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Ep 2: Welcome to Camp Hill part 1 image

Ep 2: Welcome to Camp Hill part 1

E2 · If It Ain't Fixed Don't Break It
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Want to understand Alabama? Start in Camp Hill. This is a story about radical legacies intertwined with faith, chronic disinvestment, climate crisis, and the future of Alabama. 

Please support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ItAintFixedPod

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EJI National Memorial for Peace and Justice 

Phil Dowdell Legacy Foundation 

Video interviews with residents:

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Ep 1: This Building Is A Piece Of Garbage image
Ep 1: This Building Is A Piece Of Garbage
E1 · If It Ain't Fixed Don't Break It
01:40:51·2 months ago
Introducing: If It Ain't Fixed, Don't Break It image
Introducing: If It Ain't Fixed, Don't Break It
If It Ain't Fixed Don't Break It
00:03:41·2 months ago
Transcript

Introduction and Podcast Overview

00:00:00
Speaker
You know, we always say help is on the way, but help don't get here. Listen, this is not government. This is religion here. Lord have mercy. This building is a piece of garbage. Ain't nobody happy just to be in here. We in here trying to do work. ain't right. It ain't right. I don't see this moving Alabama for. As Rick and Bobby say, if you ain't first, you last. If it ain't this, boy. Don't think we should break Break it down. I'll break it. How do we break it down even more?
00:00:25
Speaker
Everybody's thinking they are doing the right thing. This is not the right thing to do. i want this fixed today. Hello and welcome to another episode of If It Ain't Fixed, Don't Break It, a podcast about people, politics, and Alabama. I'm Zephyr Scalzetti.
00:00:40
Speaker
And I'm Faye Hobbs. And today we are bringing you the first of a two-parter about Camp Hill, Alabama. So Faye, I want to introduce you to a small town called Camp Hill.
00:00:51
Speaker
And by small, I mean a little over a thousand people. I am literally passingly familiar with it at current times. Well, probably because you have quite literally passed it on Highway 280. Yeah, that was the joke.
00:01:03
Speaker
That's a terrible joke.

Media Portrayal and True Story of Camp Hill

00:01:05
Speaker
yeah If you search Camp Hill, Alabama on YouTube, because there's also a Camp Hill in Pennsylvania, you'll find a series of exploitative videos titled things like Camp Hill, Alabama, 2023.
00:01:17
Speaker
Most murderous small town destroyed by tornado X hailstorm. Probably they mean and there. Camp Hill, Alabama ruins left behind one open business and town center beginning of a ghost town. Either that or they're shipping the tornado and the hailstorm. You never know. Yeah.
00:01:34
Speaker
I mean, depending on on on the meteorological meteorological records, that the tornado and hailstorm did ship themselves. So it's not too far off.
00:01:44
Speaker
Cannon pairing confirmed. All right. Yeah. So needless to say, the residents of Camp Hill, many of whom have there have been there for generations. Did not take too kindly to this description. It deeply angers me that a town with such a deep history and a bright future is consistently degraded for clicks and views.
00:02:03
Speaker
Did I mention that Camp Hill is the only majority black town in Tallapoosa County? You did not previously mention it. However, that does ah make all of this even more unfortunate.
00:02:15
Speaker
Even... Ickier? Even ickier, yeah. I'm like, oh, okay...
00:02:22
Speaker
Okay. let Because here's the thing. I know that this is the intro. Let's let's keep on going. we We haven't gotten to the stuff yet. So Camp Hill is not the story of a ghost town.
00:02:34
Speaker
It's a story about radical legacies intertwined with faith, chronic disinvestment, climate crisis, and the future of Alabama. Can I do the Patreon? You can do the Patreon. But before we get it into it, we need to thank our patrons for making this show possible.
00:02:49
Speaker
At the Soapbox level, we have Orbital Aaron and Hunter Fuller. at the Floribama man level, we have Kathleen Kirkpatrick, Standing in Power, and Chris.
00:03:02
Speaker
And we even have a high stepper this week, ah Catherine Mason. Thank you all so much for contributing to the Patreon. We deeply appreciate your

Podcast Production Challenges and Themes

00:03:10
Speaker
contributions. And if you'd like to contribute to making the show possible, ah because this is my only job, um ah you can donate at patreon.com slash itain'tfixedpod. There's a link in the show notes.
00:03:25
Speaker
Okay, Faye, this is officially our first two-parter. um i I wrote a little thesis by accident. You did mention that. It got a little out of hand, and I still don't entirely feel like I did this justice, but...
00:03:40
Speaker
um So I mentioned in our trailer and our first episode that I am not a historian, which is why I am once again delving into history to provide the baseline for these episodes on Camp Hill.
00:03:51
Speaker
um I do want to say upfront that Camp Hill will be a place that we will revisit time and time again, because there is no way to do justice to an entire town's history and lived experience in two episodes. And the people of Camp Hill deserve a platform to speak for themselves.
00:04:05
Speaker
ah Speaking of which, I had originally intended to include audio of interviews with residents, but I made the critical newbie error of not monitoring the audio while recording. And all of it is unusable. So I apologize.
00:04:17
Speaker
But y'all are going to have to listen to me and Faye talk this one through, which I suppose is sort of the entire point of a podcast. Yeah, it's good to have references. But I mean, two people talking about stuff. That's that's that's a podcast, baby.
00:04:31
Speaker
I like audio clips. They they make things more interesting. There is going to be some audio in the in the second part. Oh, yeah, for sure. um So... The history of Camp Hill. I wanted to talk about Camp Hill early in this podcast. When I first conceived of this podcast being a thing, i knew that Camp Hill was going to be like the first or second episode.
00:04:50
Speaker
Our tagline for the show is a podcast about people, politics in Alabama. And that order is important. People is first for a reason. Politics don't occur in a vacuum. They happen to people and to communities.
00:05:05
Speaker
I think you can start to come to understand a lot about Alabama and the intersection of politics and people if you start to grapple with Camp Hill. So that's what we're going to attempt to set the groundwork for here. So if you can um read that title.
00:05:21
Speaker
Founding and Background. The Camp Hill area began to be settled by the early 19, early 19, the early 1830s, just before Creek Indian removal, which is a very nice historical way of saying genocide.

Historical Background of Camp Hill

00:05:35
Speaker
The name is frequently cited, the Camp Hill, As likely coming from the area's popularity as a camping place, which I don't know. i feel like there's more to be found there. But so far, that's that's what I've got.
00:05:47
Speaker
I also just don't know what camping in the early eighteen hundreds looked like. Like, isn't that just living? I don't know. I have the questions. I have some questions about that.
00:05:58
Speaker
So Camp Hill becomes an official town in 1895, with cotton being the main industry of the area. There's also a brick ah brickyard as well. Camp Hill is physically located in southeastern Tallapoosa County, about halfway between Alexander City and Auburn.
00:06:14
Speaker
And like we were kind of joking in the and the intro, is off of what is now Highway 280, although Highway 280 does not exist until i think about 2006 in this story, at least connecting Camp Hill to Auburn.
00:06:28
Speaker
Hammer and hoe.
00:06:31
Speaker
Ain't no foreign country in the world foreign as Alabama to a New Yorker. They know all about England, maybe. France. Never met one who knew Bama. Anonymous black communist. 1945.
00:06:45
Speaker
That quote is from Robin D.G. Kelly's seminal work, Hammer and Ho, Alabama Communists During the Great Depression. I pulled extensively from this book and putting this section together on Camp Hill's past.
00:06:57
Speaker
i I saw a look flit across your face just there. And i can you can you explain like what what just went through your mind when I read that title? I ah because like the the sort of archetypal ah duo for communist groups is the hammer and sickle.
00:07:15
Speaker
But when you replace sickle with a hoe, that's very it's um a good localization of the of the symbolism there. Yeah, and also because we're dealing a lot with the sharecroppers union. We are dealing with Alabama farmers, black Alabama sharecroppers in the 1930s.
00:07:32
Speaker
So before I want ah dive into Campbell specifically, because they do feature heavily in this book, um there were a few Alabamians in the book that I insist we briefly visit. I read most of this book in preparation for this episode. and I unfortunately ran out of time to completely finish it.
00:07:48
Speaker
um I think I'm at like 30 plus ah references right now in this ah bibliography. So it got a little out of hand. um And that's without directly interviewing people.
00:08:00
Speaker
ah But there were there were points when I was reading this book where i was doing the meme thing where um was it leah Leo DiCaprio? it was it Uncut Gems. where He's pointing, you know, that the pointing. like Yeah, there were a lot of something on television and going, oh, that Yeah, I i was having, and I have not seen Uncut Gems, so like... Uncut Gems?
00:08:21
Speaker
Yeah. um i there was There were many points in this book where I was like, we are the same people. Like, we have never changed. Like, why are we like this?
00:08:31
Speaker
there was There was so much of like, I recognized organizers in this. not Not actual people. These are these are these are folks who who have unfortunately probably already passed, just given the time difference. But there was just so much familiarity with...
00:08:46
Speaker
um, some of the things people were saying, how they were moving. And it, it felt like this is the, um, I mean, and it is, is like the history of organizing in Alabama. So I felt a deep connection to to some of these parts. So I wanted to, to these were a few quotes that I was, uh, reading to everybody except you. Cause I wanted to get your genuine reaction.
00:09:06
Speaker
um and I'm going to read this first one to you because I really love reading it, but I'll let you read the rest. All right, go for it. Quote, i wasn't prepared for characters such as lemon johnson a former member of the communist led sharecroppers union in december nineteen eighty six i visited johnson at his home and the eye here is is robin d g kelly i visited johnson at his home in rural montgomery county which i described in my journal as a tiny rundown shack with battered wooden walls a rusted tin roof that had begun to cave in, and a porch stocked with three rickety chairs.
00:09:38
Speaker
He fed me a huge lunch of collard greens, wonder bread, beans, fried chicken, and a slice of cake. We ate outside and talked for a while.
00:09:49
Speaker
When it became unbearably cold, we moved inside. I sat on his bed as he slouched in a wooden chair next to me. A faded picture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was tacked to the wall above his head. He told stories about the 1935 cotton picker strike, Stalin's pledge to send troops to Mobile to help black sharecroppers if things got out of hand, and the night a well-armed group of women set out to avenge their comrades who had been beaten or killed during the strike.
00:10:14
Speaker
When I asked Mr. Johnson how the Union succeeded in winning some of their demands, without the slightest hesitation, he reached into the drawer of his nightstand, saying, and pulled out a dog-eared copy of VI Lenin's What Is To Be Done and a box of shotgun shells, set both firmly on the bed next to me, and said, right there, theory and practice.
00:10:33
Speaker
That's how we did it. Theory and practice.

