The Mississippi Legislature has done the heretofore impossible: permanently furl a state flag marred by a Confederate battle emblem. Meanwhile, several states still honor the Confederacy with state holidays. Including Alabama.
No one can legitimately suggest that the names and likenesses of Samuel Noble or C.T. Quintard should be stripped from Anniston’s public spaces, writes Phillip Tutor, but they do illustrate the moving target that is America’s current debate over the removal of public memorials.
Here's something to think about regarding Calhoun County's Confederate monuments: When Kenneth Bodiford decided to excise “Dixie” from the Marching Southerners’ repertoire, he wasn’t run out of town. There was no revolt, no violent protest, no administrative edict.
ICYMI -- The Star's Phillip Tutor writes: As America mulls the fate of Confederate monuments — like the one in Anniston — never forget that Calhoun County’s largest city has always been a focal point of the county’s racial tensions.
Amid the nation’s extraction of racist imagery from public spaces, Jaylon Cooper sees an obvious choice for the Jacksonville City Council: Relocate the divisive Confederate monument that’s guarded the city square for nearly 111 years.
If you’ve learned to swim — or, at least, to tread water — in and around Anniston the last three decades, Todd Russell was probably your instructor.
With JSU discussing a possible name change for Bibb Graves Hall, The Star's Phillip Tutor writes that the stone monument in Jacksonville’s public square is dedicated to the “gallant Confederate soldiers of Calhoun County” — soldiers who, had they prevailed, would have allowed white people in Jacksonville to continue owning black laborers.
Birmingham’s mayor has done Jacksonville and Anniston an immense favor. He’s defanged Alabama's monuments law. He’s written the script. And with the nation spasming from conversations about racial equality, there is no better time than now to relocate these Confederate monuments and say, simply: We’re better for doing it.
“For him to talk about the use of force to make everything safe again & then to go stand in front of a church and hold the Bible up like that,” #Anniston's Grace Church's Rev. LaLonde said, “I found that pretty offensive.”
Dan Sawyer, for nearly three months, has spent his weekends preparing home-cooked meals in Anniston for a small group of Georgians who live in his friend’s apartment complex.
Oxford's Bill Partridge is one of many in law enforcement who are publicly condemning the actions of four Minneapolis police officers in the death of George Floyd. What started as a slow ebb is now a blue tide of excoriations
Kierstin Woods gets it, she says. She wants no one to get sick and die. But she had senior-year dreams. She had senior pranks to play. She had a senior skip day to enjoy.
It's Memorial Day weekend, and I’ve always wondered about these two Alabamians buried in the American Legion section of Anniston’s Edgemont Cemetery.
McKenzee Webster gave us hope. She didn’t walk out of Regional Medical Center last Friday, she didn’t tell us what is possible. She showed us.
Evie Waddell got hit by a falling tree. A huge tree, probably an oak, that sideswiped her head and struck her back and left the Anniston EMS paramedic dazed in a mobile home park, along with Anniston firefighter Walker Kent.
Long before Anniston died, the little girl from Louisiana checked off items on her list. She starred in a talent show and rode a motorcycle and picked flowers and went swimming, more than 100 achievements in all. And she came here, to Anniston.
Emily Keys treks across the East River at the end of her 24-hour shifts from Brooklyn to her Manhattan apartment. Rooftop melodies played on a trumpet greet her.
No one called her Baby Doll during the war. That didn’t happen until she met Chester Price, an American soldier from Blue Mountain who wanted her to be his bride.
Tahj Jones is only 17. He’s finishing his final Anniston High School classes at home. He could be miffed. He should be miffed. But just listen to him.
Ethan Suttle is a 30-year-old nurse in the surgical intensive care unit at Gadsden Regional Medical Center, heroic work in the era of COVID-19. “I have a unique skill set,” he says.
None of us have endured anything like the global pandemic of COVID-19, but our predecessors did in October 1918, when the Spanish flu outbreak brought the world to its knees. Calhoun County didn’t escape the pain. And no one had Netflix.
One of the byproducts of the COVID-19 pandemic and Alabama’s statewide state-at-home order is an apparent rebirth of a simple tradition: family dinners. (Or suppers, depending on your linguistic preference.)
While Anniston's older public school students are using school-owned laptops, a significant number of elementary students aren’t learning online because they lack access to either a computer, the internet or WiFi. Or all three.
Edward R. Murrow was a broadcast journalist who gained prominence during World War II. He’s credited with saying: “We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.”
Golden Springs Baptist Church's Rev. Roland Brown is sure that his congregation is stressed because of the pandemic. And he doesn’t plan to give COVID-19 a starring role in his Easter sermon. “It makes the message I have to say more important than at any time in my life,” he said.
