Category: Alabama

Whitman Sampler -- Part 2

7/17/2019

From our senior book reviewer, Philo Remington:

For all of you Whitman fans out there (Walt – not his brother Wink):

I recently visited the “Encompassing Multitudes: The Song of Walt Whitman” exhibit at the University of Virginia – a celebration of the bicentennial of the birth of the great American poet. The exhibit – which closes on July 27th – includes a generous amount of information about the poet’s life and numerous and noteworthy copies of the ever-evolving “Leaves of Grass.” Information about the exhibit is HERE.

An additional feature of the exhibit was the inclusion of videos from a documentary series called “Whitman Alabama” – “an ongoing project that brings the poem (“Song of Myself”) to life through the voices of Alabama residents.”

Information about the project is HERE.

From the PBS News Hour about "Whitman Alabama": "The result is a deeply affirmative, wise, strange and sometimes funny set of 52 mini-documentaries or episodes, each dedicated to a different verse. In these videos, Whitman is recited in the most unlikely places: in a drug court, on a baseball field, at a skate park, on a farm, in a plane. "

Check out Verse 1 below:

Text to Verse 1, Song of Myself:

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same,
and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

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Bad Apples

3/8/2019

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From our political correspondent, Dorothy Dawe:

The old saying goes that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, so many tweeters on Twitter turned the spotlight to the parents of Alabama teens when a house party video of high school students went viral with the teens caught in racist rants

As just one member of a group from the ELD Museum and Board of the Dickinson Organization of Poetry Enthusiasts who traveled to Alabama this past summer (our travelogue is HERE), I was very interested in this story. Did the racist teens in the video reflect the state of Alabama we experienced?

Although we did not experience any blatant, public racism on our trip, I do have to say that this story did not surprise me in the least. In truth, it seemed quite evident during our visit that generation after generation in the Cotton State has passed the torch of racism -- now in the form of a tiki torch -- to their youth.

Below: Just a very small handful of tweets that focused on the Alabama teens' parents:

Below: At least one mother from Hoover, Alabama chimed in to point out, "Not everyone from Hoover or from Alabama is like this...." However, another Alabamian stated, "This is the Alabama norm."

Below: Two tweets from students from Spain Park High School who state that "this does not represent us as a whole":

Below: An interesting take from "EmmasMom" on Twitter who noted disparate views between Spain Park's "white kids on twitter" and the school's black students. "I'll take the black kids word on this one," she confessed.

At the right: Evidently a longer version of the video had been posted; however, it was removed from YouTube for "violating Youtube's policy on hate speech."

If you're from Alabama, I'd love to hear from you about your experience and views in the Heart of Dixie. Did the racist teen video surprise you at all -- or was it just another day in Alabama? Please comment below.

In response to my post on the viral video of racist teens, I heard from @AnnaJussme on Twitter. Here's what she had to say:

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Sleazy Rider

2/20/2019

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From our political correspondent, Dorothy Dawe:

As seen on twitter -- here from @ByChipBrownlee -- Alabama publisher Goodloe Sutton's editorial "Klan needs to ride again":

Mr. Brownlee's take: "Check the date (February 14, 2019). A paper published this in 2019. Wow."

Are you surprised? We're not -- for several reasons.

First, In the era of Trump, nothing like this is surprising. Trump and the GOP have abandoned their dog whistles, and they've brought out the bull horns. White supremacists are emboldened by Trump's racism and white nationalistic views and rhetoric.

Second, we visited Alabama this past summer and saw first hand the racist legacy of the state's dark past. A travelogue of our trip is HERE. Slavery in the state evolved in the 19th century from a "necessary evil" to an ingrained and accepted construct of their society. This structure is still present today, and it manifests itself in many ways -- from the overt (current political constructs) to the subtle (for example, the dismissive {and almost completely hidden} coverage of the Klan in the state's Archive's exhibit of 400 years of Alabama History) to the comical (when driving to the Brown Chapel AME Church in Slema, our GPS told us to "turn right on Jefferson Davis Parkway").

Third, in the special senate election in 2017, 48% of the voters in Alabama cast votes for racist Roy Moore -- and in neighboring Mississippi, the voters these chose a daughter of the Confederacy to send to the senate.

So were we surprised that in 2019 Klansman Sutton published his editorial?

In a word, no.

More of our posts on Alabama, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

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The Torch Is Passed

8/25/2018

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From our travel editor, Alveena Holcomb:

A group of members of the Dickinson Organization of Poetry Enthusiasts traveled to Alabama recently to visit civil rights sites in Montgomery, Selma, and Birmingham. A travelogue with information (and lots of pictures) is HERE. We also have a companion piece called “ALABANDONED: Alabama – State of Disrepair” about many of the abandoned and vacant buildings we came across -- HERE.

In viewing many of the sites and investigating the history of the state, it is clear that a significant portion of the population in Alabama (and, by extension, the South…and the county?) struggles with deep rooted racist beliefs. We discuss in our travelogue how slavery in the south evolved from a “necessary evil” to an accepted aspect of the region’s culture. As a result, the legacy passed on from one generation to the next profoundly established prejudicial attitudes within their system of values.

This called to mind Emmett Lee Dickinson’s poem “The incidents of hate,” (below on the left). Dickinson’s poem inspired third cousin Emily to pen her poem “The incidents” of love” (below on the right).

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

The incidents of hate
Were born in these Events –
Investments past Progenitors
Passed on to their Descents –

By Emily Dickinson:

The incidents of love
Are more than its Events –
Investment’s best Expositor
Is the minute Per Cents –

Below: The Legacy of Slavery and the Ku Klux Klan: The torch is passed from generation to generation.

