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Born May 18, 1953; got saved at Truett Memorial BC in Hayesville, NC 1959. On rigged ballot which I did not rig got Most Intellectual class of 71, Gaffney High School. Furman Grad, Sociology major but it was little tougher than Auburn football players had Had three dates with beautiful women the summer of 1978. Did not marry any of em. Never married anybody cause what was available was undesirable and what was desirable was unaffordable. Unlucky in love as they say and even still it is sometimes heartbreaking. Had a Pakistani Jr. Davis Cupper on the Ropes the summer of 84, City Courts, Rome Georgia I've a baby sitter, watched peoples homes while they were away on Vacation. Freelance writer, local consultant, screenwriter, and the best damn substitute teacher of Floyd County Georgia in mid 80's according to an anonymous kid passed me on main street a few years later when I went back to get a sandwich at Schroeders. Had some good moments in Collinsville as well. Ask Casey Mattox at www.clsnet.org if he will be honest about it. I try my best to make it to Bridges BBQ in Shelby NC at least four times a year.

Friday, March 08, 2024

Two Methodists: Alice Lee and the disreputable Katie Britt

   Did you see the former U Bama SGA President Katie Britt on national television last night. The mother of two is sure to be a cold case opening sketch on SNL this weekend. I cant wait for it.

     Contrast her to Alice Lee, the sister of Harper Lee, Miss Nelle of to Kill a Mockingbird. In 1956 at annual Methodist conference of South Alabama and North Florida, Alice Lee stood at the opposing microphone on a matter of race relations against half the John Birch Society in good standing in Methodist churches across the region and Moved the Previous question.

    In contrast last night at her kitchen table in Montgomery Miss Katie politically speaking spread her legs, prostituted herself off pimped by the Business Council of Alabama and invited Trump and Maga land to screw the Lights out of her.

     So Much for Family Values

      Where is her congregation at the FUMC of Montgomery. Where is her on the record conversation with the Honors Program at U Bama about what it means to be a political whore with liberal arts education at stake. What does the Student Ministry at St Francis Catholic Church in Tuscaloosa think about her "performance".

     Miss Britt communications director comes from Yellowhammer News, the FOX News poison of the state. Rumors are it was founded by Mike Hubbard, former speaker of the house in conjunction with Cliff Simms a jack leg preacher's son now author of two books.

    Nick Saban gave a million dollars to that ministry. What does Wesley think about Trump implying two of Saban's Heismann trophy winners were "sons of bitches"  because they didnt kiss Trumps ass over the Kaepernick matter.

    FTR Trevor Lawrence in a brief conversation with me in 2000 stood with Drew Brees against Trump and his bullying ways on free speech as did Nick Saban.
     Katie said Biden was dithering. I guess she missed Jan 6 insurrection and the two hour documentary on PBS Frontline, the January issue of atlantic magazine, and noted historian Jill Lepore chapter in These Truths, The Disrupters, and her essay in the collection Deadline on the blood money of the NRA and the Second Amendment Cauuse.
      She did find a way to bring up Lincoln Riley in cahoots with Marjorie Taylor Greene, now of Rome Ga. The Blood Money in America is on the NRA. See Lepore; she is clear on the matter.
     There were two undocumented graduates of Collinsville HS in 2013, at least two. In this case the Valedictorian and Salutatorian. They are finer citizens than most of Katie suspect sorority members if by Chance you saw Rush on Cable last summer.
       There is more including an examination of the extended family of Britt staffer from Fort Payne whose great grandparents for two decades or more worshipped with my mother and Grandparents in the Collinsville Baptist Church.
      Some of the Gilbreath family see the world differently than Britt; one at Duke Divinity school, a Methodist school. Maybe Katie could do a retreat with that cousin. I know the church my Mother attended in the forties would be disappointed in the wayward direction of Katie. Here is what Amanda Tyler whose Baptist Joint Committee office is just a couple blocks down the street from Katie Senate office in DC. Here is what one Baptist who can distinguish between her hiney and a Hole in the Ground had to say about last night:

      
  • Support grassroots organizing efforts in areas around the country

  • Speak out about harmful policies that result from Christian nationalism, including the widening push to replace counselors with “chaplains” in public schools

  • Continue to partner with allies in the fight against Christian nationalism by engaging in educational events for the community, as we have already done in recent months in Florida, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Texas

Thursday, February 29, 2024

In the Blood with the Jordans of North Alabama and the Silent Cavalry of the Civil War

   

Like a lot of the country I was not familiar with Sacred Harp singing till I saw the Oscar award winning movie Cold Mountain. Mark Morgan had read the book by Charles Frazier in which Lucas Black  of Moulton Alabama Starred. He had key scenes around the Battle of Petersburg in the Civil War  where the voices of the Ivey Family of Henegar come in strong on the soundtrack with the Idumea ( 47 on the bottom)  which boisterously raises the existential question "And Am I Born to die, to lay this body down."

