Alabama Capital renames Confederate street to honor civil rights leader Fred Gray
The first capital of the Confederacy has renamed a street honoring the Confederate president to recognize a Black civil rights lawyer instead, despite an Alabama law meant to protect rebel monuments and memorials. The Montgomery City Council voted Tuesday night to rename Jeff Davis Avenue for attorney Fred D. Gray, who grew up on the street during the Jim Crow era and went on to represent clients including Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. “When I think of heroes who exemplify the best in our city, (Gray) is certainly at the forefront of that,” said Mayor Steven Reed, the city’s first Black mayor. He initially proposed the change in December. The City Council’s unanimous approval could prompt a $25,000 fine under a state law passed in 2017 to prevent the removal or alteration of Confederate monuments, which have been challenged and taken down across the South, but Reed told news outlets donors already had offered to pay the penalty for the city, where delegates voted to form the Confederacy in 1861. Gray, 90, still practices law in Tuskegee, located east of Montgomery. He told the Montgomery Advertiser the city had kept him informed. “This is a project of the mayor’s,” he said. “He expressed it to me. I was very happy about it. And I am very happy about it.” Gray was a young lawyer when Parks was arrested for refusing to give her bus seat to a white man in 1955 in defiance of the city’s segregation laws. He represented both her and King, then a young pastor who led the yearlong bus boycott that followed. Gray is currently representing Tuskegee residents in a lawsuit aimed at removing a Confederate monument from a public square in the nearly all-Black city. A spokesman for the attorney general’s office didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment on whether the state would attempt to collect fine money from the city for renaming the street. The state recently collected a $25,000 fine after suing officials in Huntsville, where the county removed a Confederate memorial outside the county courthouse last year. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day service calls for nonviolence amid turbulent times
Speakers at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. holiday celebration in Atlanta called Monday for a renewed dedication to nonviolence following a turbulent year in which a deadly pandemic, protests over systemic racism, and a divisive election capped by an attack on the U.S. Capitol strained Americans’ capacity for civility. “This King holiday has not only come at a time of great peril and physical violence, it has also come during a time of violence in our speech — what we say and how we say it,” said the Rev. Bernice King, the slain civil rights leader’s daughter. “It is frankly out of control and we are causing too much harm to one another.” The coronavirus pandemic forced the annual King Day service at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church online during the 35th celebration of his birthday as a national holiday. His family was among a sparse group wearing masks and sitting far apart amid mostly empty pews as others delivered remarks remotely. Bernice King said the toll of the pandemic, lingering outrage over killings of unarmed Black people and the deadly siege in Washington by supporters of President Donald Trump all underscore an urgent need to pursue what her father called “the beloved community” — a world in which conflict is solved nonviolently and compassion dictates policy. She quoted her father’s words from more than 50 years ago: “There is such a thing as being too late.” “We still have a choice today — nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation,” Bernice King said, again reciting the words of her father. “This may well be mankind’s last chance to choose between chaos and community.” The ceremony included prerecorded remarks by President-elect Joe Biden, who recalled sensing the civil rights leader’s “restless spirit” during a visit to the National Civil Rights Museum housed at the Tennessee motel where he was fatally shot outside his room. “We must not rest. It’s our responsibility to come together, all Americans, to bring peace to that restless spirit,” Biden said. ”… That’s our charge in the days ahead. That’s the charge in the years ahead.” U.S. Sen.-elect Raphael Warnock, Ebenezer’s pastor, appealed for unity following his victory in a runoff election Jan. 5. “Let us stand together, let us work together,” Warnock said, calling the COVID-19 pandemic a reminder that all people are “tied together, as Dr. King said, in a single garment of destiny.” “Because we’re dealing with a deadly airborne disease, my neighbor coughs and I’m imperiled by the cough of my neighbor,” Warnock said. “That doesn’t make my neighbor my enemy. That means that our destiny is tied together.” Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968, while supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Had he lived, he would have turned 92 on his birthday last Friday. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Martin Luther King holiday offers stage for Democratic hopefuls
As Americans commemorate Martin Luther King Jr., Democratic presidential hopefuls are fanning out across the country to honor the civil rights leader and make themselves heard on the national stage. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., used the holiday to launch a presidential campaign that, if successful, would make her the first woman and the second black candidate to become president. South Carolina, a critical early-voting state in the Democratic primary, hosted two senators expected to seek the White House in 2020: Cory Booker of New Jersey and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. In the nation’s capital, two possible 2020 contenders, former Vice President Joe Biden and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke at a breakfast celebrating King’s life that was held by the Rev. Al Sharpton. Two candidates who have already opened exploratory committees — Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York — were also appearing at King-centered events. While the Democratic field for 2020 is only beginning to take shape, the year that would have marked King’s 90th birthday gives the party’s prominent members a valuable opportunity to address race and, potentially, draw a contrast between their own views and those of President Donald Trump, whose approach to questions of racial justice has sparked criticism from multiple minority groups since he took office. What Democratic contenders, both those officially in the race and those still mulling campaigns, said Monday while celebrating the King holiday: ___ JOE BIDEN Biden atoned for his role in the passage of a crime bill that imposed stiffer sentences for those convicted of crack cocaine possession — a law that has disproportionately affected the black community. Biden said he hasn’t “always gotten things right,” but has “always tried.” He also spoke about his support for efforts by former President Barack Obama’s administration to reduce crack possession sentences. Biden was the head of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee when the 1994 crime bill — which is now