hills were obviously reluctant to leave the Union for the cause of the planter and his slaves. Legend has it that on July 4, 1861, the good people of Winston County decided to secede from Alabama and remain in the Union. That is why they are known in Alabama political history and folklore as, “The Free State of Winston.” That same sort of independent streak was a hallmark of the Johnson family who were some of the earliest settlers of Winston County. Judge Johnson’s father served as one of the few Republicans in the Alabama Legislature in the first half of the 20th century. Frank Johnson, Jr studied law at the University of Alabama and graduated at the top of his law school class in 1943. He then distinguished himself as a U.S. Army officer in World War II. He was wounded at Normandy and received the Purple Heart. After the war, he settled in Winston County and began practicing law in Jasper. Although the Democratic Party dominated southern politics, Johnson was a lifelong, Winston County Republican. Therefore, he led the 1952 Dwight Eisenhower campaign for President in the state. After Eisenhower became president, he rewarded Johnson with a federal judgeship. In 1955-1956, shortly after taking his seat on the bench, Johnson became involved in a formative event of the Civil Rights movement. Rosa Parks was arrested for violating a Montgomery ordinance requiring racial segregation on the city buses. In response, the African American community organized a boycott of the bus system and nominated Reverend Martin Luther King as its leader. Johnson ruled that the Montgomery ordinance violated the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. The ruling was the first of many by Johnson which eliminated racial segregation in public accommodations such as parks, libraries, bus stations, and airports during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Johnson’s decisions were legendary and groundbreaking. He became the central defender of Civil Rights in America from his Federal Bench in Montgomery. The Federal Courthouse in Montgomery is now named in his honor. Judge Johnson died in 1999. See you next week. ••• Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His weekly column appears in over 60 Alabama newspapers. He served 16-years in the state legislature. Steve may be reached at www.steveflowers.us.
