Editorials

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wanna change state government.

“It's a Thick Book,” a new documentary on Alabama's 1901 Constitution, makes its Anniston premiere tonight at 7:30 at the Buckner Center's Zannie Theatre. The screening is free and open to the public.

It ought to be required viewing for the public, as well.

The film's director and hero, college student Lewis Lehe, sets out to lay his hands on the state Constitution, which is as useful a cinematic villain as Hollywood could ever devise. He makes his way through a bureaucratic jungle, calling various state agencies to request a copy of the Constitution. The film's title comes from the description one Montgomery bureaucrat assigns to the amendment-heavy document.

Along the way, Lehe speaks with various Alabama historians (including The Star's Hardy Jackson) who make the case that the 1901 Constitution is not merely racist and undemocratic; it likely passed with the help of massive voter fraud in the state's Black Belt. Alabama's powerful interests at the turn of the previous century were looking out for themselves. Thus, the overriding aim was shutting out poor blacks and whites by any means necessary.

The worst news is that the 1901 Constitution's authors succeeded. The soul-crushing document's history is but a foreshadowing of its present toll. The poor pay a greater share of their income in taxes. The comfortable have retained the upper hand on the struggling have-nots. The system is rigged in favor of establishing ineffective and unaccountable government. Government for and by the people is but a dream in Alabama.

“It's a Thick Book”, which was financed with the help the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform Foundation (constitutionalreform.org), faithfully chronicles the outrages in under 50 minutes.

Go see for yourself. And remember, seeing the documentary on the state Constitution is free, living under it is immeasurably costly.