criticized as having helped create an era of mass incarceration — was passed and signed into law. “It was a big mistake that was made. We were told by the experts that ‘With crack you can never go back,’” Biden said. “It’s trapped an entire generation.” Biden says the crack sentencing guidelines are one example of broader racial injustice in America that needs to be fought. “White America has to admit there’s still a systematic racism. And it goes almost unnoticed by so many of us,” he said. ___ MICHAEL BLOOMBERG Speaking at the same event as Biden, Bloomberg said far too many U.S. politicians don’t “seem to give a damn” about the victims of gun violence. Bloomberg said many politicians care more about “getting re-elected than saving lives.” He spoke of his own efforts to reduce gun violence, including millions of his own fortune that he’s spent supporting gun control initiatives. His speech focused on policies he championed while New York’s mayor, such as his efforts to improve schools and reduce neighborhood pollution. And he highlighted how he apologized to the fiancee of Sean Bell, a black man who was shot to death by New York police in 2006, just hours before the man’s wedding. At the time Bloomberg was critical of officers, who he said used excessive force. ___ ELIZABETH WARREN In Boston, Warren called for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a right to vote for every American. Warren made the comment after saying “people of color have been systematically denied the most basic of human rights: the right to vote.” “It would guarantee the right to vote to every American citizen and make sure that that vote is counted. Right now there is no constitutional right,” Warren said. “It would help protect and give us grounds for pushing back when localities undercut the right of people to vote.” Warren said King’s fight was not just about civil rights, but also about economic rights. She said the road to prosperity is steep and rocky for millions of working people, but is “steeper and rockier for black and brown Americans.” Warren also criticized the president for the partial federal government shutdown and responded to Trump’s offer to Democrats on Saturday to open the government. “If the president wants to negotiate over immigration reform I’m all for it,” she said after the speech. “But open the government and open it now.” ___ BERNIE SANDERS Speaking in South Carolina, Sanders cited King’s “courage” in opposing U.S. military involvement in Vietnam as well as in fighting to end racial inequity. “Racial equality must be central to combatting economic inequality, if we are going to create a government that works for all of us, and not just the one percent,” Sanders said. Sanders lost South Carolina’s 2016 Democratic primary to Hillary Clinton by more than 40 percentage points. His presence at a Columbia church service Monday and a rally after, as well as several other events in the state, signaled that he plans to redouble efforts in South Carolina should he launch a second White House run. Sanders also spoke of King’s efforts to help workers organize and “change the national priorities,” leaning into what sounded like a campaign message-in-waiting on Monday. Among the specific proposals he cited were a federal jobs guarantee, free tuition at public colleges and universities, and universal access to child care. He also attacked the president, calling him “a racist” and saying he has purposely tried “to divide us up by the color of our skin, by our gender, by the country we came from, by our religion.” ___ CORY BOOKER Booker implored those gathered at South Carolina’s Statehouse to channel their dissatisfaction with the country’s direction into action. Recalling King’s words on needing to work toward change rather than waiting for it, Booker urged those in the crowd to build on their ancestors’ successes and struggles. “We are dissatisfied that we live in a society that’s being seduced by celebrity and forgets that substance is more important than celebrity,” Booker said. The New Jersey
Alabama lawmaker John Rogers seeks to separate MLK, Robert E. Lee holidays
A Birmingham lawmaker wants to separate the Alabama holiday that jointly honors slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Mississippi and Alabama are the only two states that on Monday will jointly honor King and Lee with a single state holiday. State Rep. John Rogers, a Birmingham Democrat, plans to introduce legislation to split the two and move Lee’s holiday to Confederate Memorial Day, which is held in April. “A lot of black folks feel like it diminishes Martin Luther King’s day to put it on the same day as Robert E. Lee,” Rogers said. Rogers said the state would still honor Lee but on a different day. He said he hoped that, and the fact that it would not alter the number of state holidays, would increase lawmakers’ receptiveness to the idea. Previous efforts to eliminate, or consolidate, Confederate holidays in Alabama have been unsuccessful. “I think it’s got a fair chance, but I don’t know. It is Alabama,” Rogers said of the outlook for his legislation. The Birmingham Democrat joked that neither man would likely want to be celebrated with the other. Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a federal holiday that was designated by Congress in 1983. Alabama already had a state holiday on the third Monday in January honoring Lee. For decades, Alabama has had a single holiday honoring both men. King was born Jan. 15, 1929. Lee was born Jan. 19, 1807. Alabama has three state holidays honoring Confederate figures. In addition to King-Lee Day, the state marks Confederate Memorial Day in April and the birthday of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in June. Legislation filed by Democrats in Mississippi would do away with the official state holidays honoring Lee and Confederate Memorial Day. The Mississippi Department of Revenue this week drew a backlash on Twitter for a tweet noting that the office would be closed Monday “in honor of General Robert E. Lee’s birthday and Martin Luther King Jr. Day.” The department later deleted the tweet. Wayne Flynt, the author of several history books on Southern history, said white Southerners in the late 1800s and early 1900s began creating monuments and memorials to the Confederacy and soldiers who died in the Civil War. Some Southern states have eliminated or reduced Confederate holidays, seeking to cut ties with the Old South and slavery. Arkansas in 2017 ended its dual holiday for Lee and King. The state now honors King alone in January. Georgia in 2015 struck the name “Confederate Memorial Day.” It is now known as “state holiday.” Asked for comment on the Alabama bill, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey’s press office said she would review the proposal. “Like the members of the Alabama Legislature, Governor Ivey gives each piece of legislation full consideration. The governor will review the bill as it makes its way through the legislative process,” Ivey spokesman Daniel Sparkman wrote in an email. Alabama lawmakers designated Dec. 1 as a day to honor civil rights leader Rosa Parks. However, the day honoring Parks is not a full-fledged holiday in which state offices close. The Alabama legislative session begins March 5. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
