In praise of my Alabama: Doug Jones & the Crimson Tide

Alabama Senator Doug Jones happily watching the Crimson Tide’s championship victory with the D.C. chapter of the Alabama National Alumni Association at Willie’s Brew & Que

Well it has been a month since I’ve posted, and my last one was on the day of our special election here in the state of Alabama. Much has happened since then that I have wanted to blog about, but Christmas vacation trips (more on that in another blog), the new year, a writing project, and the start of the new semester have kept me too busy. I’ve finally gotten a second to breath again, so I wanted to quickly comment on the two events that have had my beloved state in the national news over the last few weeks.

My last posting was a pretty emotional one, as I was not quite sure whether my state would do the right thing by putting its normal commitment to the Republican Party aside to vote against Roy Moore and for Doug Jones. I have been voting since 1988 and I have to tell you, I never felt more exhilarated in exercising my suffrage rights than I did in voting in this senate election.

With no other elections going on, and with an enormous amount of interest in results that would have major consequences, much of the nation’s eyes were on Alabama that night.  Sadly, when my state brings national attention to itself like this it is usually something negative . . . except for football.

That’s one major reason why football is so beloved in the state of Alabama. Starting with their unexpected 1926 Rose Bowl win and 1925 national championship, and continuing into the Civil Rights era of the 1950s and 1960s, the University of Alabama’s football team has been about the only thing that has brought national praise to the state.

During the Civil Rights era, Alabama appeared on television stations across the country when Freedom Riders were firebombed in Anniston, and beaten in Birmingham and Montgomery. A few years later, Americans watched in horror as police commissioner Eugene “Bull” Conner had children fire hosed in the streets of Birmingham as they demonstrated for desegregation.  Having been arrested earlier in the same demonstrations, Martin Luther King wrote his famous Letter From Birmingham Jail garnering worldwide attention.  Later that year, Alabama Governor George Wallace defied the Kennedy administration live on national television by forcing the president to nationalize state troops to integrate the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The nation was then stunned into numbness when four black children were killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. And then as if for a brutal encore, the state grabbed attention again as the country watched Civil Rights marchers get pummeled and gassed marching across the Pettus Bridge in Selma while attempting to walk to Montgomery to demonstrate for African American suffrage rights.

The media’s attention on those events rocked the conscience of our nation, shaming it on a world stage during the height of the Cold War and thus leading to the Civil Rights movement’s biggest victories. Yet the black-eye brought to the state solidified people’s opinion of Alabama in ways that still very much shape outside perceptions of the Heart of Dixie.

Still,  during those very same turbulent years, the University of Alabama gained national attention because of the dramatic success of its football program under the direction of Paul “Bear” Bryant.

Bryant & Namath

Winning three national championships in the 1960s with legendary players like Joe Namath and Ken Stabler, the Tide brought adulation to the state instead of the typical scorn (they would have one a 4th in 1966, but the AP punished them for resisting integration). This of course intensified the pride and love that people in the state had for their football.

This dynamic outlived the 1960s. The state of Alabama consistently ranks near the bottom in far too many lists, such as literacy, funding for public schools, quality of life, health and healthcare, infrastructure, wealth, and tax base. Yet all the while, football continued to bring accolades as the Tide has won national championships in 1973, 1978, 1979, 1992, 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2015. Auburn too has added to the pride, winning a championship in 2010 and playing for another in 2013. If there is only one thing the state of Alabama does well in the eyes of the nation, it’s football.

And then came the special senate election in December, 2017. The campaign received an unprecedented amount of national attention, as Alabama voters had to choose between a candidate who’s politics seemingly came from the state’s ugly past, and a man who promised to keep it moving in a progressive and inclusive direction.

Roy Moore was woefully unqualified and shamefully undeserving of the job of US senator. He believes in theocracy, that America was “great” during the era of slavery, that we were better off before the 14th and 15th amendments (which made the Civil Rights era’s successes possible), and apparently believes women’s suffrage and officeholding is bad for the country. I’ve no doubt in my mind that Roy Moore would have stood with Bull Conner and George Wallace.

Doug Jones, on the other hand, also conjured up the state’s ugly past, but only because he was the lawyer that finally successfully convicted two of the KKK members responsible for the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. He is also a rather moderate Democrat with political positions that align well with Alabama values (besides abortion).

Doug Jones successfully convicting a Klansman

Those scandalous sexual allegations about Moore aside, the election thus seemingly came down to whether voters wanted to reinforce the  image of the state’s ugly past, or move boldly away from the reputation that still haunts it and shapes perceptions. The choice seemed clear, but would enough white Alabamians be able to put the state’s image and future ahead of their strong party loyalties? The whole country was watching . . .

The turnout of African American voters was of course crucial, but so too was having enough white Alabama Republicans willing to vote for a Democrat. I went to the polls that day unsure of whether we could depend on either. Still, as I looked around at the people voting in my precinct, I was hopeful when I quickly calculated that about one third of the voters I saw were blacks. My precinct here in Tuscaloosa County is actually a pretty good racial mix that’s probably a good representation of the county as a whole. I felt that if one third of people voting across the state were black, there was a chance of a Democrat victory. Yet it would also require a significant amount of white voters for Jones, and of that I was most uncertain.

Watching the returns that night was about as tense and dramatically exciting as it gets. Because the polls in the evangelical North Alabama counties came in first, Roy Moore took a lead that seemed to indicate the election was going down a predictable red path. Yet with the New York Times election meter consistently indicating a Doug Jones victory, I became cautiously optimistic.

And then there was that late surge as the returns came in from Tuscaloosa (where Wallace had defied Kennedy), the so-called “black belt” counties (where the Selma marchers were beaten), and Birmingham (where Bull Conner had once reigned with terror) . As those votes came in, the whole country watched with bated breath as Jones pulled even, took a slight lead, and then in almost an instant was declared the winner by the Associated Press and other media outlets.

The victory was exhilarating, all the more so because of the late night dramatic shift in the numbers and from where they had come. I have to tell you, I cried real tears of joy, and I can’t even recall the last time I’ve done that.

I was very proud of my state because we were in the national spotlight again, with everyone thinking that the home of George Wallace and Bull Conner was going to screw it up . . . but then, dramatically, we didn’t. African American turnout was larger than normal (how proud the Selma marchers must be!), but I believe a much larger number of white Alabamians voted for Jones than the flawed exit polls indicate.

It was as if we as a state, both black and white, collectively said, “chill out America, we got this.”

And then just weeks later, as if the state pride could not get any larger, the Alabama football team found itself in the national spotlight yet again. Looking unbeatable in the Sugar Bowl, they took down last year’s national champion in a revenge game. One week later, they found themselves in a championship game that mirrored the previous month’s special election. Like Jones, Bama got down big early, fought to tie it up, and then with the whole country watching on the edge of their seats, pulled off a late night win in what seemed like an instant.

Jubilation abounded across the state as Coach Nick Saban tied Bear Bryant in number of national championship wins.

As I sat on my porch that night with friends smoking a victory cigar and sipping champagne, I couldn’t help but once again well up with pride in my state. We’ve won a lot of national championships down here, but this one was special. For once, we didn’t need football to save our reputation. This time, it was just the cherry on top.

And to that I have but one thing to say:

Roll Tide.