Far Left: Edmund Pettus, officer in the Confederate States Army and Grand Dragon of the KKK. Left: Selma, Alabama, Sheriff Jim Clark. Right: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, the current Confederate General of the United States. Far Right: White supremacists and Trump supporters – the legacy of the Trump campaign and administration (some of whom – according to Trump – are very fine people).

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Super Tuesday (Shame on the 48%)

12/13/2017

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From our 19th century historian, Eudora Dickinson:

Before the results came in last night, I had started writing a post about the special election in Alabama. I really thought that Alabamans would elect so-called Judge Roy Moore, and I was going to open with the following line: “It is stunning that a majority of voters in Alabama voted a known sexual predator and pedophile into the US Senate. I am at a loss for words.”

Of course, so-called Judge Roy Moore did not win. Doug Jones won. Therefore, I will begin in this way: It is stunning that a majority of voters in Alabama, a solidly red state, elected a Democrat into the US Senate.

Doug Jones is certainly a man of good sense and integrity. Still, I really thought that in such a deep red state that disgusting and abhorrent behavior would trump veracity and decency. Party over principle.

Yet Doug Jones won.

Still, 48% or 650,000-plus Alabamans – most of whom, I suspect, would classify themselves as “Christians” – cast votes for a serial predator and a credibly accused pedophile. One woman (pictured in the tweet at the right) actually said she voted for Roy Moore because he is "closer to God."

“Closer to God”? Seriously?

In his election night concession speech – after he exclaimed that “God is always in control” – Moore went on to bewail, “what we’ve got to do is wait on God and let this process play out.”

Wait on God? Didn’t God see him gallop up to the voting booth on poor ol' Sassy? Didn’t God guide the voters in their selections?

This phony faith and specious religiosity is repulsive – and it’s not the first time counterfeit “Christians” cast ballots for a miscreant.

Back in the late 1800s, 48% of the electorate in Alabama cast votes for Smudgely Moore, a convicted felon and distant relative of Roy Moore’s, for a post in their state government. Fortunately, goodness prevailed in that election too, and Smudgely lost.

Pictured at the right: Smudgely Moore

Emmett Lee Dickinson (Emily Dickinson’s third cousin, twice removed – at her request) wrote a scornful poem about the disgrace of the spurious “Christians” who voted for Moore and the “shame” of their party line vote.

Dickinson's poem, "Shame is now Crimson Red," is below on the left. His poem inspired third cousin Emily to pen her poem "Shame is the shawl of Pink" (below on the right).

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

Shame is now Crimson Red
In which they’ve wrapped their Souls
They keep it in a Christian Guise
An incidental Veil
Which all the World sees through
When morals are obscene
Repugnant is their disrepute
Shame is the party line

By Emily Dickinson:

Shame is the shawl of Pink
In which we wrap the Soul
To keep it from infesting Eyes –
The elemental Veil
Which helpless Nature drops
When pushed upon a scene
Repugnant to her probity –
Shame is the tint divine.

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No Moore

12/3/2017

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From our 19th century historian, Eudora Dickinson:

The special election in Alabama is coming soon, and tbh (as they say), there really is only one choice. Some GOP leaders and "Christian" leaders in the state, though, have claimed all allegations against Roy Moore are false, cooked up by the Main Stream Media and the East Coast Elite -- even though it was citizens of Alabama who banned them man from a shopping mall, and it was Alabama police officers who warned high schools to protect their cheerleaders from this man.

It turns out that problems with sexual misconduct go way-back in the Moore family.

Back in the late 1800s, a distant relative of Moore's by the name of Lester "Les" Moore ran for the office of Governor of Alabama as a candidate for the Straight Talking American Government (STAG) Party. However, about one month before the election, scandal rocked the state after The Birmingham News published stories of Moore's disgraceful past as women stepped forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct. Though many in Alabama tried to defend the miscreant's wrong-doings, he lost the race and faded into ignominy.

Pictured at the right: Les Moore (a distant relative of Roy Moore) and his wife Orpha.

Emmett Lee Dickinson (Emily Dickinson's third cousin, twice removed -- at her request) wrote a poem about the scandal, "The Dame undressed -- Herself" (below on the left). His poem inspired third cousin Emily to pen her poem "The Day undressed -- Herself" (below on the right).

By Emmett Lee Dickinson:

The Dame undressed – Herself –
Her Garter – was of Blue –
Her Petticoat – of Purple plain –
Her Dignity – was through

Exactly – now the World
Knows of his youngest Star –
He rolled upon her Hemisphere
And crippled – much of Her –

“I swear to God – I say
I swear to Heaven – and all –
The Lady who’s in Question here
I really can’t recall –”

His Scandal won’t expire
The fallout’s to be seen
A Man of such intolerance
And Doom – and now in Pain –

By Emily Dickinson:

The Day undressed – Herself –
Her Garter – was of Gold –
Her Petticoat – of Purple plain –
Her Dimities – as old

Exactly – as the World –
And yet the newest Star –
Enrolled upon the Hemisphere
Be wrinkled – much as Her –

Too near to God – to pray –
Too near to Heaven – to fear –
The Lady of the Occident
Retired without a care –

Her Candle so expire
The flickering be seen
On Ball of Mast in Bosporus –
And Dome – and Window Pane –

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Whitman Sampler -- Part 2

Bad Apples

Sleazy Rider

The Torch Is Passed

Super Tuesday (Shame on the 48%)

No Moore

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