     I was near perfect attendance at Pine Grove and the July 4 singing in Henegar for 15 years after. At one point as my Grandfather Jordan taught school at Pine Grove about a crow fly of a mile and a half from the house, I asked the legendary Bud Oliver if any of my grandfather or Mother's generation were singers. He said yes your Grandfather Jordan brother Roscoe, Uncle Rock , came to a lot of singings but like you, Fox, he couldn't sing worth a darn. We called him "Cake' cause he came for the food.

   My Mother's cousin Eulene Reed  of Lookout Mtn and the Sacred Harp community told me a fascinating tale about seven years ago about a near lynching and almost murder on  Lookout Mountain Mtn . You can see the place where it almost all went down from the porch of the House I lived in for thirty years on land that was in the family since the 1930s. My Grandfather was born in the vicinity in 1881 and his father John Sanders Jordan and brother and JS brother  Henry Rufus both fought for the Union during the Civil war.

   Eulene's great Grandfather didn't believe in Slavery. The Home Guard in South DeKalb County came to his house down around the curve if you take a right at the ST Reed Place top of Lookout Mtn looking for him. He got word and wandered out into a cornfield. The HG got his wife and took her to the barn and threw a rope over an eave and noosed her hangin. She told em they could hang her till she died but she wasn't gonna help em in the least.


     They did discover somehow he had ran into the cornfield and they shot it up pretty good but never saw him. I guess they ran out of ammo. Story was later he got to the brow and hollered to kin he made it alive.

   Eulene is one of his direct descendants.

    She said a retarded son was born soon after the incident. Her ggrandfather went to the neighbor in the confederate and told him if he didn't apologize for noosing up his wife and the resulting injury to his newborn he was gonna kill him if he didn't get on his knees and pray for  forgiveness.

    They both had a salvation moment in that ordeal and Eulene's Great Grandfather became a Baptist Preacher.

    This story told to Eulene by Barrett Ashley   is extra mustard for me at least  in  Augusts when I sing at Pine Grove, especially the verse of my friend  Sam Hodges Great great great Grandfather Fitzpatrick, a Rebel of Crawford County Georgia,  whose dying words from injuries in the Battle of Petersburg Va near the end of the war,  were from the  Sacred Harp hymn Jesus can make a dying bed, soft as downy pillows are.

       "such are the chips through which defining traits marinate across generations of families that don't quite buy into the commanding culture. It's a mysterious process, difficult to calibrate, and especially daunting when it comes to rescuing unheralded difference makers from the scrap bin of history."


   Ed Bridges, a graduate of Marshall Frady and my Furman University, was the state archivist for Thirty years in Montgomery. He wrote the Bicentennial history of the state and has thrity grand pages on the Civil War and Reconstruction in his book. He has a great summation of the claims of groups like the Sons and  Daughters of the Confederacy which were taught in the public schools of Alabama and across the nation up until just a few years ago. I think the following quote should be memorized by all honors students across the state. Bridges lists four errant claims taught by the sophomoric he says:  " Although specific historical examples could be produced to support each of these claims , taken as a whole they amounted to a rewriting of history that  distorted it fundamental ways. Ed Bridges page 159


Tuesday, February 13, 2024

The Jordan Doufexis Tuberville disconnect at the Border with Collinsville Alabama

  I left a message with the Washington Post this morning about Jordan Doufexis on staff with Tommy Tuberville in Washington DE. Jordan is tight with Bradley Crawford and Jason Barnett classmates from Jeremy Pruitts Plainview High School in Rainsville Alabama.

     Doufexis and Crawford worked to help Jason Barnett become the school supe of Dekalb County Alabama where Bradley assumed the Principal of my Mother's hometown and alma mater Collinsville Alabama

    In 1992 Brett Morgen who later became an Oscar nominee for his documentaries including Crossfire on the Rolling Stones, The Chimp Woman Jane Goodall and most recently a six minute standing ovation at Cannes Film Festival for his work on David Bowie, came to Collinsville to concoct a doc that was shown statewide Blessings of Liberty. I was his local consultant and Bob Dylan son Sam helped edit the film in DC.

    For thirteen years and counting through the local librarian Jennifer Wilkins, Collinsville has had a relationship with the Auburn University Living Democracy Project of Auburn University. Wayne Flynt's disciple Mark Wilson directs that initiative. Have him sit down with COACH Tuberville and talk 

     Twenty years later the U of Bama did a doc on Collinsville also shown on statewide Television on the Hispanic Influx to town.

    in 2013 the valedictorian and salutatorian of CHS were both undocmented when they walked. That year the all Hispanic soccer team won the state championship. In the presence of the salutatorian who was a captain of the soccer team, Doufexis great friend Barnett told me given his experience in Collinsville he was open to a conversation that would award citizenship to graduates of any undocumented student in the state who showed six years of scholarship and discipline in school.