Racial Struggles and Legacy of Resistance

00:10:36
Speaker
Y'all, Faye is dying right now. I, I, I, like, okay. Let's...
00:10:44
Speaker
Because they don't really teach labor history ah for reasons that I'm sure so a critical mind could deduce.
00:10:57
Speaker
but um This is also there just as much about black liberation as it is it is labor. like they are They are inextricable in this movement. But yeah, we've got the things I did not know of 90 years ago there being a cotton picker strike, Secretary Stalin promising troops to Mobile.
00:11:21
Speaker
i like I had never heard heard of that being ah thing. and then I gotta know, I have to know, I must know about this ah this seemingly vigilante gang of women.
00:11:36
Speaker
like There are a lot of really badass women in this book. Like we are not going to. the The tastes I am giving in this episode, like if you are an organizer in Alabama, I would recommend everybody read this book. But if you are an organizer in Alabama, you should definitely read this book, because, again, there are so many parts where you're like, ah, they're still acting like that.
00:11:58
Speaker
If you've read the book, you know who I'm talking about. Also the Raivar theory and practice, like like the with the with the illustration of the book and the shells. And like, I don't know if it's just particularly because we're Alabamians, but I can see that so clearly in my mind. Like i i i And that's very us.
00:12:17
Speaker
That's very us. Like, it's just it's ah so we're going to we're going to have a couple of these. So, um yeah, I've never met Mr. Lemon Johnson. I i swear I know this man. Like, i it just it was a it was a moment of like, we've always been like this.
00:12:33
Speaker
um And that's and and anybody listening who isn't from Alabama, you're probably hearing this and being like, this is not the image I had of organizing in Alabama. But it's it's not. <unk>s not It's not that far off. And the thing is, is Robin D.G. Kelly talks about how this was not his idea of what it was going to be like in Alabama, too.
00:12:51
Speaker
So can you read this next quote? Quote, and nothing neither nell irvin painters magnificent the narrative of josea hudson his life as a negro communist in the south nineteen seventy nine nor black Marxism fully prepared me for what I encountered in Alabama.
00:13:09
Speaker
The testimonies and memories, the archives, the very landscape constituted living proof that a political culture distinct from the Euro-American left and rooted in older Afro-Christian and black folk traditions dominated the Communist Party in Alabama.
00:13:24
Speaker
Faith is a really important, really important part of life in the South. And I think from the outside, it's often assumed that faith is anathema to liberation, which has not been my experience here.
00:13:35
Speaker
And I was delighted to see that reflected in this book. um and And this is ah another quote, I think, that illustrates both of these things coming together. So can you can you read this?
00:13:48
Speaker
i just want to see if you can get get through this with a straight face. I managed to do the last one pretty smooth. Let's see how this one goes. and In 1945, after spending several years hobnobbing with European, Asian, and Soviet dignitaries of the Third International, daily worker correspondent Joseph North made the most unforgettable journey to, of all places, Chambers County, Alabama.
00:14:13
Speaker
Traveling surreptitiously with a black Birmingham communist as his escort, North reached his destination, the tumble-down shack of a sharecropper comrade in the wee hours of the night.
00:14:26
Speaker
The dark figure who greeted the two men had read The Worker for years, solid and reliable. He was respected by his folk here, who regarded him as a man with answers.
00:14:37
Speaker
The sharecropper was an elder of the Zion AME Church who trusts God but keeps his powder dry, reads his Bible every night, can quote from the book of Daniel and the book of Job, and he's been studying the Stalin book on the nation question.
00:14:52
Speaker
So, yeah, I think you can be forgiven if you've never combined the words Alabama and communist in your head or if you've never heard of any of these events before. Siri Hedin for the – and I apologize, Siri, if if if I'm not ah pronouncing your name correctly – for the Alex City Outlook writes – The history is well documented, both in Hammer and Ho, which is what we've been reading from, written in 1990, and Dale's husband Theodore Rosengarten's 1974 book all god's jane All God's Dangers, The Life of Nate Shaw, the oral history of black tenant farmer Ned Cobb, a.k.a. Shaw, who defended his neighbor's land in the real town standoff.
00:15:30
Speaker
And when we say defended, by the way, that was a gunfight. um Outside of academia today, however, the violent standoffs in Realtown, population 794, and Camp Hill, population 1006, are little known.
00:15:43
Speaker
Quote, it's kind of swept under some over somewhere because sure don't want to teach it to our kids in school, Camp Hill attorney Charles Gillenwaters said, because that would be bad.
00:15:54
Speaker
Some say our legislators. Put a pin in that last part for now because we're going to revisit that in part two. Tenant farming and sharecropping. Cotton farming in Alabama depended on a tiered system.
00:16:08
Speaker
Broadly speaking, there were three categories. And and we're getting into this to to just talk about like the conditions that people are living in while responding to these crises. So the the three broad categories are cash tenants, share tenants and sharecropping.
00:16:22
Speaker
and What do you know about sharecropping, Faye? and economic system for essentially you you didn't own land, you leased the land from the landowner and you worked it, produced the crops and got some of the the currency afterward.
00:16:44
Speaker
That's part of it. um So there's there's three. It's a type of of tenant farming. So cash tenants, they lease lands for several years at a time. So they they don't own the land. They lease it.
00:16:56
Speaker
But they supplied their own implements, draft animals, seed, feed and fertilizer and farmed without supervision. ah Share tenants. on they These folks might own some draft animals. oh I should note cash tenants were mostly white.
00:17:09
Speaker
ah Share tenants, they might own some draft animals and planting materials, but the landowner provided any additional equipment, shelter, and if necessary, advances of cash, food, or other substance goods. Verbal contracts are made annually, and the land the landowner generally marketed the crop, giving the tenant between three-fourths and two-thirds of the price, minus any advances or previous debts. So it's more exploitative, but...
00:17:33
Speaker
is maybe more on equal footing. Sharecropping is the most common. They're virtually proper propertyless workers paid with a portion of the crops raised.
00:17:43
Speaker
There it is. But... The landowner supplied the acreage, houses, draft animals, planting materials, and nearly nearly all subs subsistence jesus that's hard to say nearly all subsistence necessities, including food and cash advantage.
00:17:57
Speaker
These, quote, furnishings were then deducted from the sharecropper's portion of the crop at an incredibly high interest rate. The system not only kept most tenants in debt, but it perpetuated living conditions that bordered on intolerable. Because when we say they're giving them so subsistence necessities, what do you think that that the quality of that is?
00:18:15
Speaker
I'm thinking it's, oops, the grain that the rats got into. Oops, that like, you know, the the stuff that's too ugly to take to market because nobody will buy it.
00:18:26
Speaker
ah And then charging you an exorbitant high interest ah loan for that. Yeah, it's it's the predecessor of pay like payday loans and then the successor of...
00:18:38
Speaker
the enforced labor they are on plantations so this is so this is a similar system by a different name so landowners are furnishing entire families with poorly constructed one or two room shacks usually without running water or adequate sanitary facilities and you can still see sharecroppers you can you can still visit sharecropper ah shacks today that is a history that that you can you can go see yourself and should
00:19:06
Speaker
Ralph Gray and the Camp Hill Massacre.

Impact of the Camp Hill Massacre

00:19:10
Speaker
I'm going to extensively excerpt from Hammer and Ho for this section as well, but we're going to talk through it as we go. So our main characters coming up are Ralph Gray and Tommy Gray. They're brothers, black farmers, local union organizers, and they're all around badasses.
00:19:25
Speaker
Mac Code, ah he's the secretary of the CFWU, which I did not write. Oh, there it is. and The Croppers and Farm Workers Union. um He's an illiterate Birmingham steel worker, originally from Charleston, South Carolina, and he is ah the organizer that the party sends down to Tallapoosa County.
00:19:43
Speaker
Then we have the Tallapoosa County Sheriff, Kyle Young. Everybody boo this man. Boo! Get out of here, Kyle! Camp Hill Police Chief, J.M. Wilson. Everybody extra boo this man. Boo! Double boo! Boo!
00:19:59
Speaker
It almost feels too comical for like how big of pieces of shit both of these men are. like I'm trying. I know, i know, i know. It's a lead balloon, but I'm holding it up So the Croppers and Farm Workers Union, the CFWU, was event eventually launched in Tallapoosa County, a section of the eastern Piedmont, whose varied topography ranges from the hill country of Appalachia in the north to the coastal-like plains and pine forests of the south.
00:20:24
Speaker
In 1930, almost 70% of those engaged in agriculture were either tenants or wage workers, the majority of whom were sharecroppers. um So like I said earlier, sharecropping is the most exploitative form of tenant farming.
00:20:37
Speaker
Two brothers, Tommy and Ralph Gray, contacted the party, persuaded several local sharecroppers to send letters to the southern worker, and in early spring invited a communist organizer to help them build a union.
00:20:49
Speaker
So they're proactively trying to build a union to get better conditions for their themselves and their community. I really want to emphasize how much agency folks show in this. I mean, we're highlighting their story, but there are so many people who are fighting back in big ways and small ways, who are, you know, squirreling away food, who are helping neighbors like the fight for liberation has always been happening.
00:21:13
Speaker
You know, it it it it wasn't a everybody was sort of passively taking it. And then the 1964 Civil Rights Act happened or 1965. You know, that's that's a misconception. So um I'm hoping like this story will well really illustrate that to people.
00:21:28
Speaker
So can you go ahead and read the next section? um Yes, a thought that I wanted to share was, you know, it takes a whole year for the Earth to revolve around the sun. Human revolution is happening every year.
00:21:42
Speaker
like that. i thought i thought that you might. um But anyway... The Grays were known by their neighbors as a proud family with a militant heritage.
00:21:53
Speaker
Their grandfather, Alfred Gray, had been a state legislator in Perry County, Alabama, during Reconstruction and a staunch advocate of equal rights as well as a sharp critic of the Freedmen's Bureau.
00:22:06
Speaker
He told a mixed crowd in Uniontown in 1868, am not afraid to fight for the Constitution and I will fight for it until hell freezes over.
00:22:16
Speaker
I may go to hell, my home is hell, but the white man shall go there with me. Yeah, I love this man. because Because, again, sorry, i just really want to put this. when he's When it's saying he told a mixed crowd in Uniontown, he's telling a crowd of black and white people, i am not afraid to fight for the Constitution, and I will fight for it until hell freezes over.
00:22:38
Speaker
I may go to hell, my home is hell, but the white man shall go there with me. That's a bar. That is a bar. that it That is a powerful statement. The fact that this is also occurring in a place called Uniontown is just...
00:22:53
Speaker
You don't know where Uniontown is? That's not far from here. No, I was just talking about the name being... Yeah. Yeah, I'm familiar with it, again, passingly. but But yeah, that was a very powerful statement um um on ah Mr. Gray's part.
00:23:10
Speaker
Ralph Gray, who had been nourished on stories of his grandfather, emerged as the fledgling movement's undisputed local leader. One of 15 children, Gray was born in Tallapoosa County in 1873 and spent about one year of his adult life working in Birmingham.
00:23:26
Speaker
After returning to Tallapoosa in 1895, he married and settled down as a tenant farmer until 1919, when he and his family left Alabama in search of better opportunities.
00:23:36
Speaker
Having spent some time sharecropping in Oklahoma and New Mexico, he returned to the place of his birth in 1929 and purchased a small farm. Gray owned a plot of land, but it was hardly enough to survive on.
00:23:48
Speaker
Nevertheless, he managed to remain debt-free and purchased his own automobile, thus earning the respect of his local community. So Ralph is doing relatively well for himself, all things considered, ah when relatively well for yourself is that you're managing to scrape by and and and barely survive. But he is debt free.
00:24:07
Speaker
He owns a car. um You know, he could really just keep his head down and and and be OK for him and his family. But that's not what he does. So early in 1931, Gray applied for a low interest federal loan with which to rent a farm from Talapusa merchant John J. Langley.
00:24:24
Speaker
Because the loan check required a double endorsement, Langley was able to cash the check and withhold Gray's portion, who then retaliated by filing a complaint with the Agricultural Extension Service.
00:24:36
Speaker
When the landlord heard what he had done, his brother Tommy recalled, he got mighty mad and jumped on Brother Ralph to give him a whipping. Instead, brother well Brother Ralph whipped him. oh boy. I said all around badasses. Yeah, they're scrappy. Yes.
00:24:53
Speaker
Quite literally. Let's see. Where Early in 1931? Yeah. ah No, I already got that. So you

