Saturday Data: +50

Welcome to The First Family and other guests visiting Alabama this weekend!

• Rev. Jesse Jackson questions why some of you are here. He says some members of Congress are happy to be here celebrating the anniversary, but do not support legislation to restore the part of the Voting Rights Act overturned by The U.S. Supreme Court.

• Great strides have been made in voting rights in Alabama since this day a half-century ago, yet the voter turnout in Dallas County, where Selma is located, is somewhere around 33%. All of that suffering just so people can stay home on election day?

• This is still Alabama. As previously mentioned, there will be a celebration of the Lincoln Assassination on the 150th Anniversary in April. 

• I'm fairly shocked at how little some people---even people in the media---understand about what happened in Selma a half-century ago. Yes, voting rights was a significant part of the reason for the march, but Alabamians were being murdered by state troopers and local police too.

• The troopers in Alabama have now been folded into a new state police agency called ALEPA, and it will be interesting to see how low a profile they can keep this weekend. Until a week or two ago, the official online "history of the Alabama Department of Public Safety" included one paragraph about the entire 1960's Civil Rights movement:

Gov. Wallace chose Albert J. Lingo, a longtime member of the Highway Patrol, to direct the Department of Public Safety during the turbulent early '60s. These years were marked by marches and demonstrations that characterized the civil rights movement in the South. The names Birmingham and Selma were in the press daily and were known not only in Alabama, but also across America and throughout the world. Public Safety was called on time and time again in response to the demonstrations, and its officers sought to maintain order amid strife.

• End of story. 

That's all Alabama State Troopers had to say about their part in Bloody Sunday. With even that minimal mention eliminated, the Department's "history" has been compeltely whitewashed.

In 2013, former Montgomery Police Chief Kevin Murphy famously handed his badge to Congressman John Lewis as an apology for the department's misdeeds against Lewis and other African-Americans.  
So far as I know, there has never been a similar incident with troopers, or with the Dallas County Sheriff's Department in Selma.




[Saturday Data is a regular feature of TimLennox.com.]