    Bradley Crawford has a history degree from the U of Alabama. He and Barnett know better than to put up with the deceit and shenanigans of Tuberville much longer. Bring scrutiny to my Mother's hometown. The Senate had a great bipartisan bill constructed by a conservative Southern Baptist James Lankford from Oklahoma. Tuberville Doufexis and that cabal tanked it for mischievous. Time for Christians in Collinsville who have the sense to know better to See Something, Say Somethin.

Tuesday, February 06, 2024

Black history Month upon us while Nikki Haley telling truth about Trump

Nikki Haley ads in South Carolina are getting stronger as Black History Month and the GOP SC Primary are upon is

      She may be taking a piece of the Karl Rove and Bob Peeler playbook from 2000 when her fellow Clemson Trustee as LT gov of SC met with Rove and about ten others in a Hotel in Greenville to go negative on John McCain out of the New Hampshire Primary. They flipped to Primary process and Bush 43 with the help of some folks at Bob Jones flipped the deal to double digit lead.

    All this with backdrop of my testimonials at Furman facebook on JayZee and Beyonce and my early development with Race at Gaffney High School.

     Willie Jefferies the famed Gaffney and SC State and Wichita St football coach will speak at Limestone College which shadows along with John Hamrick's home on Sunset Drive, my Dad's church for 16 years from 62 to 78, Bethany Baptist on Wilkinsville Road in sight on Macdonalds on Union Hwy.

    I may ride over to Gaffney tomorrow for this historic event in my personal archaeology. 

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Column for Gaffney's Cherokee Chronicle

    A Rafael Perez had a collumn in the Jan 30 Cherokee Chronicle of my hometown of Gaffney South Carolina. I do not know Mr. Perez on any family name like that but I have been away for some time.

     Perez column was an assault of the capacity of Joe Biden to succeed himself as President.

     Maybe Perez didnt see the Insurrection, nor the several legal entanglements Donald Trump is involved nor his connections to christian Nationalism. Maybe he missed the books by Adam Kinzinger and Tim Alberta and the January issue of the Atlantic magazine devoted to the case Donald Trump is a Rube and would be a disaster in a second term with his politics of Grievance, Vindictiveness and Resentment.
     The Bible, the Old Testament in Particular has a word for Trump and that word is Bastard.
      Joe Biden is not my first choice to lead the Democratic Ticket.  That Said America could easily survive a second term of Biden, even one Term of Nikki Haley though I have severe reservations about the Clemson trustee embrace of Charlie Kirk and his poisonous Turning Point USA.
     See Tim Aberta on that matter.
     Dietrich Bonhoeffer would find Trump Appalling. His likeness is in bust in Westminster Abbey with Martin Luther King and Oscar Romero as one of the three great Christian Martyrs of the 20th Century.
       The SC GOP primary will be a test of the character of South Carolina. I hope Cherokee County can pass it with a vote for Nikki Haley, to head the country slouching back in the right direction. 
     

Monday, January 22, 2024

George Singleton: The Dogs Keep Barking, but the Caravan Moves On

  I attended the authors confab at the Greenville SC Co Library Jan 20 before Henry's BBQ and the Fuman basketball game versus WCU. My friend Ron Rash was on panel with Furman alum George Singleton and a Ms Franks who is writing a novel about Copper Hill NC. She says should be out in a couple years. I'm excited about it.

      Somewhere I rubbed  Singleton the wrong way. There were two George Singleton's of the mid 80s grads of Furman, the writer and the basketball player. Singleton the baller was scouted heavily for the NBA

    The writer has been published in the New Yorker, the Atlantic and other lofty climes. He's not Marshall Frady FU 63, but neither am I.

      After 45 minutes of a well moderated panel conversation with a lot of jocularity--I think you can find it online as was live streamed--I got the first question in the remaining 15 minutes. I said George my Dad was a Baptist minister and I remember about ten years ago in the Furman magazine you had a quip about some kid on your hall at Furman who repeatedly tried to tell you about Jesus and save your soul. By your own testimony your are somehing of a functional alcoholic and I just wonder if on occasion you second guess yourself and thought about forsaking the notoriety and yearn to have spent your days more quietly as a Baptist Deacon in some small Upstate SC town you often ridicule.

    He called me out and said Your Stephen Fox aren't you. I asked what does it matter  , you are on the panel and I am not, but yes I am that Stephen.