Economic Decline and Dependency

00:25:00
Speaker
it's okay. I can get the rest. So soon thereafter, Ralph began reading the Southern Worker, joined the Communist Party, and set out with his brother to build a union.
00:25:08
Speaker
By July 1931, the Croppers and Farm Workers Union, the CFWU, now 800 strong, had won a few isolated victories in its battle for the continuation of food advances, which is what these folks are surviving on. They need this food to survive.
00:25:23
Speaker
Most Talapusa landlords, however, just would not tolerate a surreptitious organization of black tenant farmers and agricultural workers. Camp Hill, Alabama became the scene of the union's first major confrontation with the local power structure.
00:25:37
Speaker
Oh boy. Yeah. So here's where the content warning for white vigilante violence starts. um I'll add a timestamp in post to skip to um if if that is not something you want to listen to.
00:25:50
Speaker
Hey, y'all, this is Zephyr in post. If you'd like to skip the discussion about the Camp Hill massacre, including descriptions of lynching and racial terror, um please jump ahead to the 39 minute mark, about 39 minutes and 15 seconds.
00:26:03
Speaker
Thanks, y'all.
00:26:06
Speaker
On July 15, 1931, Taft Holmes organized a group of sharecroppers near Camp Hill and invited MAC Code, along with several other union members, to address the group in a vacant house that doubled as a church.
00:26:20
Speaker
In all, about 80 black men and women piled into the abandoned house to listen to code, discuss the CFWU, and the Scottsboro case. After a black informant notified Talabusa County Sheriff Kyle Young of the gathering, deputized vigilantes raided the meeting place, brutally beating men and women alike.
00:26:37
Speaker
The posse then regrouped at Tommy Gray's home and assaulted his entire family, including his wife, who suffered a fractured skull in an effort to obtain information about the CFWU. Oh boy.
00:26:49
Speaker
Only an agitated Ralph Gray, who had rushed into the house armed, saved from the possible fatal consequences. Union organizer Jasper Kennedy was arrested for possessing 20 copies of the Southern worker, and Holmes was picked up by police the following day, interrogated for several hours, and upon release, fled to Chattanooga.
00:27:08
Speaker
Also, it's never a good sign when you're... If if you're arresting somebody for owning a piece of literature, of of of of of owning... information...
00:27:19
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this is this is red scare time. This is this is a common tactic, actually, within this. I'm just saying if you if you you do that, check your uniform for skulls because you might be the baddies.
00:27:31
Speaker
i There are many reasons why these folks are the baddies. Oh yeah. ah ah Despite the violence, about 150 sharecroppers met with code the following evening in a vacant house southwest of Camp Hill.
00:27:43
Speaker
This time, sentries were posted around the meeting place. with sheriff young a right When Sheriff Young arrived on the scene with Camp Hill Police Chief J.M. Wilson and Deputy A.J. Thompson, was He found Ralph Gray standing guard about a quarter mile from the meeting. Although accounts differ as to the sequence of events, both Gray and the sheriff traded harsh words and, in the heart heat of argument, exchanged buckshot.
00:28:06
Speaker
So it was actually common practice to have sentries around meetings. So think this is something else that gets left out of history is that, um you know, the the the presence of guns gets left out. So I did not talk about the real town massacre and in either part one or part two of the script, but um there's a an anecdote about how when they would walk in through the door, they would take off their coats and put their long guns down in the same place.
00:28:33
Speaker
And so it was just a pile of coats and long guns. And that that is ah very Alabama. That is very Alabama. Yes. Yes. Yeah, it's just something that is that's very much cut out of history is is the role that the um black communities being armed ah played in self-defense.
00:28:52
Speaker
Okay. So at this point, you know, ah Ralph Gray and but the sheriff have shot each other. um So go ahead with ah Young, who received.
00:29:04
Speaker
Young, who received gunshot wounds to the stomach, was rushed to a hospital in nearby Alexander City while Gray lay on the side of the road, his legs riddled with bullets. Fellow union members carried Gray to his home, where the group, including Matt Code, barricaded themselves inside the house.
00:29:20
Speaker
The group held off a posse led by police chief J.M. Wilson long enough to allow most members to escape, but the wounded Ralph Gray opted to remain in his home until the end. Damn.
00:29:31
Speaker
Um, the posse returned with reinforcements and found Grey lying in his bed and his family huddled in a corner. According to his brother, someone in the group poked a pistol into Brother Ralph's mouth and shot down his throat.
00:29:48
Speaker
Mm-hmm. The mob burned his home to the ground and dumped his body on the steps of the Dadeville courthouse. The Mangledon lifeless leader became an example for other black sharecroppers as groups of armed whites took turns shooting and kicking the bloody corpse of Ralph Gray.
00:30:09
Speaker
Over the next few days, between 34 and 55 black men were arrested near Camp Hill, 9 of whom were under 18 years of age. Most of the defendants were charged with conspiracy to murder or with carrying a concealed weapon, but 5 union members were charged with assault to murder.
00:30:27
Speaker
Although Police Chief Wilson could not legally act out his wish to kill every member of the Reds there and throw them into the creek, the Camp Hill Police Department stood idle as enraged white citizens waged genocidal attacks on the black community that left dozens wounded or dead and forced entire families to seek refuge in the woods.
00:30:48
Speaker
Union Secretary Matt Code, the vigilante's prime target, fled all the way to Atlanta, but few Talapuza communists were as lucky as Code. Estelle Milner suffered a fractured vertebra at the hands of police after a local black minister accused her of possessing ammunition.
00:31:07
Speaker
Behind the violence in Tallapoosa County loomed the Scottsboro case. William G. Porter, secretary of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP, observed that vigilantes in and around Camp Hill were trying to get even for Scottsboro.
00:31:21
Speaker
So what's your reaction to all of that? My reaction to all that is the blatant... dehumanization of Mr. Gray and the the open mockery of justice to have murdered this man and to dump his body at the courthouse.
00:31:48
Speaker
It's
00:31:51
Speaker
It's enraging. it's it's It's disgusting. It is um it is the hard part of history of, okay, this happened not far from where I live, and I'm just now hearing about it as an adult in my mid-30s.
00:32:11
Speaker
Yeah, so to be clear, Camp Hill is about 25 minutes away from where we're sitting right now. Dadeville is about 30 because these towns are virtually next to each other. um They all run along 280. We're going eighty we be talking a lot about Dadeville, about Alexander City, and about Auburn. Well, mostly Alexander City, Dadeville, and Camp Hill.
00:32:32
Speaker
But I want you to keep in the back of your mind that this this is kind of a foundational relationship between Camp Hill and Dadeville is this this incident.
00:32:44
Speaker
Like, it's one thing to hear that, like, there were, like, I have heard heard that there were lynchings and that there were these extrajudicial killings. And, but they never go into the specificity, into the, into the,
00:33:02
Speaker
The Equal Justice Institute, I hope I'm saying I'm remembering that that right, the EJI, they have an amazing lynching memorial in Montgomery, and they they run the Legacy Museum there, which we should absolutely go to sometime. um It's really powerful.
00:33:17
Speaker
um And when I said I wasn't going to talk about Realtown and in these two parts, Realtown's not that far away either. it's just more towards Tallassee. So, you know, this is this is all tied in this in this area. You know, this this violence and there's more.
00:33:30
Speaker
um This is kind of like the main and, ah you know, if if you talk about like the, you know, um racialized violence around Camp Hill, there people are usually talking about Ralph Gray.
00:33:43
Speaker
um But like I said, you know there is there is there was a lot more. And there are different levels to the violence. right We're talking about Ralph Gray, who's killed. But Estelle, she has her vertebrae shattered. like and And remember, right at the time, Black people could not go to white hospitals.
00:34:00
Speaker
I know for a fact that there's no Black hospital in Auburn at the time. I do not know if there's one around Dadeville or Camp Hill. I know in the Realtown massacre, they had to go to Tuskegee to get treatment.
00:34:13
Speaker
So when they say like, oh, they went home or things like that, you know, there might not have been medical attention to even seek. And if they did in the Realtown incident, when they bring somebody who survived a um a racial racialized attack,
00:34:30
Speaker
And the black doctor ends up turning over the patient to the police and he later dies in custody. So even going to seek medical treatment isn't safe.
00:34:41
Speaker
um and And the doctor in that case was was was black as well, I believe. So, you know, there's there's layers to this. right So Ralph Gray is absolutely a victim of of lynching, but but so is his family.
00:34:56
Speaker
So is his brother. So is everybody who was wounded in this. Like, there were there were around 45 people who were arrested, nine of whom were, ah sorry, five of whom were charged with assault to murder. Right.
00:35:16
Speaker
And that insult to injury there of, motherfuckers, you know who did it. You were there. It always baffles to me how somebody can...
00:35:33
Speaker
it's It is anathema to me to to to treat another human being that way. Okay. Okay. So the last sentence there was um vigilantes in and around Camp Hill were trying to get even for Scottsboro.
00:35:50
Speaker
And I was curious before reading this book about like, you know, what what was going on in Camp Hill, like around, you know, the Scottsboro case. I did not. And I knew about.
00:36:02
Speaker
the lynching of of um Ralph Gray. I did not know they were directly connected. So i didn't I didn't realize until reading this book and then um was just I was furiously scribbling notes ah because I knew it was the same time period. So the Scottsboro Boys are first arrested on March 25th, 1931. And we just talked about events in July of 1931. So what do you know about the Scottsboro Boys? That name rings a strong bell.
00:36:29
Speaker
if there are ah If there is a case that you learn about in school, it is usually this one. um But even I have like found that I thought I knew am familiar with this case. Yeah, so Scottsboro Boys, to really flatten history into one sentence, because this is ostensibly an episode about Camp Hill,
00:36:46
Speaker
um is a legal case where nine black boys aged 13 to 19 were accused of sexually assaulting two white women while they were all riding the rails, illegally riding boxcars.
00:36:56
Speaker
There's no proof an assault ever happened, let alone that these random nine boys had done it, um of whom at least one was nearly blind and another could barely walk due to syphilis.
00:37:08
Speaker
They were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death within three days. But Scottsboro is a household name, or at least it should be, because the communist-led ILD, which is the International Labor Defense, I believe that's what ILD stands for, um they arranged for attorneys and publicized the hell out of the case, making it an international cause celebre.
00:37:28
Speaker
celebr I know how to say French. Jesus. You got them fancy French words? Look. um and And this is what they meant by getting back for Scottsboro, is that These white folks are are angry that um they're not able to just railroad. Pardon pardon the pun. I really try to think of a different term. And and in the the day since I wrote this, I i can't come up with no one.
00:37:54
Speaker
but Intend your puns. Don't be a coward. but i think they're they're i think they're upset that they are not able to just summarily throw these boys away.
00:38:06
Speaker
that That the international community... um I think the the the communists organized like a 13,000 person march in Ohio, like a week after, like ah I think April, not not the week after, it was like April 12th, something like that.
00:38:20
Speaker
pretty soon after. And then one of an equal size in New York the day after. so like they're getting people in the streets. There are phone calls, postcards, all all of those things, right? Like Alabama's getting and inundated with What the hell?
00:38:34
Speaker
Scottsboro is much more complicated than that. There are Supreme Court cases. we We're not going to get into that. that this yeah we get we we got We've got a lot to get through. We're barely a third of the way through this. We've got to get that ball rolling.
00:38:47
Speaker
But, you know, this I just wanted to to bring that around and and explain what they meant by trying to get even for Scottsboro. And even within that case being. you know, ah more well known that there are all of these ancillary effects, right? They're like, oh, you want these boys to get a fair, not even like go free, get a fair trial. Okay, well, we're going to murder some people.
00:39:07
Speaker
That's what you get. So I just, I just wanted to make sure that that was understood. So This has all been kind of dark, but I want to end us on something really positive. Something something beautiful that is born out of this.
00:39:22
Speaker
So when the history of Camp Hill and Sharecropper organizing is brought up, people cut it off there. Maybe they go into Scottsboro, but usually they cut it off at um you know Ralph Gray's lynching.
00:39:34
Speaker
But that is ah cutting off the story a little prematurely. So can you can you read that next section? Sure. Quote, the repression and deteriorating economic conditions stunted the union's growth initially, but the lessons of Camp Hill also provided a stimulus for a new type of movement, reborn from the ashes of the old.
00:39:53
Speaker
On August 6, 1931, the 55 remaining CFWU members regrouped as the SCU and reconstituted... And reconstituted five locals in Tallapoosa County.
00:40:06
Speaker
So locals is like, you know, the local organization of local chapters. Yeah, exactly. The SCU is the sharecroppers union. And this is what, you know, if people know anything about um sharecropper organizing in the South, they usually know the sharecroppers union.
00:40:20
Speaker
um There were lots of different organizations, but this is how the the the sharecroppers union is born. So Tommy Gray, Ralph Gray's brother, he he survives, right? He continues to organize, but he's got a huge target on his back, including escaping at least one attempted assassination. So it's kind of hard for him to do the grassroots organizing necessary, right?
00:40:38
Speaker
It's kind of hard to to do that the on the ground stuff if you're dodging folks. So his daughter did it. Instead, Gray's daughter, 19-year-old YCL leader Eula Gray, hell yes, let's go Eula, held the movement together during this very critical period.
00:41:00
Speaker
By the time she left the post, the SCU in Tallapoosa County had grown to 591 members organizing in 28 locals, 10 youth groups, and 12 women's auxiliaries.
00:41:13
Speaker
67 members were organized in nine Lee County locals, four of which were based in the town of Noda Solga, Chambers, and Megan counties. Each reported 30 members.
00:41:24
Speaker
So, ten times as many members. Like... Mm-hmm. I don't know from this when she left the post, so I don't know over how long of a time period, but like that's growth. That's about a year or two. It's not it's not super long. Like it's it's incredibly impressive. Okay, okay. So from 55 people, Eula Gray builds a movement. Now, what what I left out of here is the CWFU. They have a liaison to Birmingham. They've got connections to the party locals. They are completely cut off at this point.
