New Mental Health Crisis Center Aims to Interrupt Revolving Door of Jail and ER Visits
The new clinic in Jefferson County will offer short-term crisis care to people who might otherwise wait hours at a hospital or wind up in jail. Read more.
Virginia Martin
Author Documents Police Killings of African Americans During Jim Crow
In the spring of 1941, outside a movie theater in Fairfield, John Jackson waited with his girlfriend to see a show. A white police officer ordered Jackson and the other people in line, all African Americans, to clear the sidewalk. But Jackson, laughing and joking with his girlfriend, did not hear the order. When challenged by one officer, Jackson asked, “Can’t I laugh?” The police officers forced Jackson into the back of their squad car, beat him severely and shot him four times. He died before reaching the police station. Three years later, in Donalsonville, Georgia, an “elderly Negro woman” did or said something (or perhaps, nothing at all) that displeased the white clerk in a general store. The 20-year-old clerk followed the woman outside and beat her to death with an ax handle. Neither the Fairfield cop nor the store clerk, or countless other white killers like them, went to jail for their crimes. White-on-black violence was both a result and a pillar of Jim Crow. For African American men and women, even “the most commonplace encounters” with whites could turn lethal. And it is this aspect of the Jim Crow system, in which whites could do violence to black people with impunity, all the while being empowered and protected by the legal system, that is the focus of Margaret A. Burnham’s new book “By Hands Now Known.” Read more.
6 Ways the Conversation Around a Guaranteed Income in the US Has Changed
A guaranteed income conference held in Atlanta shows how the movement has progressed since 2017, with more than 50 pilots currently handing out cash. Read more.
Tyson Pushes for Saturday Absentee Voting, Commissioners Demur
Sheila Tyson was determined to have her say. The Jefferson County commissioner whose resolution to open the courthouse for absentee Saturday voting declared that commissioners who voted against the matter going onto today’s agenda were wrong to not open the courthouse. Arguing for in-person absentee voting on two Saturdays in October, Tyson said the underlying problem is voter suppression. “Voter suppression is rampant here in the state of Alabama because that's the only reason I can see why these doors are not open,” she said. Read more.
Army Corps Studying Dams, Fish Flow in Alabama River
The Army Corps of Engineers is in year one of a three-year study of possible ways to get fish around two dams on the Alabama river - the Millers Ferry Lock and Dam, southwest of Selma, and the Claiborne Lock and Dam, northwest of Monroeville. “The basic idea is to restore a fish passage to the lower Alabama River and to connect the Cahaba River to allow the passage of fish naturally up the Alabama River into the Cahaba River, as was historically the case,” said Paul Johnson, program supervisor at the Alabama Aquatic Biodiversity Center. Read more.
Gulf States rank at the bottom for climate-adapted housing. Organizers want to change that.
As natural disasters and extreme weather become more frequent in the Gulf South, a new report hopes to be a road map to providing more climate-adapted housing. Read more.
Birmingham Councilors Allege Promises Broken but City Still Renews Via Contract
The Birmingham City Council voted Tuesday to renew its contract with the ridesharing service Via, despite frustration from some councilors that promises of expanding the program had not been kept. Under the contract, the city will pay Via up to $2.64 million per year to provide transit services in the city for a term “not to exceed three years.” Every 12 months, the council will have the option to continue funding or to cancel the partnership. Even so, some councilors expressed anger that they were being asked to recommit to an organization that had not fulfilled its promises to expand its services, despite previous increases in city funding ostensibly for that purpose. Read more.
Scottsboro is home to the largest gray bat summer cave. They’re leaving for the winter
At Sauta Cave anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000 gray bats emerge to feast on insects. It’s thought to be the largest emergence of bats east of the Mississippi River, a spectacle that draws curious onlookers from across Alabama. Read more.
COVID-19 Takes Another Dip in Alabama
COVID-19 continues to trend downward in Alabama and this week is averaging about 90% fewer average daily cases and hospitalizations than when the state hit its all-time peak in January. Read more.
Birmingham’s New Xpress Rapid Bus Line Gives Residents a New Option to Travel Across the City
The Birmingham Xpress is a single route that runs east to west between Five Points West and Woodlawn. A total of 32 stops take riders by places such as Princeton Baptist Hospital, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Railroad Park and Sloss Furnace. Read more.