Virginia Martin

Absentee Ballot Season Gets Underway

Absentee ballots started showing up in county offices and going out in the mail Wednesday, which was the deadline for absentee election managers to be provided with absentee ballots and supplies. Usually, Alabama voters must fit into narrowly defined categories to be able to vote by absentee. But for the general election, Secretary of State John Merrill has approved absentee voting for any voter who has concerns about the coronavirus. Read more about voting in the general election and voting by absentee.

by BirminghamWatch

JeffCo Commissioners Discuss $199 Million Budget With One-Time Longevity Bonuses for County Employees

Jefferson County commissioners are set Thursday to consider a budget that would include $1.485 million for a one-time longevity payment to each county employee. On Tuesday, commissioners put the fiscal 2021 budget on the agenda for its official meeting later in the week. Commissioners Lashunda Scales and Sheila Tyson had fought vehemently for a cost-of-living adjustment to the salaries of county employees. Repeatedly, county attorney Theo Lawson and others responded by saying, “There is no COLA.” The county’s budget office brought two proposals to the table – a budget with a $1.1 million cost-of-living adjustment for county employees and another without that adjustment. Revenue Department Director Travis Hulsey brought another consideration, a one-time longevity payment based on years of service. Read more.

by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.

Approval of New License Plate Cameras Stir Up the ‘Defund the Police’ Argument in Birmingham

The Birmingham City Council voted Tuesday to approve the installation of 10 license plate recognition cameras as part of a deal with Alabama Power. The utility will install and maintain the cameras at a monthly cost of $2,291.67 to the city. The council passed the item unanimously but not without some public criticism. Keith O. Williams, a resident representing the community action group People’s Budget Birmingham, told councilors that his organization had written to all nine councilors Monday requesting a public hearing on the item but had received no response. The group was concerned, Williams said, over “excessive use of funds for the police department” during a year in which the city is facing a significant revenue shortfall due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more.

by Sam Prickett

This Commentary Is Excellent, According to Sources

President Trump claims The Atlantic “made up” its aghasting Thursday night report that the president has privately referred to dead American soldiers as “losers” and “suckers.” The magazine didn’t, as shown by subsequent confirmations by The Associated Press and other outlets. But it’s harder to refute claims of falseness when, as was the case here, a news organization relies solely on anonymous sources. “These weak, pathetic, cowardly background ‘sources’ do not have the courage or decency to put their names to these false accusations because they know how completely ludicrous they are,” a former deputy White House press secretary tweeted Thursday night. Even some members of mainstream media, while praising The Atlantic’s reporting, called on the sources in the story to come forward. Journalists have debated the ethics of this kind of attribution forever. They’ve also used it forever. Read more.

by Tom Arenberg

Remembering an Alabamian Driven to Figure Out How Things Worked

WBHM To understand how much Fred Bischoff loved to figure out how things worked, consider when he had surgery for a pacemaker at age 35. “He asked if he could be awake while they put the pacemaker in and they let him,” his daughter Lisa Higginbotham said. “[It] was absolutely crazy.” Bischoff was born in Birmingham and later settled in Montgomery where he and his wife raised three children. He died in June from COVID-19, one of more than 2,200 Alabamians who have died during the pandemic. He was 79. He came from a long line of mechanically-minded men in his family and his curiosity started early. As a kid he wanted to figure out how the wringer of a washing machine worked. But in doing so, his right arm was pulled in and his mother had to rescue him. He had scar for the rest of his life. Read more.

by Andrew Yeager, WBHM

UAB Doctor Questions Wisdom of Releasing a Vaccine Without Full Trials

UAB's director of infectious diseases Thursday questioned the safety of a COVID vaccine that might be released in October or early November. Dr. Jeanne Marazzo said she would want to assess the data used in development of the vaccine. She joins other scientists from across the country who have questioned whether the vaccine would be safe and effective after it had undergone such speedy clinical trials. Read more.

by Virginia MacDonald

Racist Textbooks Endured, Presenting Alternate ‘History’ to Alabama Students for 70 Years

Slaves in Alabama could thank their masters for providing them with one of the earliest versions of social security, according to a ninth grade textbook used for more than a decade in public schools. The textbook — Charles Grayson Summersell’s “Alabama History for Schools” — dismissed realities of slavery, glorified the Confederacy and defended deeds of the Ku Klux Klan. Summersell’s textbook was the ninth grade companion to Frank L. Owlsey’s “Know Alabama,” written for fourth graders. In addition to repeating much of the same Lost Cause ideology, the two esteemed authors shared similar career paths, which included serving as chair of the history department at the University of Alabama. They influenced tens of thousands of grammar-school children, high school and college students, and professors. Both authors also drew from predecessors such as Alabama history textbook writers L.D. Miller, Albert B. Moore, L. Lamar Matthews and others for a now-disputed version of history repeated for about seven decades. Teachers were still using Owsley’s and Summersell’s books after classrooms were widely integrated in the late 1960s, and they continued to use revised editions well into the 1970s. The later editions toned down the contention that slaves were mostly happy and contented. Read more. More about textbooks with pro-slavery messages used to teach Alabama students. Textbook ‘Know Alabama’ Justified Slavery, Praised Confederacy to Schoolchildren

by Scott Morris

The Loyalty Foundation and Partners Chip in Computers for Area Students

With an eye toward bridging the digital divide, The Loyalty Foundation joined forces with Jefferson County and other partners to provide computers to students in underserved communities in the region. Fifty boxes with new computers were on display today in the County Commission chambers as the joint effort was announced. Commissioner Sheila Tyson is part of the effort, along with DC BLOX, an Atlanta-based data center provider in Birmingham’s Titusville Community. Read more.

by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.

Jefferson County Bids for Release From HR Consent Decree

A motion filed just before the close of business Tuesday could end 45 years of scrutiny for Jefferson County. County attorney Theo Lawson filed a joint motion that Jefferson County be removed from its consent decree, stating that the county not only complies with but in many cases exceeds the requirements of federal law regarding recruitment, hiring and promotion of qualified individuals. Read more.

by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.

Vestiges of the Past Carry Ingrained Racism Into the Modern Age

Vestiges of segregation still thread through the systems and processes with which we engage throughout our lives, influencing Black Alabamians in large and small ways, including economic opportunities and lifetime wealth, relationship with law enforcement, health care and even projected lifespan. BirminghamWatch has an ongoing effort to analyze how these sometimes unrecognized vestiges of segregation are playing out in people’s lives today. Read stories in The Legacy of Race series.

by BirminghamWatch