00:41:58
Speaker
She does this alone. So when we talk about... So when we talk about, like... if you say communists in the South, right, or sharecroppers unions are communists, they are really building their own ideology, their own um sense of what that means, because to them, communism equals equality, right? And they're kind of just building off of that. Now, I don't want to flatten it too much because like, you know, we Lemon Johnson is pulling out V.I. Lenin's, right? Lemon Johnson! And he's not too far away. I think he was organizing in Hope Holes.
00:42:27
Speaker
But, you know, the folks here, ah you know, a lot of these folks are illiterate, you know, um, uh, this is all very much an Alabama-grown movement, you know?
00:42:39
Speaker
So they're, um they develop their own homegrown, you know, communism. It's based on equality, liberation, and faith. Faith is it essentially intertwined into this because to them they see like well jesus said to share these things and said that these people should be clothed and fed and what's the difference right there's there is ah it is it is a a merger that you do not see in other places i don't want to say in other places in the world i am not i'm not a historian i'm definitely not a communist historian, but but Robin D.G. Kelly is.
00:43:11
Speaker
And even he who's who was studying, you know, that that was that quote we opened with, that he was surprised to find this flavor here. i This is in an incredibly impressive feat for a, again, 19-year-old individual to do.
00:43:28
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, that is Eula Gray is is ah is incredible. um So District Bureau members. So when I said that they're cut off from Birmingham and within their own their own organizational um within Birmingham and the the the higher up structure, ah they're complaining about it because District Bureau member Harry Wicks observed the croppers themselves are maintaining their organization. And reports are that they are holding meetings regularly without any direction from us, except what this little girl, Eula Gray, can impart. This little girl can impart to them. He doesn't say her name.
00:44:02
Speaker
He's talking about Eula Gray. So also, ah fuck him for calling Eula Gray a little girl, number one. And number two, this vibes so much with my own experience organizing in Alabama, because it is black women who are really organizing and leading movements.
00:44:16
Speaker
um that That intertwining of faith and and liberation theology and and all of these different, actually not liberation theology, that's ah that's an explicit thing, but but all of these all of these threads, there's a line between this and today. Yeah, and ah I think that, sorry, i think I think I clicked for what I was trying to say before. It's not that surprising and is in fact encouraging to me just how central it is because there is a
00:44:47
Speaker
in certain aspects of Southern Christianity, there is a um, a doomsday ah vibe. and And counteracting that is this... The the faith of a people who... that that hope, that belief that not only...
00:45:11
Speaker
that belief that not only should things be better, but they can be better by acting with kindness, by taking care of one another, and by lifting each other up and not putting each other down that I deeply adore.
00:45:27
Speaker
Yeah. and and And we are, of course, again, flattening this because there's absolutely infighting. There's always infighting. Oh, yeah. Just to be really clear. we're there that No, no, no. There's there's there's there's always stuff.
00:45:42
Speaker
But this is this is the best I can do in terms of, you know, we've already... um Oh, good. We're almost an hour in. haven't even gotten to modern day Camp Hill. Oh. All right. so So bringing this back to Camp Hill.
00:45:56
Speaker
Disinvestment after desegregation. Camp Hill has always been majority black. During Jim Crow and segregation, Camp Hill's downtown was booming. It was the place if you were white. So again, um Highway 280 does not exist yet.
00:46:11
Speaker
ah To get between Camp Hill and Auburn, you were going down the, what is it, Route 50 or something? i don't even know, 50 goes all the way to Auburn. But either way, it's... it's um So it it was the place if you were white.
00:46:23
Speaker
um There are virtually no black owned businesses. I think I talked to um someone who who mentioned like they think they they know like one black owned business, but it wasn't on Main Street.
00:46:34
Speaker
So 1976, Camp Hill elects its first black mayor, Frank Hawley. ah It hit peak population in 1980 with 1,628 folks counted in the census that year. And then came the white flight, predominantly in the mid to late 1980s.
00:46:50
Speaker
I saw that eye roll. Just... just... We're like geese. We're like geese. We just... we just fly away when it's... when it's when the when the temperature becomes inconvenient.
00:47:03
Speaker
I... I mean, sure. That's one way to put it. I don't know. i just...
00:47:10
Speaker
it's It's a common story. It is. It is. And it and and I'm just like... it's It's one of those things that, like... It always generates for me a... Okay, where is the other shoe about to drop feeling?
00:47:22
Speaker
Because... ah I mean, we did start with, this is a great place to be if you're white. Yeah. and The shoe was already down. Yeah.
00:47:31
Speaker
Yeah, here i am dealing with another instance of... Racial tension in America... That's what happens when you don't deal with your past.
00:47:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Comes up everywhere. ah Reparations. Good place to start. So in this time period, John Zellers, I could not find a good description of John Zellers, like,
00:47:57
Speaker
how to describe him professionally, um a black businessman, investor, something like that. Entrepreneur. Yeah. So he owned a couple businesses in, I think, I think ah ah food type like establishments in Auburn.
00:48:11
Speaker
um So he he started buying up storefronts downtown when they went up for sale during the the white flight period. um From the Alex City Outlook, quote, um John bought his first two side by side storefronts, which was then a Davis Dry Goods and Tucker's Pharmacy in 1987, followed by Henderson's insurance next door.
00:48:29
Speaker
Over the next few years, John continued to acquire half the units on South Main Street. When it got time to securing business licenses, however, the town refused. Each time I came to the city council meeting, they had some objection to what I was trying trying to do.
00:48:42
Speaker
So at some point, ah i I think it might have been after 2001, several of those units ah burned down. um they The businesses themselves never, ah they they don't reopen, right? So the the storefronts decay.
00:48:58
Speaker
So by 2001, the town was not in a great place. Highway 280 didn't exist yet. I think we've mentioned this a few times. It it finishes up around 2006. With the loss of tax revenue and the loss of population, which was a 21.8% loss between 1980 and 2000, the town is struggling.
00:49:16
Speaker
It's not an uncommon story in rural Alabama. um From a 2001 article in the Outlook ah titled, It's Faded Real Fast.
00:49:26
Speaker
Which I can tell so that's from 2001 and how downtown still looks. brick buildings once home to grocery stores clothing and furniture stores and other businesses are boarded up or padlon or they are mere crumbling which i can tell you so that's from two thousand and one and we're in twenty twenty five that's how downtown still looks And this is why all those exploitative assholes make videos. They're looping the same block.
00:49:51
Speaker
um And I'm not going to say that like Camp Hill in general looks like amazing, but they are they're very much picking out this block. And it is just a block of of, um you know, decrepit buildings.
00:50:04
Speaker
And and they're that's what they're basing this whole ghost town BS on, because from 2010 till now, but the town's population is stabilized at about a thousand years. Around a thousand people like they've they've stopped hemorrhaging people. Now, a lot of people are elderly, but saying that it's a ghost town or anything, you know, ah at peak population, this is a town of 1600.
00:50:25
Speaker
You know, like, yeah, they they dropped a lot of population, but like that's it's it's not it's not the whole story. It's not the whole story. So Camp Hillians have been trying to fix this problem for a long time.
00:50:37
Speaker
um That same article goes on to detail confrontation between the local white lawyer and the city council when they tried to deal with um the the issues with these buildings because they just need to be torn down at this point. like they There's no salvaging them.
00:50:49
Speaker
um I might have a photo in here later, ah but there's there's really no salvaging these buildings. like They need to be knocked down and they need to be just rebuilt. So, quote, earlier this year, local lawyer Ruth Sullivan, again, who was white,
00:51:02
Speaker
got a circuit judge to block the town from tearing down any structures, saying the council lacked the authority. Mrs. Sullivan's husband, Charles, owns two downtown buildings, and her son, Stan, owns the burned-out shell of one.
00:51:15
Speaker
So this is an addition to the decrepit buildings that John Zillers owns. Right. So so essentially all of those buildings. And at some point, um ah John's units, um ah there's a fire and and that, you know, kind of destroys the the the rest of us.
00:51:32
Speaker
um But, you know, Mrs. Sullivan, who is now passed, um says, ah quote, they were getting ready to tear the whole down town down without due process.
00:51:43
Speaker
ah said Mrs. Sullivan, who has called Camp Hill home since 1960 and calls the town government incompetent with no idea what their job is and no leadership. As for the argument that if owners fix up a building, an occupant will come, Mrs. Sullivan said, we're not going to spend any money when there's no hope of getting anybody in there.
00:52:01
Speaker
It is only Southern politeness of not speaking ill of the dead that is holding my tongue on this one, but anyway. Mm-hmm. The article, which again is written in 2001, goes on to say that, quote, there is a racial component to Camp Hill's saga in that the whites who ran the major businesses and generally ran the town have largely died off and their descendants have seen no reason to stay.
00:52:21
Speaker
I was kind of curious as to why there was like a delay. because In a lot of towns in Alabama, that that white flight, you see it started in 1965. Like the minute desegregation happens, they are out of there. They're making their own schools.
00:52:33
Speaker
Yeah. So when I saw like and looked at the census records and saw that it was like in the mid 1980s, I was like, well, that's kind of weird. And then that line and that story, I think that's more it. um This is something that that I mean, i don't have to guess at it.
00:52:47
Speaker
The folks who lived through this are still alive and living in Camp Hill and I can talk to them directly about it, which is why I'm kind of just giving um and overview of of how the town looks the way it does. But um i I think there's a lot of questions I have that that are going to be answered in the future.
00:53:03
Speaker
um So we we're getting into the modern day. um ah promise again, this is not about dissing Camp Hill or anything. It's to set us up for understanding um how Camp Hill is staying afloat and and what are some of the financial constraints on the cities.
00:53:17
Speaker
Moving on to fines and fees. So all of this means like that lackx lack of tax revenue, um the fact that there's no businesses really within camp. There's one or two. There's the the Castle gas station, which I do have to take you to. They have really good fried chicken. and um And your face right now, ah you know that that that gas station fried chicken is the best kind of fried chicken when it's good.
00:53:44
Speaker
Yes. Emphatically, yes. i'm i That was a look of excitement. Oh, OK. OK. I thought you looked horrified for a second. and i' no no I was like, hey, you grew up here. Yes.
00:53:55
Speaker
Yes, I did. So so Camp Hill is is is really reliant on fees to keep the town running. um So that means, ah well, so they have a piece of 280.
00:54:06
Speaker
that they can police. From a series on fines and fees in Alabama by The Reflector, quote, When Alabama needs to pay for services, it turns to fees and general charges, or fines and fees, in the criminal justice system.
00:54:19
Speaker
By one estimate, local Alabama governments generate more than twice as much revenue from fees and charges as they do from property taxes. Fees are often key to keeping public services like sheriff's offices, ambulance services, and fire rescue teams running.
00:54:34
Speaker
One reason for Alabama's reliance on charges as well as fines and fees is the state's constitution. Designed in 1901 to disenfranchise black Alabamians and poor whites, it also tightened restrictive property tax caps even further.
00:54:49
Speaker
The Alabama Constitution of 1901 was drafted primarily by the most influential people who were large landowners and large industries who did not want to pay property taxes on large land holdings, said Thomas Spencer, senior research associate with the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama.
00:55:05
Speaker
What's another word for ah large land holdings? Plantations, perhaps? Yeah, yeah. also We didn't just end up this way. No, we didn't. And and like just in case like people are wondering, i i made a joke in the intro about about ranking in the 40s on things like education.
00:55:28
Speaker
Part of the reason for that is that education is primarily or at least significantly paid with property taxes. And when the property taxes are capped and...
00:55:41
Speaker
you you have an opportunity to increase that cap. They don't vote for it.
00:55:49
Speaker
It's so frustrating. It's also property taxes from the locality. It's not statewide. So like more money goes to Auburn schools or to like white affluent areas than you can raise in, in, um, in black towns.
00:56:04
Speaker
Right. So, uh, it didn't quite make the script, but, um, Camp Hill does not have its own high school. It used to. But Camp Hill kids actually bus to Dadeville. Actually, they I don't even know if there is a bus that runs Dadeville. I think they have to get driven.
00:56:18
Speaker
So that's another thing that happens a lot in Alabama that I didn't learn until I moved here was that um there's not really bus services. So no pick up and drop off and pick up like.
00:56:29
Speaker
parents have to individually drive their kid to school, drop them off and this in this insane long line of cars. It's it's just a whole ordeal. The British would cry if they saw the way Alabamians queue. The world would cry because it's insane.
00:56:46
Speaker
And i just I just want to make one final note about the Constitution of 1901 because it should be said every time the Constitution is is brought up, um which is that when they were convening the kind of the State Constitutional Convention...
00:56:58
Speaker
um They they ah very emphatically said, like, what are we to do? Well, to to enshrine white supremacy into law. So, you know, it's very like night the 1901 Constitution was specifically designed to completely undo um any laws.
00:57:14
Speaker
anything that had been gained during the reconstruction period. And that is the same constitution we're under today. There was a constitutional amendment, ah like a rewriting of it to take out racist language because um segregated schools and in some racist language was still in the constitution. So that was passed, I think in 2022. And I think everybody today, including some legislators on the floor have said like, if this was today, I don't think it would pass. Like it's insane how this has changed in three years.
00:57:42
Speaker
um But yeah, I just wanted to make that note and about the Constitution of 1901. That's what's going on here. Modern day Camp Hill, the mayor.

