Richard Bailey, author of Neither Carpetbaggers Nor Scalawags: Black Officeholders During the Reconstruction of Alabama 1867-1878, honored the legacies of two influential African Americans recently.

In February he helped to unveil a portrait of Horace King, a former slave who became an architect and designed the distinctive spiral staircase of the Alabama Capitol building. According to the Montgomery Advertiser, King used bridge-building techniques to design the staircase so that a central support was not required. King later served two terms in the Alabama House of Representatives, from 1868-71. Bailey notes that this is the first portrait of an African American that will be on permanent display in the Capitol.

Bailey also helped to dedicate the gravesite of King in LaGrange, Georgia, at the Mulberry Street Cemeteries. He told the LaGrange News that King was “a man who did so much and asked for so little,” noting that the builder helped construct the bridge that connected Columbus, Georgia and Phoenix City, Alabama.

More recently Richard Bailey spoke at the funeral of Lillie Mae Bradford, who refused to move from the front section of a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and was arrested for disorderly conduct years before Rosa Parks. Bailey told the Montgomery Advertiser, “She wasn’t part of any movement, and that makes her action more outstanding.”

Neither Carpetbaggers Nor Scalawags is available from NewSouth Books or your favorite bookstore.

Alabama Secretary of State John H. Merrill honored noted political commentator Steve Flowers with an award from the National Associations of Secretaries of State for Flowers’s work as a legislator and political columnist. The award recognizes people who have “contributed extensively to the elections process.”

Flowers was honored for his sixteen years of service in the Alabama State Legislature, during which he was voted the “Most Ethical Member of the House” (1988), the “Most Outstanding Freshman House Member” (1988), and the “Most Outstanding Member of the Alabama House of Representatives” (1992), and for his work as a writer and speaker. Flowers has addressed national audiences, and has a weekly column that is carried by over sixty Alabama newspapers. Flowers also hosts the television talk show “This Week in Alabama Politics.”

NewSouth published his book Of Goats & Governors: Six Decades of Colorful Alabama Political Stories in 2015. Steve continues to cross the state speaking about the antics of legendary Alabama governors George Wallace, “Big Jim” Folsom, and John Patterson, among others. His award is a tribute to his devotion to all things political in the state of Alabama. Congratulations, Steve!

Of Goats & Governors is available from NewSouth Books or your favorite bookstore.

2017 is already proving to be a busier year than most for Alabama Poet Laureate Emeritus Sue Brannan Walker. January saw the publication of her imaginative long-form poem It’s Good Weather for Fudge: Conversing with Carson McCullers, with an introduction by McCullers scholar Carlos Dews, released to commemorate the 100th anniversary of McCullers’s birth on February 19.

Fittingly, the first official event for the new book was hosted by the Georgia Center for the Book — Columbus, Georgia being the birthplace of Ms. McCullers. Walker will present at the Alabama Writers Symposium and public libraries in Mobile and Demopolis, Alabama, traveling to New Orleans, New York City, Georgia again, and beyond for other events. A most-anticipated stop will be in Rome, Italy this coming summer, where she will be a featured presenter at the Carson McCullers Centenary Conference hosted by John Cabot University.

In addition to her activities recognizing the McCullers centenary, Walker wrote the script for a Eugene Walter Reader’s Theater program, which premiered last month to an SRO crowd in the new Hilton Garden Inn Eugene’s Monkey Bar & Grill in Mobile. Walker’s script was based on Walter’s short story, “The Byzantine Riddle.” Next month, a new book of Walker’s poetry, Let Us Imagine Her Name, is due out from Clemson University Press. Whew.

At the “Byzantine Riddle” premiere, writer Sue Brannan Walker (second from right) and performers (from left) Tom Mason, Carolyn Haines, Nancy Anlage,
and Jordan Noon.

It’s Good Weather for Fudge is available from NewSouth Books or your favorite bookstore.