African-American GIs of WWII: Fighting for democracy abroad and at home

  Until the 21st century, the contributions of African-American soldiers in World War II barely registered in America’s collective memory of that war.

  The “tan soldiers,” as the Black press affectionately called them, were also for the most part left out of the triumphant narrative of America’s “Greatest Generation.” In order to tell their story of helping defeat Nazi Germany in my 2010 book, “A Breath of Freedom: The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs, and Germany,” I had to conduct research in more than 40 different archives in the U.S. and Germany.

Alabama legislators elevate guns over children. Again.

  The leading cause of preventable death for Alabama children is guns.

  Let me say that again in active voice.

  Guns kill Alabama kids more than anything else we can prevent.

  And we refuse to act.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: Governor Jim Folsom Jr. has a legacy

  Our Alabama Public Television system was one of the first public television networks in the nation. Today it is one of the best. They continue to produce premiere documentaries, especially surrounding Alabama history.

  Under the auspices of director/producers Pete Conroy and Seth Johnson, they are set to release “A Legacy of Progress. The Jim Folsom Jr. Story.” The premiere of the documentary on Folsom will be February 27 at the Stone Center at Jacksonville State University, Folsom’s alma mater, and a second will be on March 6 at the Hoover Library. 

Deporting millions of immigrants would shock the US economy, increasing housing, food and other prices

  One of President Donald Trump’s major promises during the 2024 presidential campaign was to launch mass deportations of immigrants living in the U.S. without legal authorization.

  The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has said that, since January 2025, it is detaining and planning to deport 600 to 1,100 immigrants a day. That marks an increase from the average 282 immigration arrests that happened each day in September 2024 under the Biden administration.

Firing civil servants and dismantling government departments is how aspiring strongmen consolidate personal power – lessons from around the globe

  With the recent confirmations of Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – two of the most controversial of President Donald Trump’s high-level administration nominees – the president’s attempt to remake government as a home for political loyalists continues.

  Soon after coming to office for a second term, Trump aggressively sought to overhaul Washington and bring the federal government in line with his political agenda. He is spearheading an effort to purge the government’s ranks of people he perceived as his opponents and slash the size of long-standing bureaucratic agencies – in some instances dismantling them entirely.

How cuts to NIH research funding would hurt states

  In recent weeks, the Trump administration has targeted the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a world-renowned research agency and the largest public funder of biomedical research, for drastic changes that would undermine scientific integrity, innovation, and public trust and, ultimately, harm health and economic security. Newly confirmed Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also made clear his intentions to scale down staffing significantly at the agency, particularly staff whose research does not align with his opinions, and to essentially end investments in key areas such as drug development and infectious disease research.

If FEMA didn’t exist, could states handle the disaster response alone?

  Imagine a world in which a hurricane devastates the Gulf Coast, and the U.S. has no federal agency prepared to quickly send supplies, financial aid, and temporary housing assistance.

  Could the states manage this catastrophic event on their own?

  Normally, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, known as FEMA, is prepared to marshal supplies within hours of a disaster and begin distributing financial aid to residents who need help.

  However, with President Donald Trump questioning FEMA’s future and suggesting states take over recovery instead, and climate change causing more frequent and severe disasters, it’s worth asking how prepared states are to face these growing challenges without help.

That anti-transgender law is even worse than you think

  The Alabama Legislature rushed a bill to Gov. Kay Ivey last week. It was so important that House Republicans limited debate on the measure to 10 minutes on Wednesday. It was so urgent that Ivey signed it on Thursday.

  You would hope legislation passed so swiftly would address a major problem in the state. Like gun violence. The rural health crisis. Or the ongoing inequities in Alabama’s public schools.

The Cowboy Code

  I grew up in much simpler times. Television was in its infancy, and the idea of a hero was exemplified by a white-hatted cowboy. There was a clarity and simplicity to this hero’s moral code that left no doubt there is a right and wrong.

  As I became more sophisticated, it was easy to ridicule these simplistic approaches to ethics and living. Yet the more I’ve learned, the more I’ve come to think there’s just as much danger in muddying our choices into endless shades of gray.