New Leadership and Recent Challenges

00:57:51
Speaker
So the mayor of Camp Hill began his tenure as a 21 year old Auburn University senior.
00:57:57
Speaker
Faye has died. Wait, wait, no, hold on Hold on. I think I remember who seeing this in the paper. There was a lot of articles about it. Like, okay.
00:58:08
Speaker
So on October 6th, 2020, the citizens of Camp Hill elected Messiah Williams Cole as mayor, ousting incumbent Ezell Woodyard Smith, 259 to 156 in a runoff election.
00:58:19
Speaker
So remember, Camp Hill has a population of 1,006 people. Damn. 40% out to the polls, like... 52%, actually, because that's just the total population, not adults.
00:58:29
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And, yeah, i I did the math. You'd be so proud of me. actually did the math. ah
00:58:38
Speaker
So according to the 2020 decennial census, 794 residents were adults, 415 voted in the election. So if we assume all it our all adults are registered to vote, which is a big F because if you're if you have a felony conviction or anything, like you likely can't be registered. So at least 52% of voters turned out for a runoff election.
00:58:57
Speaker
So point being, this isn't a fluke win. um This makes Williams Cole the youngest mayor of Camp Hill and one of the youngest mayors in Alabama's history. um He is usually cited as the youngest mayor, but then sometimes one of the youngest mayors. And I've never seen anybody actually like provide, like, did they do a spreadsheet analysis?
00:59:15
Speaker
But he's young, right? 21 years old. um He's probably the first mayor in Alabama to become mayor while still in college. Um, Mayor Messiah Williams Cole told CBS 42 after securing the position that he planned to attend grad school or law school concurrently with his tenure as mayor saying, quote, he plans to stay on top of campus activities, his studies and mayoral mayoral duties by being extremely organized with his calendar scheduling.
00:59:42
Speaker
Which I don't know. I'm not going to pretend that running a town of a thousand people isn't compatible with doing an outside job because I mean, the mayor of Camp Hill makes only $800 a month. You have to have a whole other job that's like groceries at best.
00:59:57
Speaker
ah But to me, there's a difference between a job and law school, which is what Williams Cole decided to pursue. Yeah. um It's it's like
01:00:09
Speaker
like when you hear about somebody being the CEO of like five companies. and And it's like, are you how much are you doing at each of these?
01:00:21
Speaker
Really? Yeah. So, I mean, and again, town of a thousand people, like, normal times, isn't going to need hands-on. No, no, no, no, no.
01:00:33
Speaker
So in 2023, Camp Hill went through back to back devastating tragedies. And at that time, the now 24 year old mayor was finishing up law school and actively clerking in family court ah judicial circuit of Alabama. So in Montgomery, which which is also where his his law school is, which is not uncommon, right? Like I i live in Auburn.
01:00:56
Speaker
um My last two jobs have been in Montgomery. It's pretty common for anybody living in this area to to commute you know like an hour. think for for Camp Hill, that would be like an hour and 20 minutes, something like that. So it's not terribly far.
01:01:09
Speaker
um But he is still actively in school when when for for the events that we're talking about. So that just makes everything more difficult. So... um The hailstorm. um I first went to Camp Hill, first visited Camp Hill prior to the storm and the the shooting.
01:01:26
Speaker
um So my my first visit, I think, was in would would have been November of 2022. It was a trunk and treat. And then I went up in a couple times in December.
01:01:38
Speaker
And then when the hailstorm hit, um I went up. um So these are actually photos or I'm showing Faye photos that I took on the ground because when we say a hailstorm hit and for for every one of the details I'm going to give you after this, I think you you kind of need a visual of it because this I've I've grown up in areas with storms my entire life. You know, I've lived I've lived through hailstorms for the love of God. My mom is from Montreal. I've lived through an ice storm before, you know.
01:02:05
Speaker
I have never seen hail like this. It was softball sized. Yeah. it it it's It hasn't happened again. um There wasn't anything on the radar. There wasn't a particularly like it wasn't a night that they were expecting a line of storms.
01:02:21
Speaker
It just happened. um A lot of folks believe that that it was actually like a small tornado that that brought... hail down with it it's just it was it was a freak storm um so if you can see like those first two photos that is one of those like you know aluminum signs right it's on a it's on a wooden post oh is that like a neighborhood watch sign yeah yeah and that's like an aluminum sign it it has peeled the paint off of not just peeled the paint but look at the second photo look at it from the side Oh, that's say nothing of it being crumpled like tissue paper.
01:02:54
Speaker
Yeah. like like Like wrapping paper. Yeah. ah that's... And then there's a photo of a car and it's in a wooden carport. The those the hail was so strong. It punched through...
01:03:07
Speaker
the the The wooden carport, right? It smashed the entire back window and there's divots all over the car. um You can see like these cars, they they look like somebody used them for target practice at a baseball pitching, you know like like a batting cage. That's the word I was looking for.
01:03:25
Speaker
looked like if you if you put ah put a car there. and so that oh there's There's one of these pictures. it didn't just They didn't just go through like wooden carports. but there This is like a Steel corrugated roof, I think I'm looking at.
01:03:39
Speaker
So this is the walkway between um the the city council now meets in ah Baptist Church and there's a a steel. Yeah, there's a corrugated steel walkway and it is completely pitted with holes. I think they've they've actually repaired it now at this point. But yeah, it's.
01:03:54
Speaker
it's And it it's bent like it is bent. um So there are multiple places where it punched through completely. that It's dented now. um If you look at like the next photo, that is a plastic table that was just out.
01:04:07
Speaker
And it is Swiss cheesed It's Swiss cheesed it. So this is like your typical plastic table that um like a folding table that you would take ah to do like something. the side of this person's trailer.
01:04:19
Speaker
That's a house. That is not a trailer. that's um it's It's a um manufactured house, but it's a house. That isn't a trailer.
01:04:28
Speaker
But yeah, yeah, the the holes punched through um all the way inside. um This happened to everybody's roofs. So on March 26th, massive hail the size of softballs and grapefruits rained down for 15 to 20 minutes.
01:04:42
Speaker
No lives were lost, but property damage was extensive. Those same storms produced a tornado that destroyed 130 structures in West Point. That's place West Point. Is that technically over the Georgia border? That's in Georgia. Yeah, but it's just over the border. And it it as well as floods that breach the city ah water and the city water reservoir in Lafayette. And for folks not from the area that anybody else would pronounce it Lafayette, but but in in this area in Alabama, we call Lafayette.
01:05:11
Speaker
Just don't ask. Can you spell Lafayette without Faye? That's so bad. That's terrible. ah So again, I have never seen anything like this hail. It power washed the sidewalks.
01:05:28
Speaker
That was one of the first things I noticed. um I went to um my friend CJ's house. um ah They and and and their their husband um were actually ah had their house on the market for sale. They were they were getting ready to sell it and move.
01:05:42
Speaker
um And they had ah an offer and the storm came through um and it it, you know, it, ah they actually got away ah much, much better off, I think, that than most folks. But it did. It messed up their roof.
01:05:56
Speaker
It shattered a bunch of windows. And why I was up there is um I have some experience with repairing old old windows, but mostly metal casement windows. And that's that's not what they had. So I was. trying to see if I could patch it up because unfortunately it rains all day the next day. So a disaster gets worse, but we're going to get to that.
01:06:13
Speaker
um And what I noticed is um I didn't include it here because they're all videos and we've had issues with, with videos on, on how we're, we're doing these ah recordings before. So this is something work out in the future, but and I have a video of me walking in the the sidewalk outside their house. And the first thing I noticed, I was like, that's a weird pattern for a sidewalk.
01:06:31
Speaker
And then I realized like, Oh, the hail hit so hard it power washed the dirt off of the sidewalk where it hit. So you literally can you can see how big it was because it may it it's the clean part of the sidewalk. It's insane.
01:06:47
Speaker
And across the street from CJ's is the emergency town shelter that was installed the day before. That was that the first day was officially open. And so when you look at the shelter, um,
01:06:57
Speaker
So I'm out there. I think this is a few days after it's happened that is the first time I went up. um If you look at the shelter and I took video and photos of this, um it looks like it's been there for a while.
01:07:09
Speaker
Like it's weathered. It's not. it It's marked with the hail. Now, it's not divoted, right? Because this is something that's that's... It is an emergency shelter. It's rated for tornadoes. but But you can see like where it has...
01:07:24
Speaker
It caused sufficient cosmetic damage that it seemed like it's um it now seems like it's a much older structure. Yeah, um I think you you can see it on the on the water tower, too.
01:07:35
Speaker
Dean Bonner, who's a ah um someone I also know um and who is a former city councilman, he's he's been in Campbell for a long, long time. He's local Coast Guard veteran with disaster response experience.
01:07:46
Speaker
And he said that what happened was a uniquely catastrophic event. In a lot of homes, the hail went through the shingle, the plywood, the ceiling and hit the floor. The hail came through metal carports and totaled cars. I've never seen or heard anything like this before.
01:08:02
Speaker
um This is from an article that the Lee Hedgepeth, who's a ah fantastic journalist, he's currently a journalist with um Inside Climate News, but at the time, um I think he ah this is through his ah independent um newsletter, that he did a fantastic um profile of of the event and and interviewed a lot of people.
01:08:22
Speaker
So that will be linked in the show notes below. um You know, the the issue with Camp Hill and this hailstorm becomes a rolling disaster. So immediately...
01:08:36
Speaker
One of the places that gets hit is the fire station. So the fire station has um they have skylights and it punches out the skylights. And so the first of the firefighters are dealing with this is like all of a sudden there's a storm and all of a sudden the building is filling up with water because it's pouring. Right. That's what happens when it hails.
01:08:56
Speaker
um I talked to several people who described it as like they thought like. cannons were going off gunshots were going up the sound was indescribable um you know they just nobody had ever heard or seen it and this is at 3 30 in the morning right so everybody is disoriented there are quite a few trailers or at least like mobile homes you know with the homes with roofs that are that are more malleable and it shredded those up So that folks are are hiding in bathrooms, basically doing what you would do to survive a tornado, because there is essentially like projectile weapons coming in at all angles. You know, that that that building, that that photo that you were talking about, that woman's wall being all messed up. Right. It's coming in sideways in in that case. Right. So these are these are coming in through the walls. Right.
01:09:43
Speaker
um And hitting people inside. Now, again, luckily, nobody was killed, which is frankly a small miracle given yeah what what happened. And thank God for small miracles. Yeah, right.
01:09:54
Speaker
but But then again, right it becomes a slow-moving catastrophe because a hailstorm is kind of a lot of hidden damage because the problem, living in Alabama, the problem is ah when when you get a lot of moisture that gets into the walls and the roof, you malt Right.
01:10:11
Speaker
And we live in a very humid place. So the next day, the entire next day, pours all day. There's not a break in the rain. Going to need new mattresses. No, they need a new everything. mattresses.
01:10:26
Speaker
and And you can't really. Yeah. So insulation. Yeah. it like It's it's it's a lot. So. Immediately. Right. Camp Hill declares themselves a disaster, but the state doesn't.
01:10:42
Speaker
Oh, right. Oh, right. This bullshit. This bullshit. This bullshit. This fucking bullshit. Right. So kind of immediately, you know, Mayor Williams and really everybody else in the town is like, sure, the fact that it wasn't a tornado may play a role in delay. But like, let's be real. This is this is a lot of this is race and class.
01:11:01
Speaker
So my friend Warren gets there like the next morning and he is freaking out because Warren is a veteran of um a disaster response.
01:11:13
Speaker
um This is the first I heard about the hailstorm was not even news reports. It was Warren blowing up my phone, like, this is really bad. And and I got to be honest, until I went for the first time, it was hard for me to wrap my my mind around it, too. Because he kept talking about tarps.
01:11:26
Speaker
And I was like, what do mean tarps? What do you mean tarps? Everything's good. You need so many tarps. He got them. He got a lot of freaking tarps.
01:11:37
Speaker
You know, um but the issue with tarps, right, is that you need. um So one of the biggest. ah issues one of the One of the most common injuries after disaster is actually people falling off their own roofs, like trying to tarp it. So he was very you know insistent that like they get people who are equipped. the The fire department helped out a lot with this. But again, the fire department, the the fire station's just been destroyed. Yeah. and like Like, let's just, ah like for the sake of argument, let's just assume that that didn't get destroyed and the firefighters were able to devote all of their time to helping put up tarps.
01:12:12
Speaker
you I don't know how many guys are in that fire department. Well, it's a volunteer fire department. And I think at the time they had four people. Yeah, great. Great work, guys.
01:12:23
Speaker
Sincerely. That is not sarcasm. That is sincere. First responders are so underrated. It might have been five. I'm i'm gonna i'm sorry, Josh. like I can't remember off the top my head. um So another another layer to this, right, is we've talked a couple times about where Camp Hill physically is.
01:12:40
Speaker
You really can't travel anywhere from Camp Hill to anywhere else without going on 280. Camp Hill does not have a pharmacy. It does not have a grocery store. It doesn't have anything there. There's not really any stores. There's the castle ah gas station, which is ah kind of at like the edge of the the town.
01:12:59
Speaker
um And I think there's another gas station on the other side. When I say gas station, I i mean, these are like unbranded, like two pump kind of deals. So because this hail has punched through everything, 90 percent of the the cars in the town are totaled.
01:13:15
Speaker
The Camp Hill does have a post office, but the post office was also flooded and closed down. For the entirety of this. Now, a lot of the town is elderly. they They physically can't get out and walk somewhere.
01:13:27
Speaker
the the The closest like store of any kind is a Dollar General that's technically in Camp Hill limits, but it's it's on the other side of 280. There's no way to cross 280, you know. um ah So for folks who like aren't from this this area, ah Highway 280 is in some parts of of Highway 280. It's got like stop signs and stuff.
01:13:45
Speaker
This is not not stop signs, ah lights. This is not that part of 280. This is just 65 miles an hour of highway. um It's a divided highway. So you got U-turn to like turn around.
01:13:56
Speaker
um and And the Dollar General is like across one of those. You can't walk this. you You could not safely cross this. I'm sure like some people did like I think out of desperation, but that that that's not an that's not a real option.
01:14:08
Speaker
So you're in a situation, right, where like people are like their homes are raining water on their heads and they can't take their cars anywhere to get any of these supplies.
01:14:20
Speaker
So ah even the most simple things, right, people start running out of groceries really fast because you can't get more. Even if you have the funds to write, you can't get more like it. It became a bigger disaster very quickly because of the disinvestment, because of all of these factors leading up to this moment. And this is what we mean when we say the crisis, the the the climate crisis hits frontline communities the hardest. Right.
01:14:42
Speaker
Because imagine the same storm coming through Auburn. It would be terrible. Right. But the response and the um the the the underlying factors, right, would be way different. One is that most you know most of the homes in Auburn, right, would would be more likely to be slightly more resilient to the hail, although it likely would still punch through roofs. We have a lot of trailer parks around here. That's true. That's true. have a lot of folks.
01:15:06
Speaker
I don't want to under you're right. You're right. i don't want to understate that. But I just meant like if it had hit a different community, Lake Martin, for example, you know, like if it had hit a different community, the effects wouldn't have been quite so brutal. And a lot of them are hidden because if you don't know that about Camp Hill.
01:15:23
Speaker
it It adds to it, right? Like you have to say this does not have a pharmacy. They do not like they need to go to Dadeville for everything. that's That's how it works in Campbell. You go to Dadeville for groceries, go to Dadeville to go to the the vet clinic, you go to Dadeville to get your your meds. you know that's They don't have a pharmacy in Campbell. Gee, only we had like some sort of rail system to go connect these small communities to the to the larger hubs upon which they are dependent.
01:15:48
Speaker
Yeah. That way, when something like this happens, you could still go and get the groceries. Well, you know, um ah ah there is a railroad track that runs right through the middle of Camp Hill.
01:15:59
Speaker
um That storm shelter i was talking about in CJ's is actually a great place to train watch because the train is literally 10 feet away from you with nothing stopping you from getting on the graded rail.
01:16:10
Speaker
um Perhaps not what you meant by a train connecting these communities. Passenger train. I was speaking of a name another country. Oh.
01:16:20
Speaker
name another country public transport system that could that could have helped out and provided some sort of i don't know social safety net for these people
01:16:34
Speaker
oh god yeah so the disaster happens in march april rolls by rolls by we're gonna we're gonna back up a little bit in time in a minute but Months roll by. They get denied. ah FEMA ah denies individual claims, but does cover some town costs.
01:16:56
Speaker
um So like it damaged the public infrastructure. So people um are paying out of pocket. um Either they have insurance on their cars or they're paying out of pocket for their windshields, windows. Right. Because, again, Campbell does not have industry in town.
01:17:12
Speaker
to go to your job most folks are working in auto factories that's a that's a big that's a very common thing most of them are commuting to and like the kia plant yeah or the kia plant so if they're driving an hour and a half right so getting the car fixed is is a pretty high priority to this day if you drive around camp hill you will see divoted cars um but you know to get the windshields as long as it's safe to operate Right, right.
01:17:37
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, the cosmetic, like who cares, but but just you can see like the the the mark. So immediately after the, you know, the one of the biggest emergency responses was food and also tarping these roofs. And so for a long time, you would just see like bright blue tarps on a lot of the homes ah in in Camp Hill. Now,
01:18:00
Speaker
Some folks had the the cash to be able to get somebody to fix their roof. um Most folks did not. um One of my favorite things is driving into town now and like noticing all the new roofs um because that's something that they've been working really hard to do.
01:18:14
Speaker
In addition to the the big senior population, so um getting food ah directly to seniors. So one of the things I did ah during the recovery, and there were so many other folks who did way, way, way more. But one small thing I did was dry you know we would get... um food trucks that were, they were paid for that would come and like hand out food to residents for the the weeks following the storm.
01:18:35
Speaker
And so I would ah ah drive, like I got a list of of seniors in the area and then would drive like that lunch to them because that was like some the only food they were going to get. I remember one man

