We Shall Shortly

Forgot about this when we were discussing Alabama: Buy a Meter.  One in four households in Hale County is not connected to a municipal water system and do not have access to clean water.  The people behind Project M worked with Rural Studio and HERO Housing Resource Center and started this campaign to raise awareness and funds to help the residents in Hale County.

The project was started on July 2, 2007.  I heard about it later that month and donated $50 to the project.  Now, a little over a year later, they have reached about 30% of the goal ($127,500) - and unfortunately I cannot find any info or updates on the project (you can still contribute here).

Now looking back at the project, I’m baffled that this kind of problem was not addressed by the local government, and I wonder if it would’ve been more effective if the effort was spent on, say, getting signatures for a petition to the county governance, or making the campaign about how tax money is spent and budget distributed.  Of course, this is easy for me, sitting in my living room, to say, but I also wish that some sort of newsletter or blog was set up, so that donors can keep up with the project and help spread the word.

We were reading about the Tuskegee airmen and I thought the story sounded very familiar and I could picture these beautifully painted pictures of their planes in my head … and then I remembered we own a book about them, a children’s picture book, Wind Flyers. I bought the book because of its beautiful illustrations by Loren Long, without actually paying attention to the story by award-winning writer Angela Johnson.

Looking through the book now and rereading the words, I’m glad to know that at least in the realm of children’s books, writers and illustrators have already been working to create a more accurate history of the American past in little minds.

Before the Tuskegee Airmen, there have been no black pilots in the US military.  They were officially formed in June 1941, as the 99th Fighter Squadron at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.  These men flew escort for heavy bombers and had a nearly perfect record, and the Tuskegee Airmen were awarded several Silver Stars, 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 8 Purple Hearts, 14 Bronze Stars and 744 Air Medals.

The Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) was founded by Lewis Adams, a former slave Macon County, Alabama.  It started as the “Negro Normal School in Tuskegee”, with an annual fund of $2,000. Booker T. Washington, who was 25 years old at the time, was recruited to be its first principal (a position he held till his death in 1915).

Clockwise from top left corner: the (welcoming) flag of Alabama; Yellowhammer, Alabama state bird; symbol for the Alabama-Coushatta reservation; and the kitchen of a 2-bedroom house being rented in Mobile, Alabama (via Craigslist).

So we started reading the book State by State.  The first state is Alabama, and the essay written by George Packer.  For us, the piece was dry and academic.  Packer wrote about the state’s swing from liberal to the right in the 1980s and the state’s racist and classist politics.  The state and its people were reduced to abstract and historical terms and his words left us cold.  What he said was important and relevant, but the impression you get after reading it is that Alabamians are mostly religious fanatics who would not mind legalizing slavery.

Some interesting tidbits about Alabama we found on Wikipedia:

• Aside from the hurricanes and storms, Alabama sounds like a good state to live in, with nice climate, fertile soil, and beautiful nature.
• Even though it’s known as “The Cotton State”, it ranks only 9 in national cotton production (the top three are Texas, Georgia, and Mississippi).
• By early next year, Alabama is projected to surpass Detroit in automobile production (and it’ll be first in the nation).
• The Alabama State Constitution is the world’s longest: with almost 800 amendments and 310,000 words and is roughly forty times the length of the U.S. Constitution.