     I thought he had a good answer referencing somebody who said the dogs  bark, but the caravan moves on.

      George, a Furman grad, now teaches at the Methodist school, Wofford, in Spartanburg SC, a town he shares with Trey Gowdy.

        Then I asked Rash a question about Cormac McCarthy. Wanted his take on Hal Crowther's view Cormac McCarthy coulda mined East Tennessee more before he moved South west. After the program and a visit to another room with up and coming Upstate authors, I caught Rash in the hall with his wife as they were leaving. Turns out wife Caroline is from Belton Honea Path where she mighta known Lillian Ashley but I didnt have presence of mind to ask. Told Ron the Fox Store frequented by Lester Ballard in Cormac McCarthy's Child of God was actual store owned by the sons of my Grandfather's Fox's first cousin near the Walden's Creek UMC in Wears Valley Tennessee outside Pigeon Forge down the road from Chinkey Pen where Cousin Marshall Fox was cut behind the knee and bled to death in 1907. His grave is in the church cemetery. 

Friday, January 05, 2024

Howell Raines says North Alabama Union soldiers lit the first matches to burn Atlanta. Makes Bama Senator Katie Britt laughable with Trump endorsement.

      About 3 15 Jan 5 I was on the air with Paul Finebaum to talk about Howell Raines new book Silent Cavalry about the soldiers from North Alabama who fought with the Union in the Civil War. My Great Grandfather Jordan was among them. A Hundred Years ago his son, My Grandfather born in 1881, ran as a Lincoln Republican for School Supe in Dekalb County , Alabama and was soundly defeated .

    So I am enchanted and resonate with Raines when he writes about personal archaeology.  With some family anecdotes at end of Chapter Five Raines says:  "such are the chips through which defining traits marinate across generations of families that don't quite buy into the commanding culture. It's a mysterious process, difficult to calibrate, and especially daunting when it comes to rescuing unheralded difference makers from the scrap bin of history."
      There is a grand review of the book in the Guardian, and Raines has a long piece in the Wash Post you should be able to using facebook to navigate the firewall.
       With all Raines Bravado some historians I have already contacted say he overcooks his claim to be the only one out there to give the north alabama union story its deserved notice. Ed Bridges for long time state archivist of Alabama and a graduate of Marshall Frady and my Furman University has a grand thirty pages in his recent official Bicentennial of the state, with a superb brief paragraph on the damage of Daughters of Confederacy to the truth.
     And in the story telling style of Raines it should be noted while not directly a part of the North Alabama story, it was the voices of the Sacred Harp family of Dekalb County forty five first cousins  of the Iveys and friends on the soundtrack of the Oscar movie by Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain. . They are singing the Idumea to great effect at the battle of St. Petersburg where North Alabamian Lucas Black says we got us a turkey shoot. He was Confederate in the moment. 
     If some of his history is self serving, Raines does us all a great service with his story telling, even fast forward to current Winston County going ninety percent Trump. But there is a remnant of folks like him who are true to the best of North Alabama and Winston County, Judge Frank Johnson in particular.
     Raines before he spoke at Samford with Carl Elliott in the audience told me Frank Johnson was the second greatest man to breathe air of Alabama in the twentieth Century with ML King the first. About five years ago before he started his Sunday School class in Plains, President Carter said Johnson was the greatest American of his lifetime.
    My father was raised in Rome Ga, so Raines pages on Sherman's stay there in May 0f 1864 were of great interest as was his assertion the North Alabama soldiers coulda shut down the whole thing at Snake Gap Creek outside Resaca, Ga two weeks before they Burned Atlanta.
      Had some of Sherman's orders not been lost in Translation, Atlanta would been spared; but as it turned out according to Raines the North Bama Unionists were the first to light the matches on Atlanta.
     Raines takes great offense to Shelby Foote fame in Ken Burns nineties Civil War Documentary and he almost mocks some of the late 20th Century Confederates in Bama, one speech in particular at Auburn Montgomery in early 1990s with Frank Johnson himself in the audience.
    Even so there was not superior virtue among the rank and file soldiers of either side most of which fell in with the over powering tribe. Clearly Lincoln was superior to the cotton planters of south Alabama, but as Sam Hodges points out in his tribute to his Great great Grandfather Letters to Amanda , a confederate from below Macon Ga.; his dying thought was of the sacred harp phrase, Jesus can make a dying bed soft as downy pillows are.
     This book is fascinating. If you have any integrity to speak of and a hint of literacy and have ties to Alabama, get a copy. Call Katie Britt, the US Senator, former U Bama SGA President, whose blue blood family goes back several generations at FUMC Montgomery and invite her to the altar.
    Else the whole U Bama campaign Where Legends are Made is a bunch of Bull Sheet.