Post-Disaster Recovery and Moral Dilemmas

01:18:45
Speaker
asking me to walk around the perimeter of his his house and just tell him like if there was damage. His place actually was not hit.
01:18:52
Speaker
um He was more on the outskirts. So it was really, felt really good to tell this guy was like, like stuck in his house. Like he had he was a, He's a wheelchair user. Like, hey, you're actually fine. unless i mean, tell me if you've seen drips or anything. I can't get up on your roof and look. But like, i I'm not seeing anything, which is really lucky.
01:19:10
Speaker
um Another complicating thing. I'm happy for that guy. Right? Another complicating factor in this, and and one that I have not seen reported elsewhere, um was the use of prison labor and the recovery.
01:19:25
Speaker
So this is one of those things, right, where nuance and complexity comes in. So I remember going to to volunteer at City Hall and noticing these guys hanging around that like I didn't know, but I didn't know everybody in Camp Hill. like I still don't.
01:19:40
Speaker
And then realizing that like the back of their shirts said like DOC. So these are work release folks. So these are folks that are ah considered by the state of Alabama to be safe enough to go into communities to work for pennies on the dollar.
01:19:52
Speaker
um And ah but but not paroled because Alabama does not like paroling people. We have a huge backlog of parolees. Prison labor. Right. And we will get into this more in like a future like dedicated episode to to prison labor.
01:20:09
Speaker
Alabama still has plantations. They just have iron bars. Right. And so these folks are, you know, they're they not choosing this detail. Right. They're getting they're getting sent out to work now. Camp Hill. Right.
01:20:20
Speaker
They don't have money. They are a poor black community that has been consistently disinvested in. Right. They do not have funds. they They can't pay for roofers. or And these folks are not getting up on roofs. They're they're handing out supplies and such.
01:20:33
Speaker
they don't have the resources to get paid folks, right? Or volunteers or or anything, right? So now they're they're using, you know, they're using convict leasing.
01:20:44
Speaker
They're using, you know, prison labor, work release folks to help with this recovery, which is about the only thing that they could afford. um I don't actually know how much the town pays for that, but it like I said, it's pennies on the dollar.
01:20:57
Speaker
They don't get paid minimum minimum wage. oh no no no oh oh no they don't they don't get paid minimum wage like i know and nobody gets paid enough and very much including all of the uh prison workers they're getting paid i think at most a couple of dollars a day like yeah total like it's not it might be less than that actually but like i said that's a dedicated episode but i just wanted to bring up like This is one situation where this is this is how you get poor and marginalized folks to be complicit, right? Is that there's no other avenues to turn to.
01:21:32
Speaker
I remember seeing them and being like,

