by Stephen Fox » Tue Jul 09, 2013 11:00 am
Here is a piece I submitted to the TJ published July 3.
Letters for Publication
The Times-Journal
Ft. Payne Alabama
The Editors:
September 27, 1978 I purchased a copy of Will Campbell's Brother to A Dragonfly. I was pretty much spellbound reading second month in Knoxville, Tn after sixteen years in Gaffney, South Carolina the last ten years of which stay had a strong undercurrent of church and school race politics.
I first became acquainted with Will the fall of 73 when the Chaplains brought him to Furman. Then later began to understand the impression he made on Marshall Frady and I was pretty much a disciple.
Will died June 3. If you read the several reports about him in NY Times, Bham News,ABPnews.com and baptistlife.com you get an inkling of his significance. Campbell was the only white man to show up at the Lorraine Motel and be embraced without question the night Martin Luther King was assassinated yet he was a friend of Sam Bowers, the man who was the archetype for the evil Klan genius in the movie Mississippi Burning.
Present at his June 22 Memorial service outside Nashville was John Siegenthaler, friend of the Kennedy administration and longtime friend of Campbell and editor of the Nashville Tennessean. Waylon Jennings widow sang His Eye is on The Sparrow.
Will was on stage in Montgomery in the late 90s with some Collinsville 8th graders including the oldest son of one of the wealthiest and politically influential man in the town, several outstanding Hispanics from first wave of influx into the community and several others of color for which Collinsville has been historically known in DeKalb Coouty of NE Alabama.
It was a function of the Pacers project of the University of Alabama. Will Campbell was a mentor to Jack Shelton, the founder of the program. And then Collinsville principal Sammy Clanton was statewide president of the Pacers Project for Rural schools.
When I brought all this to the attention of the local Historical Association on their facebook wall, it stoked a process that led to my being blocked from participation on that site. I hope in a few weeks they will reconsider their mistake. I am willing to meet with the most fairminded of their group and hopefully be readmitted in good standing in that conversation I have come to enjoy most of the time.
In this 50th anniversary of Civil Rights struggle in Alabama I earlier also brought to the community's attention an online story of 2002 in the LA Times about the walk of William Moore through DeKalb County in April 1963. That reminder got some hazing as well.
That is sad, but in some ways understandable given the analysis of Wayne Flynt and a UGA proff in an excelled and easily googled piece at WBHM.org on the 50th anniversary of George Wallace stand in the schoolhouse door as reported June 11.
In that piece Flynt said:
"I think Wallace’s lasting legacy is the polarization that has made Alabama to this day not only the most conservative of American states but also most racially polarized."
Wayne Flynt is a former history professor at Auburn University and is the author ofAlabama: The History of a Southern State.
"In the 2008 presidential election between Obama and John McCain Alabama had the most divided populace of any state in the United States. 98% of African Americans voted for Barack Obama and more than 90% of whites voted for John McCain."
REcently I was rereading a late 90's pamphlet of the Baptist Historical Society, the whole issue devoted to a take on Baptists and the Civil Rights Movement. It was noted than even as late as the 90s Civil Rights history was rarely mentioned in white Baptist churches, and when it was pastors often reported frowns in the congregation.
Now these folks in Collinsville aren't bad people. There are only about 7 folks out of the 2,000 or so in South Dekalb County hard for me to get along with and I hope this opinion piece doesn't double that number. But when what passes for what one woman called the local "aristocracy" is so averse to honest history, what hope is there for integrity in social studies education and a more informed electorate.
That is where Ben Shurett's good piece on Frank Rose and the school house door may have a lesson for this region of NE Bama. Shurett said:
In his obit in 91, it was said of Rose: "The University President who described himself as neither a seg or an integrationist, but a realist, had vowed to ensure obedience to the laws and peace on the campus". I hope to advance that notion with an analogy to the CHA in my submission to the TJ. Shurett said in those days he met Bobby Kennedy, Katzenbach and Wallace, the man who embodied the folly of backward thinking. End of quote
In the conundrum of the White moderate in the South, sooner or later, somebody has to risk advancing the conversation for the common good, for something better. That is where Will Campbell made a much bigger difference than Frank Rose, though Frank Rose was a good man. And that is what seems to be lacking in Collinsville, Alabama, folks who can maintain good standing in the community while pointing out discrepancies between what passes for the best in the community holds as their image and actual practice, and the places where that image stifles others who may have just as much or more character and ability than themselves seeks to engage the conversation causes unnecessary resentments.
My family on my Mother's side goes back back to the 1840s in the Collinsville vicinity. My Great Grandfather was born in 1841 and buried in Rocky Mounty cemetery. I look forward to being back on the Historical Association Faceback wall soon.
"I'm the only sane {person} in here." Doyle Hargraves, Slingblade
"Midget, Broom; Helluva campaign". Political consultant, "Oh, Brother..."http://www.foxofbama.blogspot.com or google asfoxseesit