Books

Nobody but the People: The Life and Times of Alabama's Youngest Governor
By Warren Trest, New South Books, 2008, 450 pp.

Patterson for Alabama: The Life and Career of John Patterson
By Gene Howard, University of Alabama Press, 2008, 296 pp.

Two biographies of former Alabama Gov. John Patterson take divergent routes but arrive at the same end product: forthright looks at a man whose life and politics shaped modern Alabama history and whose official actions linger today.

They display for readers the flesh-and-blood image of a man whose public actions and policies conflicted with what seemed to be the essence of that man's character and upbringing.

Neither glosses over the conflicts and shortcomings of Patterson's administration, running from 1959 to 1963, which saw the Freedom Riders and the most turbulent years of the civil rights movement.

Both are clear in helping readers define who Patterson is — and how he came to be. Both are valuable assessments of Alabama history and can help provide a road map for the oddities and nuances that season our state's attitude toward race, corruption, politics and campaigns.

In short: They're a dose of solid, heavy reading about a dark era in Alabama, personified in the spirit of John Patterson and those in his orbit. Finally, the public gets the chance to take an in-depth look at the man who was in office in the late 1950s through the early 1960s. George Wallace's story has been told in print and on film; Patterson now gets his turn and, in some cases, fills in the blanks the legion of Wallace biographies haven't managed to spackle over.

The biographies on Patterson are structured roughly the same, with each author spending years studying the Patterson family history, as well as conducting multiple interviews and research sessions gleaning the details that make any good narrative come to life.

They correctly trace Patterson's rise in Alabama public life to the death of his father, Albert Patterson, who was killed during his campaign for attorney general and is still legendary today for his efforts to clean up the vice-ridden Phenix City.

The younger Patterson stepped in, ran for attorney general on his father's platform, and his political career was born. The biographies are consistent in their thesis that the younger Patterson's political persona and presence would have emerged on its own, but was definitely accelerated by the family tragedy.

Gene Howard's book is loosely footnoted, a point he makes in explaining that he didn't want attribution cluttering his narrative. It is a political biography, a study of public policy in a dark time in the New South. It is another perspective on the civil rights struggle.

Its perspective is fairly clinical, and even though Howard writes about a passionate man in a passionate time, his book conveys the detached objectivity of a journalist. Even the subtitle, The Life and Career of John Patterson, is lean and to the point.

Warren Trest's account is far more detailed in its documentation, with footnotes aplenty to suit any academic historian. Part of his meticulousness could be due to the intent to have this be the definitive history of Patterson's era.

Another explanation may be Trest's determination to have every utterance, every societal spark, noted and sourced. His language is also more emotional, as would be expected from a writer who was telling a history from the perspective of his subject, rather than, as Howard was, writing about his subject.

As such, Trest's account meanders more than Howard's. It spends more time on the development of John Patterson the son and man than on the career of Patterson, the politician. Insights, personal feelings at specific moments, are scattered throughout Trest's story.

Readers will find it interesting to compare the two books, especially elements that aren't particularly flattering to Patterson; points that are mentioned in Howard's biography are diminished in Trest's.

They'll also note the similarities in perspective on world events of the age: the emergence of Castro's Cuba, the missile crisis and the events and people that led to the Civil Rights Act.

Southern and civil rights historians would serve themselves well by having both books at their disposal.