Image and Reality in Alabama
by Jim Hayes, president, Economic Development Partnership of Alabama and Wayne Flynt, editor-in-chief, Encyclopedia of Alabama
Two images of Alabama: one our citizens create; the other is generated by media outside our borders.
The most obvious internal images are generated by various official agencies of state government or private organizations devoted to selling Alabama. They deliver effective, upbeat messages. But these sources are often dismissed because their official function is to report good news about our state. This leaves an irresistible vacuum for the purveyors of negativity.
We entrusted an editorial assistant with the task of surfing the electronic world for how Alabama is perceived there. Wow, did we receive a shock. When searching the phrase “living in Alabama,” it was not until the 27 th page of links that she encountered the first positive cultural reference beyond those on promotional sites. With more concise search terms she read a steady diet of negative national news stories about Roy Moore, the defeat of Amendment Two, football scandals, George Wallace, and Eugene “Bull” Connor.
Many articles refer to Alabama’s perpetual low standing in most national quality-of-life rankings. For instance, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, commenting on Ohio’s low level of educational spending, chided citizens: “If a state is known by the company it keeps, consider that Ohio ranks right down there with states like Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.”
In unexpected places, Web sites offer mockery and jokes about our state. A site for Macintosh users recapped a story about Vestavia Hills sixth graders who were the first students in Alabama to be assigned laptop computers. The first response to the story commented: “Wish I could’ve gone there….no wait, that means I’d be living in Alabama.” A subsequent message stated: “What a waste of money and brains.” One person participating in the exchange did so from Belgium. What characterizes most of these non-Alabama based stories is lack of context and balance, ridicule, and the portrayal of the state as backward and reactionary.
Reading these stories one would never guess why executives of international corporations such as Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Hyundai, Michelin, and others come to Alabama to live and work. Many of them choose to retire here when their careers are over. Lots of smart, talented people love living in Alabama.
Concerned that Alabamians have allowed others to depict them for too long, a group of concerned citizens has launched the online Encyclopedia of Alabama (EOA). This exciting project is scheduled for launch in 2008. When it does, it will become an advanced platform for sources dealing with Alabama.
It will be a great feast of the spirit to remind those of us who know and to inform those who do not know why, with all the state’s problems, we continue to live in and love this place.
As amazing as it seems, not since the 1920s has there a single reference work that accurately records the people, places, and events that have made this state so amazing.
EOA will commission the best scholars available anywhere in the world to write specific articles about topics as diverse as Harper Lee, Hank Aaron, Hank Williams, Bear Bryant, Vulcan, the Jazz Hall of Fame, the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Maxwell Field, the State Docks, Sylacauga’s white marble, the Mobile Delta, Fort McClellan, Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark, Lincoln Normal School, the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, the Tennessee Valley Old Time Fiddlers Convention, and thousands more topics from every corner of the state.
We believe people everywhere will respect the EOA because we will tell the story warts and all. No state is perfect, and we won’t mislead and misinform others. But we know the balance of the story will be positive as we record the accomplishments, often against great odds, of all our citizens and institutions.
Of course all true education begins at home. We are working with the State Department of Education to place this information on the desks of every Alabama school child through computers. For free. Not one penny will a school have to pay for the most up-to-date information ever assembled about Alabama. And the encyclopedia will be regularly updated, expanded, corrected, and refined by an EOA team housed at Auburn University.
If all this seems overly ambitious, even unrealistic, we simply need to dream larger dreams and see greater visions. Alabama’s foundations and corporations have been wonderfully supportive. Cooperation between the University of Alabama and Auburn have proven that they both understand the implications of this project for educating new generations of Alabamians and for telling our story nationally and internationally ourselves. The Alabama Humanities Foundation and Auburn are the major partners in this undertaking, joined by the University of Alabama Press, Alabama Department of Education, Alabama Commission in Higher Education, Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, Department of Archives and History, and State Council on the Arts. (Information about the people and organizations involved with the EOA may be found on the Web at encyclopediaofalabama.org.)
It may have been a long time coming, but by the end of 2008, when you enter “living in Alabama” on your search engine, the first 27 pages of references will not consist solely of boring statistics, drab prose, or negative stories. You just might also hear streaming audio of Alabama natives Jimmy Buffet and Nat “King” Cole, or watch a fifth-generation Alabama potter throw a churn, or listen while Kathryn Tucker Windham tells a ghost story, or tune in on the quilters of Gees Bend as they piece a quilt while singing gospel songs. And what a change for the better that will be.