Gun Violence and Community Impact

01:21:33
Speaker
oh, that's really gross. But also like, what else are they supposed to do? you know, like, what else are you supposed to do in that situation? Like, it's it's hard.
01:21:43
Speaker
And that's how these systems perpetuate by making it almost impossible really to go any other direction. It's what happens when the game is rigged.
01:21:56
Speaker
Yeah. It's what happens when the house always wins. Hey, folks, this is Zephyr in post. um If you want to skip all mention of the um the shooting um in in specific, but still want to tune into some of the discussion on general gun violence in Alabama, ah concealed carry and jhove's Senator Jay Hovey's remarks after the shooting, um jump ahead to one hour, 38 minutes 54 seconds.
01:22:25
Speaker
If you want to skip any mention of gun violence whatsoever, skip to one hour and 48 minutes. um And there's a cute cat a discussion waiting for you. Thank you all so much.
01:22:36
Speaker
I'm going to have you read, um this is this is a long quote, this is ah from Lee's article, and ah it's it's but ah beautiful in a dark way, ah but it feels like a really good way to capture um the twin tragedies, because now we're going to move on to the shooting.
01:22:52
Speaker
I will say up front, by the way, we're we're going to really minimally... talk about the shooting um this these are children um i just wanted to kind of say like up front like i'm um we're not gonna get this is not like when we were talking about ralph gray um we're gonna talk kind of like in in ah broad strokes.
01:23:12
Speaker
And to qualify why I'm saying that, a lot of people, a lot of national news media descended on the town after this, specifically because of the shooting. It became international news.
01:23:23
Speaker
And folks were already traumatized from the storm. Really, none of that attention went to storm relief. It was the sensational right it was a lot of horror. and what it was it well warn it was It was black trauma porn.
01:23:40
Speaker
And I refuse to do that um as best as I i can avoid it. um it it It is absolutely part of the story. um But I think but i'm I'm trying to talk about it in a way that isn't sensationalizing it is really because these folks who who are about to experience this, the children are about to experience it, their homes are currently flooded.
01:24:03
Speaker
Right. or or are you know, we'll we'll get to that. But um so if you could um read the. As the storm blew on, the water became the problem.
01:24:15
Speaker
First, of course, the water falling from above had been the primary concern. It poured through the places where the roofs of Camp Hill had utterly failed. Sometimes, if a family was lucky, the water simply dripped slowly from the ceiling or seeped surreptitiously through the painted drywall.
01:24:33
Speaker
But other times, all too often it seemed. The water fell through freely. Where shelter had been for many, there was now only sky. When the rain stopped, the problems didn't.
01:24:44
Speaker
The water that stayed became the new threat. It soaked into the carpets and walls. It wilted ceilings. And as it dried, the mold set in. Then the shots rang out.
01:24:58
Speaker
On Saturday, less than a month after a hailstorm had torn Camp Hill apart, the community found itself reeling. That day, at a sweet 16 birthday party for his sister held in nearby Dadeville, Philstavius Dowdell, an 18-year-old from Camp Hill, became one of four teens killed in a mass shooting that left dozens more injured.
01:25:21
Speaker
For many in Camp what was happening in their small Alabama town was the kind of loss and grief they'd never experienced before. An undeniable climate catastrophe quickly compounded by the stark, bloody reality of the impact of gun violence on their own community.
01:25:38
Speaker
Now, in the days since the shooting and the weeks since the hailstorm, the residents of Camp Hill are aiming to survive, moving forward one day at a time. It's what they said they've always done.
01:25:51
Speaker
The four teens were killed. Kiki, Marsaya, Phil, and Corbin. Marsaya Collins, Phil Stavius Dowdell, Corbin DeMontre, and Shunkiva Kiki Smith.
01:26:06
Speaker
we we We've brought this up a few times. with The city of Dadeville, that's the high school. That's a school's period. There there are no... ah Like there's an an elementary or middle school in Camp Hill.
01:26:16
Speaker
that That is where ah Camp Hill kids go to school. So there's really no family in Camp Hill that wasn't touched by this, even if their own children weren't there or injured, because these are not large communities. i think Dadeville is 3,000 or 4,000 people.
01:26:31
Speaker
You know, this is these are this is not a big ah big community. There are folks who um their children did not die, um but Jesse Francis was one of the folks that I talked to um when I was up there um interviewing people.
01:26:46
Speaker
And his son um was ah injured. He was paralyzed. um He was about to leave for college on a football scholarship.
01:26:57
Speaker
And his trailer um was one of the ones just utterly destroyed. um They're actually... there They're doing okay.
01:27:08
Speaker
Like, again, this is like... i'm I'm trying so hard to balance the like... This sucked so bad. Like, this was so much trauma and so much pain for this town to go through.
01:27:21
Speaker
But it is this is not a story of trauma porn. Like, it I don't know. I struggle with where that balance is. But also just being really honest about when we talk about, oh, 32 people were injured.
01:27:34
Speaker
People were shot shot in the arm, the legs. you These are permanent injuries. You know, this is they were in a 900. We didn't get into this, but they they were in a 988 square dance dance room Um, where, you know, ah four people ah allegedly four to six people started, started shooting.
01:27:55
Speaker
um and the way that it started is actually a huge tragedy. So they're at the sweet 16 party. There's only one entrance and one exit to the room. you know It's one of those like storefront event centers. you know It's a very little place. And so people... It was really bad.
01:28:12
Speaker
It was really bad. And so these folks who are already traumatized... you know the The fire department, the emergency a response crews, right? They're the same ones who are dealing with with Camp Hill. Some of them have lost their homes or their homes are basically unlivable, right?
01:28:27
Speaker
And now they're they're dealing with... this Now, they're even if they have not personally been touched, even if, you know, hopefully their children or their family members were safe, they know somebody or multiple somebodies who have either lost a child or who have been um grievously injured or who are just traumatized from like their friend or, or you know, somebody that they know that this happened to because this is not, you know, a common occurrence. Right.
01:28:55
Speaker
Right. In this area, which is also why when I see things like most murderous town or things like that, I want to punch something because, yeah, the town of Camp Hill has crime. that There's there's poverty. There's always crime when there's poverty.
01:29:07
Speaker
But it is not like it does not even come close to rank. That is some real twisting of statistics to um to come up with that. um It's just it's just not it's just not fair.
01:29:20
Speaker
<unk> said trauma porn a couple of times, and yes, we we need to to avoid making a spectacle it. We need to sensationalize it.
01:29:33
Speaker
Don't sensationalize it, and don't... downplay it either because it is gruesome and it is terrible and people need to know that even what you might be getting able to hear in your history classes.
01:29:48
Speaker
Because, like, we did cover civil rights movement, we did cover that atrocities had been committed. Atrocities are being committed and we're doing it to ourselves.
01:30:01
Speaker
we we have a little bit more answers about what happened tonight, because as you can imagine, right after the shooting, everybody's calling for blood. It actually took Dadeville police a little while to arrest suspects. And I have my own, has I will get to that. have my own hesitations about how that was handled.
01:30:17
Speaker
But, um, The Alabama reflector wrote an article about um the ALEA, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency investigator, ah testifying about the mass shooting.
01:30:29
Speaker
And it appears that attendees pulled out guns after a speaker crashed to the floor. So this is a tragedy on so many levels, right? Because initially after, after the shooting, the, everybody believed that, that people had come in from outside the community and had deliberately shot up the place.
01:30:53
Speaker
And it doesn't appear that that is what happened at all. Um, there was a, um, so special agent, Jess Thornton, uh, speaking at a hearing for three of the six suspects, uh,
01:31:04
Speaker
testified that the loud and sudden noise caused many on the scene to brandish the firearms they had brought with them to the party. That was followed by an announcement that anyone under 18 years old who brought guns to the party had to leave.
01:31:16
Speaker
So based on how they they said it, yeah, um I don't know what what prompted the the gunshots to start. um I will say this.
01:31:27
Speaker
So i i um gun violence in Alabama, and I really think everywhere, is extremely segregated. So I used to live in Birmingham. I lived in Birmingham for a long time. And... um And when outsiders come to Birmingham, right, they say something generally stupid, like, am I going to get shot? Because they they know the ah crime rate in Birmingham. And I'm like, well, does somebody have a problem with you?
01:31:48
Speaker
you have an on site? No, then you're fine. Like, in any area you're going to be in, you're fine. And yet just two miles away, right, it is an entirely different story. um I've almost been shot ah twice. I actually got ah and a reminder on my phone. Like I got, you know, Google memories. And I was like, oh, that was the night I survived a drive-by. Like it wasn't a wasn't a like crazy, heart was the kind that you get on the ground in the bar, but like the bullets didn't get that close to you and the look you're giving me of like what but i mean this is not that unusual a story for like the birmingham area at least how it how it how it used to be and that is an insane story for anybody who lives with anywhere with like a semblance of common sense about guns
01:32:29
Speaker
it is It is not unusual for people to be strapped. um It is terrifying that that children are um also not incredibly unusual, right?
01:32:41
Speaker
and And for a lot of kids, their mindset is protection. And so...
01:32:48
Speaker
I think that this entire situation happened because of it was dark and loud and somebody was scared and we will never know who shot first, but once it starts, right? Like you're just reacting.
01:33:06
Speaker
And so this is the other layer of this tragedy. We have these four kids with bright futures who are killed. We have 32 kids who are injured. And then we have the six kids who are ah the six suspects who were charged and were had an Anaya's bond hearing.
01:33:25
Speaker
Now, Anaya's law was a new law that was passed. There was girl, Anaya, who was kidnapped in Auburn and and killed by somebody who was like yeah out on bond for another crime. And so you can have an Anaya's bond hearing where they deny bond Um, preemptively. So these kids, since they were arrested, because they have not gone to trial yet.
01:33:45
Speaker
This happened you know, April 15th, 2023. They've been incarcerated this entire time. The room was dark. There's at least 50 people in the room at any given time. There were there there may have been as many as 60 people.
01:34:01
Speaker
There's 89 shell casings are recovered from the scene. um There's four different guns, 9mm, 22mm, 45mm, and.40 caliber handgum handguns.
01:34:12
Speaker
So there's four distinct handguns. um On cross-examination, defense attorneys George Bull II and Anna Parker said it was dark in the room, making it difficult for witnesses to identify the suspects.
01:34:24
Speaker
So they're going through phone footage, like camera footage, photos. I know at one point I read that they'd matched the shell casings on the scene to shell casings of a pistol founded one of the suspects' parents' house, which seems...
01:34:39
Speaker
and kind of tenuous, right? and And the fact that it's mentioned that multiple people brandished, we literally don't know. We don't know if it was these six. You're never going to be able to prove that one of these folks hit one person in particular.
01:34:51
Speaker
But I just wanted it to express like the layers of this this trauma right that these communities have gone through. So Jeanette Darden, a relative of the suspects, came to court um Tuesday, and this is this is back in um 2024, I think is when this was written.
01:35:08
Speaker
um Why are you trying to railroad our boys like that? She said, they go to school. They're smart. They're going to college. They were going to college, all kinds of stuff. And this to me, this is this reminded me like it's not the Scottsboro boys, right? They're not just being railroaded for no reason. that They're people There were kids who were at that party, presumably, right? Like there's more tying them. They they had access to these guns, like the Calibers match.
01:35:34
Speaker
There's more there. And yet I can't help but feel that that same... Trauma's repeating because if any of these boys are found innocent, they still had years of their life taken away. yeah They were also probably friends with people there. so they're also dealing with the trauma of losing people there.
01:35:52
Speaker
i can't imagine what it would... Like, just knowing that they might have been the ones to have injured a friend. Yeah, I don't know what the mental state... Like, what is it like to have been scared, have started firing because you hurt other shots firing, and then...
01:36:08
Speaker
to find out that like that, that people could have been killed because of what you did and you're a child, you know, you are, um, these are, these are children.
01:36:20
Speaker
Um, I think the oldest suspect is 19, but there are several who are underage. Um, and the ones who are underage, the district attorney is, is wanting, to is moving to have them charged as adults.
01:36:33
Speaker
So like,
01:36:37
Speaker
I don't know. I am not. I am not. As a white man, I am not going to look at a black community and say there is no justice in this because that is not my lane. I just I just I see all this pain. This is a tragic situation for no matter how you slice it.
01:36:54
Speaker
This is the the day after, um or if you think this is at the vigil a few days few days after the shooting um is where this quote's from. but I'm really pissed, Frederick Morgan, a pressure washer and painter from nearby Camp Hill said, because it's sad.
01:37:10
Speaker
They are allowing these children to walk around here toting guns. They need to get the ones who are putting these guns in these children's hands. They need to go at them. These children can't get these guns until they go to a place and buy these guns.
01:37:22
Speaker
They need to bring a law to stop kids from buying a gun. A kid needs to be 25 or 30 years old, know the law, and know what a gun means. These were children. Children killing children. We don't need that.
01:37:33
Speaker
This is a small community. We don't need that. Nobody needs them that. There's so much wrath in the American psyche
01:37:48
Speaker
that it's manifesting as our children are killing each other.
01:37:58
Speaker
And there has to be a better, healthier way to manage it than this. Yeah.
01:38:09
Speaker
And this is not a Camp Hill problem or Dayville problem. No. this is um This is a national... This is an American problem. And America, it seems, is hellbent on not having a solution to this problem.
01:38:27
Speaker
And it breaks my heart every time. Damn. Sorry. I just needed a second process there. I think that's a very reasonable response to um making you listen to that at 1.50 in the morning.
01:38:45
Speaker
Woohoo! Rolling, rolling, rolling.
01:38:51
Speaker
I can give you a legislator to be mad at in a second. Ooh! Oh, speaking of wrath, I would love to have an individual that I could direct some of this this ah moral outrage upon. Please, Zephyr, continue.
01:39:08
Speaker
We'll have more moral outrage in the in the next episode, too. um so Alabama has some of the highest rates of gun violence in the nation. so This is an American problem, and it is very, very much an Alabama problem. 1,315 Alabamians died as a result of firearms rate of deaths people, which is the fourth highest rate in the United States.
01:39:34
Speaker
Wait, hold on, hold on. I just opened the link that you had in the script and the article posted a good question. Why does Alabama have more gun deaths than New York?
01:39:48
Speaker
And I don't know if they're talking about the city or the state, but either way. I believe it was the state. Like the state as a whole. Yeah. um To be clear, Alabama has a population of 5 million and some change.
01:40:01
Speaker
um There's like 8 million people ah just in New York City. 20 million people from New York State. This is not the top 10 list that I want us to be on.
01:40:14
Speaker
We are frequently not on the top 10 list that you want us to be on. No. I'm not. That's why I made the joke. But it's still... Guys, we can do better. ah a for Alabama.
01:40:25
Speaker
I believe in us. Let's go. Education. Please. Please. Oh, God. Okay. So, Faye, now might be a ah good time to ask you, um do you know how you get a handgun in Alabama?
01:40:42
Speaker
You go to the store, you present your license, and you purchase a firearm is, I believe, the extent of the process. Which license?
01:40:53
Speaker
Driver's license or um or state ID. Do you know what the process is to conceal carry? I believe,
01:41:04
Speaker
if if word of mouth ah from a few years ago, that Alabama is currently a constitutional carry state and by which folks mean that you don't need a permit to conceal carry.
01:41:17
Speaker
That is correct. Growing up, that was, i remember that was required. I had a concealed carry permit for a while. You know, and and to be clear, like we are having, you know, we we talked about guns earlier in this episode ah as a is a tool for liberation in the hands of adults who are defending themselves against white vigilante violence and and racial attacks. Right.
01:41:37
Speaker
And now we're talking about guns as a um as a murder weapon. um You know. This is a really complex topic because gun control also predominantly um criminalizes black people.
01:41:54
Speaker
Like there are so many layers to this, but what we're doing isn't working. there's There's a lot of layers to this. um You know, one of the most common things you do is like if somebody has a felony can with conviction, they can't have a firearm. And that is one of those things that like sort of makes sense on the surface until you realize that if if black people are disproportionately incarcerated, railroaded and charged at higher rates and convicted at higher rates than their white counterparts who commit exactly the same amount of crimes but seem to get away with it.
01:42:25
Speaker
um That means that you are disenfranchising black folks from having firearms legally. um there's There's a lot of layers to this. um We have seen a spike in gun violence since constitutional carry passed.
01:42:42
Speaker
Yes, that's right. but You don't even need a pistol permit, do you? No. No, you don't need anything. Like... this It's a complex issue because, you know, in the previously, right, they could deny a concealed you know carry permit for whatever reason. It's county by county, right? So, again, right, there are layers because— I'm just shaking my head right now. know. That's fine. Just just for for for the benefit of those listening, I— Faye has been shaking her head a lot today.
01:43:11
Speaker
um i have really put Faye through the wringer— um Which should make for great audio.
01:43:22
Speaker
So um we're going to talk about our senator a little bit and his response to this. Our senator. To be clear, there are so many other characters that we're going to talk about. So many other legislators who are much bigger villains. I don't even know that that Senator Hovey is like a a villain necessarily in this.
01:43:38
Speaker
But he didn't have the greatest response to all of this. In April, days after the shooting, Senator Jay Hovey, a Republican from Auburn, whose district includes Dadeville, he's also our state senator, um said in the Senate chamber that they cannot legislate morality.
01:43:53
Speaker
um And to be clear, they legislate morality all the time. Oh, yes. yeah It's their favoritest thing to do.
01:44:04
Speaker
it It really is. It really is. And that's that's going to come back in part two. where we're we We're going to loop back to that. But I just want to I just want to play all of Senator Hovey's remarks on this so I can't be accused of of cherry picking.
01:44:21
Speaker
So this is this is what he said um on the Alabama Senate ah floor. This is um Tuesday, April 18th. So the shooting has happened Saturday. This is Tuesday, April 18th. This is the first time they're in session since the shooting.
01:44:33
Speaker
Okay. Personal preference. All right, you're recognized. Thank you, sir. I wanted to take a second.
01:44:42
Speaker
Thank you, sir. I wanted to take a second to to thank all of my colleagues that reached out over the weekend regarding the the events of downtown Dayville Saturday night. And I've got a few words to read.
01:44:57
Speaker
As most of you know, the city of Dayville was rocked by a shooting at a 16th birthday party that claimed four young lives and injured 28 more Saturday night. The four lives lost included ah Phil Dowdell, a current senior at Dayville High School, Kiki Nicole Smith, another senior at Dayville High School, Marcia Collins, a 19-year-old Opelika High School graduate, and Corbin Holston, a 23-year-old graduate of Dayville High School.
01:45:24
Speaker
It's the loss of these four lives and the additional 28 injured that I want to honor today. I've been honored to get to know the good people of Dayville and Tallapoosa County over the last year, and my heart goes out to the entire community in the wake of these tragic events.
01:45:40
Speaker
People are going to try to politicize this event as so many others that break our hearts. But I'm going to tell you now, and you'll hear me say over and over again over the next years that we work together, that we're never going to be able to legislate morality.
01:45:53
Speaker
The evil in this world that continues to devastate our communities across the country can only be defeated in the hearts and minds and homes and churches in these communities.
01:46:05
Speaker
There'll be discussions on this floor and in legislative bodies across this country about the responsibility of legislators. While of course we have we have the responsibility to do everything we can to protect our communities, this war will only be won by changing hearts.
01:46:24
Speaker
So this afternoon, since this is my point of personal privilege, I'd like to offer more than a moment of silence.
01:46:33
Speaker
Mr. President, in a second, I'd like to surrender the microphone to my brother in Christ and our colleague, Senator Dan Roberts, to lift us up in prayer for all those affected and abled this weekend.
01:46:46
Speaker
All right, Senator Roberts, you're recognized for us. Yeah, I'm just gonna stop that there. So I saw the exact moment that your your head went from, you went from like, okay, okay, to, oh my God.
01:46:59
Speaker
Yeah, like people are gonna politicize this. A political thing has happened and we're not being asked to legislate morality. You're being asked to legislate safety the way one would say with road signs and speed limits and other things that we do look to our elected officials for.
01:47:21
Speaker
And so there there was that. And then, i can't remember the exact phrase, but there there there is a there there's a passage in the good book that says, ah ah don't be like the hypocrites who loudly pray before everyone, for they have received their payment in full for doing so.
01:47:49
Speaker
Don't be performative with it, is is I think the paraphrase there. And that was ah performance. Yeah, I mean, again, it it is not itous by far not the worst thing I've heard on the Senate floor. and But yeah, that that legislate morality line, um that caught ah the Alabama reflector included that line. And I wanted to play the the full um the full piece because one of the legislators' favorite things to do is when you point out something they said, they say you took it out of context. That is that