60 years of progress in expanding rights is being rolled back by Trump − a pattern that’s all too familiar in U.S. history

  For many Americans, Donald Trump’s head-spinning array of executive orders in the early days of his second term looks like an unprecedented effort to roll back democracy and the rights and liberties of American citizens.

  But it isn’t unprecedented.

  As we have written, American history is not a steady march toward greater equality, democracy, and individual rights. America’s commitment to these liberal values has competed with an alternative set of illiberal values that hold that full American citizenship should be limited by race, ethnicity, gender, and class.

The Black librarian who rewrote the rules of power, gender and passing as white

“Just because I am a Librarian doesn’t mean I have to dress like one.”

  With this breezy pronouncement, Belle da Costa Greene handily differentiated herself from most librarians.

  She stood out for other reasons, too.

The Paradoxical Commandments

  In 1968, when Kent M. Keith was a 19-year-old sophomore at Harvard University, he wrote “The Paradoxical Commandments” as part of a booklet for student leaders. He describes the Commandments as guidelines for finding personal meaning in the face of adversity:

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - The Big Blue Bully

  A bit of country wisdom came to mind, recently, as I watched the news about a high-roller insurance giant. The old saying goes, “Pigs get fat, and hogs get slaughtered.” This adage, of course, speaks to the consequences of excessive greed.

  In recent news, which most of you might have missed, likely because it was suppressed, is that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama was part of a $2.8 billion settlement in a lawsuit brought by the insurance company’s customers. That settlement is the largest health-related antitrust case in history. Of course, Big Blue never admitted to any bad behavior, which is par for the course when a case settles, but $2.8 billion is a lot to pay if you are innocent.

The story of Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, America’s first black pop star

  In 1851, a concert soprano named Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield embarked on a national tour that upended America’s music scene.

  In antebellum America, operatic and concert songs were very popular forms of entertainment. European concert sopranos, such as Jenny Lind and Catherine Hayes, drew huge crowds and rave reviews during their U.S. tours. Lind was so popular that baby cribs still bear her name, and you can now visit an unincorporated community called Jenny Lind, California.

Five protests that highlight the power of love

  Valentine's Day is all about the power of love. Here are five times people used their First Amendment freedoms to promote love – or used love as a form of protest.

The mask comes off Alabama’s immigration bills

  Pity the poor state lawmaker.

  They work hard on a law to punish Alabamians showing kindness to the vulnerable — normal, everyday stuff in the Alabama Legislature — and inadvertently revive the Fugitive Slave Act.

  Wednesdays, am I right?

  Republican Sen. Wes Kitchens of Arab said he didn’t intend SB 53 to reflect the language of that infamous antebellum law, which authorized kidnapping and threatened fines and imprisonment to those who helped enslaved people flee to freedom.

A tribute to Lincoln

  I wish we still celebrated Lincoln’s birthday. I’m an Abraham Lincoln groupie. By sheer good fortune, my son Justin was born on his birthday, my daughter Abrielle was named after him, and one of our dogs is named Lincoln. My favorite place in Washington D.C. is the Lincoln Memorial where I stand in awe of the magnificent eloquence of this self-educated, self-made man.

How populist leaders like Trump use ‘common sense’ as an ideological weapon to undermine facts

  It’s “the revolution of common sense,” President Donald Trump announced in his second inaugural address.

  And so it is. The latest installment of that assertion came in his Jan. 30, 2025 press conference about the Potomac plane crash. When asked how he had concluded that diversity policies were responsible for a crash that was still under investigation, Trump responded, “Because I have common sense, OK?”

The SAVE Act would disenfranchise millions of citizens

  The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act has been reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. This legislation would require all Americans to prove their citizenship status by presenting documentation—in person—when registering to vote or updating their voter registration information. Specifically, the legislation would require the vast majority of Americans to rely on a passport or birth certificate to prove their citizenship. While this may sound easy for many Americans, the reality is that more than 140 million American citizens do not possess a passport and as many as 69 million women who have taken their spouse’s name do not have a birth certificate matching their legal name.

Why is it wrong to teach students about diversity, equity and inclusion?

