“After Alabama football integrated in 1969-70, the South made a greater, more profound change for good, in a shorter period of time than any region in all of world history.”
Source: CALIFORNIA LIBERALISM IS EXAMPLE OF AMERICAN SPORT’S POLITICAL EFFECT
“The liberals of the world would have us believe that Alabama is still racist and backward, but the Najee Harris's of the world are disproving that by voting with their feet.”
Source: CALIFORNIA LIBERALISM IS EXAMPLE OF AMERICAN SPORT’S POLITICAL EFFECT
“How are the white folks treating you?" He looked at me and sneered.
"This is Alabama, son," he said, though he seemed younger than I. "How do you think they're treating us?”
Source: South of Haunted Dreams: A Memoir
“Monroeville was hard to get to and easy to get stuck in.”
Source: Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee
“Grammy was a little disappointed, I think, to see there weren’t too many customers. We’d accidentally scheduled our trip on a Saturday during football season, which meant the entire state of Alabama would appear to have been raptured unless you were in a stadium or in front of a TV.”
“Is it really true, Sailor, that Alabama has a king?" Sidney asked.
"The south has always been a monarchy in some form or another. Everybody thinks they're the king of something here. People, land, business.”
Source: Sky Full of Elephants
“[The Montgomery Bus Boycott] is not a drama with only one actor. More precisely it is the chronicle of 50,000 Negroes who took to heart the principles of nonviolence, who learned to fight for their rights with the weapon of love, and who in the process, acquired a new estimate of their own human worth.”
Source: Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
“But this discontent was still latent in 1954. At that time both Negroes and whites accepted the well-established patterns of segregation as a matter of fact. Hardly anyone challenged the system. Montgomery was an easy-going town; it could even have been described as a peaceful town. But the peace was achieved at the cost of human servitude.”
Source: Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
“But there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled by oppression. There comes a time when people get tired of being plunged into the abyss of exploitation and nagging injustice. The story of Montgomery is the story of 50,000 such Negroes who were willing to substitute tired feed for tired souls, and walk the streets of Montgomery until the walls of segregation were finally battered by the forces of justice.”
Source: Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
“I prayed that our growth would be as strong and determined as the seeds of coconut palms, boldly reaching skyward toward the sun diligently boring deeper into the earth to secure a firm foundation for the beautiful, durable, fruit-bearing trees they would become. For me, Mhonda was the place to continue the growth of the still young but strong roots of my tree planted in Kifungilo. This was my life now, the life I’d prayed for, the life that would provide me with an education and would open doors. I wanted this life very much. I told my wavering spirit to bear with me because, just like the coconut palm, I would sway and bend and bruise, but I would survive. I would have to become the tree in the African saying: ‘The tree that bends with the wind does not break.”
Source: Africa's Child