Hope and Healing in Camp Hill

01:48:20
Speaker
is the full context.
01:48:21
Speaker
So with that... um With that, there's a cat. With that, there is a cat. There's cat between the pews. So I want to finish this up by talking about um um changing hearts. and And to do so, I'm going to enlist um Maggie, the the church cat.
01:48:40
Speaker
um Maggie is one of my favorite cats. I say this as the proud owner of Remus, who is also a and excellent cat. um But Maggie is a very special cat. Maggie is a black cat and she has made the first, ah the the Universalist Church in Camp Hill, her home.
01:48:58
Speaker
um Well, she's a free range cat, but she mostly hangs out at the church and at the Oak Street Community Center. um She is super friendly. Good places to meet good humans. Right. Yes. Cool, cool, cool. It's um I've gone to services a few times at that church.
01:49:12
Speaker
um it's It's a really cool church. It's the oldest church and um ah oldest universalist church in the southeast. um It's beautiful. um It also plays some part of history because some of the congregants were um involved in um the ah murder of Ralph Gray.
01:49:29
Speaker
ah but But today, that congregation is down to about eight people. They're mostly older folks. um And ah they are actively trying to repair and and restore some of those harms as best they can.
01:49:43
Speaker
It's a congregation of eight people. And and To those eight, I say well done making amends. that That is beautiful. So um the the Oak Street ah Community Center is where the food pantry is and and other other services. um They are slowly building um building you know more of a community center there. it's It's been slow going, but the work and the progress has been has been quite marked.
01:50:12
Speaker
So Maggie, ah during services, Maggie loves to um visit everybody in the pews. So like I said, there's like eight congregants, but like the church is kind of large. So like, you know, they're they're not super spread out, but like, you know, they're in separate pews. And so she'll go and she'll sit with somebody for a few minutes and then she'll move on.
01:50:30
Speaker
and she'll she'll She'll curl up on an older woman's lap and warm her up. It's it's very cute. Unfortunately, she does have that cat thing where um she knows ah if somebody doesn't like cats and thus makes her their person you know her personal project.
01:50:45
Speaker
um So i there was a community meeting. She's a me cat. there was ah There was a community meeting where I was trying to rescue a woman who like was deathly afraid of cats. I did not want Maggie anywhere near her. And Maggie was like, I will love you forever. And I was like, Maggie, baby, not this one. Not this one.
01:51:01
Speaker
No, and no, no. And Maggie kept coming back. We kept trying to put her out that day just so she wasn't interrupting the meeting. But there were some stray dogs. Yeah, but there were some stray dogs around. And she was like, i've i'm no, i'm cutd let me back in. Let me back in right now. And was like, fair. That's fair.
01:51:17
Speaker
um And so i will will extrovert has taken an interest in the introvert. Oh, this is going to be chaotic. Yes. Yeah. So, um, yeah, I, I would like to, uh, end, uh, end this with it just a nice, nice little story about Maggie uh, at Easter, which is one of the services I went to. it's like my first Easter in forever. And I took communion, which, which is something I have not done for over a decade.
01:51:44
Speaker
Uh, did not think I was going to do that again, but, uh, we, we all got up, you know, me and, um, uh warren and and the eight congregants and we're standing in a semicircle you know around around the pastor around reverend darcy and maggie comes right up with us and she sits on her on her her her back haunches and like kind of like sits up you know like like not fully like on her hind legs but she's like like this and she got in line with us which i thought was we all thought was very funny and uh uh so so she got communion too y'all come get you juice
01:52:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, she didn't get any juice, but but she got ah she got some bread. Yeah. um So, yeah, in Camp Hill, the black cats also get communion on occasion. Black cats who do don't.
01:52:34
Speaker
Well, let's not freak people out more. But, you know, there's just little bits of magic and in some rural churches. The jukebox in my brain got flipped over. I was just like, well, let's not. ah Okay, i I don't want to make the any sort of reference. like People are too mean to black cats as it is. they are Be nice to the cats.
01:52:54
Speaker
Especially the black cats. There's so much negative aura. Just be nice. Just nice. So, yeah, i know this was a really hard ah I know this was a really heavy episode, but um I just wanted to end with a very cute story about a cat. And if I can kidnap you one day and bring you to Camp Hill with me so you can see it for yourself, me will you will be able to meet Maggie. Okay.

Future Episodes Teaser

01:53:19
Speaker
I'm down for meeting Maggie and I'm down for getting of this chicken because... Yeah. And so one of the um one of the things so we'll talk about this a little bit and like the the future of Camp Hill.
01:53:32
Speaker
um So I did I did put a put a ah section here that says next episode teaser in which I wrote absolutely nothing, um which is ah very funny. So ah in part two, which is a thesis part two.
01:53:45
Speaker
We're to talk about ah gentrification, a little more about like the financial ah stuff that Campbell's gone through. We're going to talk about the water crisis and the lawsuit. And we're going to listen to excerpts from mayor's live stream where we're going to get some catharsis. motherfuckers right here, catharsis. So just hold that in your head.
01:54:08
Speaker
catharsis so just just hold that in your head And there's some interesting loopbacks to part one. um So, yep, this one was heavy. Sorry, y'all.
01:54:19
Speaker
um But also, I think people need to know this history. um And, yeah, I will try to include more more more cute animals in future heavier episodes. So, yep, that is it for for today. it is 2.15 in the morning.
01:54:39
Speaker
I'm feeling more awake than I thought I would. I still have coffee. Is that wise? No. Please don't. I shouldn't. I'm going to put that down. Put myself in the fridge.
01:54:54
Speaker
You're unfortunately going to be memorialized in history. There are people. They're Alabamians. There's a whole bunch of folks in the state of Alabama that are counting on us. And we don't have a plan.
01:55:05
Speaker
And they deserve better than what we are offering them right now. We don't sleep at night because we already know what's going happen. The math ain't math. But you have shown us time after time after time.
01:55:18
Speaker
That's not what you all intend to do.