  The college where I teach had always been very progressive. It encouraged faculty and staff to exercise freedom of speech and welcomed inclusive speakers, lessons and events.

  Texas Senate Bill 17 was passed in May 2023, and almost overnight things changed. This law, similar to ones in two of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s focus states of Florida and Alabama, bans diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in public colleges and universities. Colleges that do not comply can lose millions in state funding. Administrators explained to us what speech was prohibited, such as requiring attendance for certain speakers.

  I wondered how I could teach without violating the law and how it would affect events for students.

Why Trump’s meme coin is a cash grab

  Three days before his presidential inauguration, Donald Trump launched a meme coin, a type of cryptocurrency whose value is buoyed by social media and internet culture rather than any sort of functionality or intrinsic value.

  The coin – officially called $Trump – briefly ascended into the top 15 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization and attracted over a half-million buyers.

Character is an essential part of competence

  If you were hiring a new CEO, what are the most important qualities you’d look for?

  Surely you’d want a high level of demonstrated competence – knowledge, experience, intelligence, vision, communication, and relationship skills and the ability to motivate, manage, and solve problems. But what about qualities such as honesty, moral courage, accountability, and fairness?

If this is how Alabama universities defend employees, it’s not working

  Alabama’s colleges and universities are scared.

  And I understand why. If an administration that prioritizes ideological conformity over intellectual curiosity cut off one of my key funding sources, I’d hesitate to speak out, too.

  But they don’t have a choice. Not they take their educational missions seriously.

Nutrition advice is rife with misinformation − a medical education specialist explains how to tell valid health information from pseudoscience

  The COVID-19 pandemic illuminated a vast landscape of misinformation about many topics, science, and health chief among them.

  Since then, information overload continues unabated, and many people are rightfully confused by an onslaught of conflicting health information. Even expert advice is often contradictory.

  On top of that, people sometimes deliberately distort research findings to promote a certain agenda. For example, trisodium phosphate is a common food additive in cakes and cookies that is used to improve texture and prevent spoilage, but wellness influencers exploit the fact that a similarly named substance is used in paint and cleaning products to suggest it’s dangerous to your health.

Destroying the freedom of association and liberty of contract

  I was recently staying in a hotel and noticed that the two women charged with cleaning the guest rooms were Hispanic. I couldn’t help but wonder whether they were here illegally. If so, they are among the millions of other illegal immigrants who are currently experiencing deep fear over the possibility of being arrested and deported. What a horrible way to have to live life. Moreover, the hotel owner (or manager) has to also live in fear over the possibility of being criminally charged for knowingly hiring an illegal immigrant.

We are what we think

  In the early 1900s, a little-known philosopher named James Allen wrote a powerful essay called “As a Man Thinketh” in which he argued that we are what we think, that a person’s character is the sum of his thoughts. He declared that the power to control our thoughts (whether we use that power or not) is the ability to mold our character and shape our destiny.

  This is a profound insight, making us personally responsible not only for our conduct but for our circumstances.

Sketches #1962: We must remember Jimmie Lee Jackson

  We must remember Jimmie Lee Jackson. He is a critical force in our history. He is a key reason we celebrate and commemorate the Bridge Crossing Jubilee. Let me tell you about Jimmie Lee Jackson. We must remember Jimmie Lee.

  It was February 18, 1965. Rev. James of Orange of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was in the Perry County Jail in Marion, Alabama. The word was out that the Ku Klux Klan intended to get him out of jail late at night and murder him. The local voting rights movement leaders called a night mass meeting and a rare night march. Marches were very dangerous in the daytime and even more dangerous at night. We must remember Jimmie Lee.

The power of a song in a strange land

  From the moment of capture, through the treacherous middle passage, after the final sale, and throughout life in North America, the experience of enslaved Africans who first arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, some 400 years ago, was characterized by loss, terror, and abuse.

  The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807 made it illegal to buy and sell people in British colonies, but in the independent United States, slavery remained a prominent – and legal – practice until December 1865. From this tragic backdrop, one of the most poignant American musical genres, the Negro spiritual, was birthed.