alabama possible from the alabama poverty project

Law professor urges faith groups to promote justice

Kay Campbell

The Huntsville Times

November 21, 2008

Ballot boxes stuffed during the election over the 1901 Alabama Constitution stole more than an election, a law professor says. They stole a fair chance at economic self-sufficiency for many Alabamians.

The state’s Constitution prevents local governments from making crucial decisions and helped nail in place the structure that keeps the state at the bottom of most U.S. assessments of citizen well-being, says Dr. Susan Pace Hamill of the University of Alabama School of Law.

“The election was stolen,” Hamill said Monday. “Historians have proven that.”

The stolen elections allowed conditions that created tax shelters for out-of-state companies who own Alabama timber, limited the ability to tax the wealthy, disenfranchised two-thirds of Alabama’s adults by the 1940s, and remanded local control to Montgomery, she said.

“And where was the church?” Hamill asked, in a refrain that punctuated her talk Monday to about 100 representatives of Huntsville’s faith and public service com- munity.

The half-day symposium of the Alabama Poverty Project at First Baptist Church was sponsored by Huntsville’s Interfaith Mission Service’s Faith Coalition for Poverty and Public Policy, a group which seeks ways to eradicate systemic injustices that increase poverty.

“It’s easy to figure out where poverty comes from,” Hamill said. “It comes from bad policies and bad choices. But I take the viewpoint of Genesis 1. We were all created in the image of God. If a large number of our people are not reaching their divine potential, that’s offensive to God.”

Hamill also has a master’s in divinity from Beeson Theological Seminary at Samford University.

“Those of faith know that poverty is not going to be eradicated until Jesus comes back, but we have no excuse not to push the ball along a little further,” Hamill said.

The answer, she said, is not socialism, which treats everyone the same, but justice, a system that makes sure people have a fair opportunity to rise to their diverse potentials.

Hamill read the group Dr. Seuss’ “Yertle the Turtle,” a children’s book in which a king turtle decides he needs to stand on the backs of other turtles. None of the turtles dare move, despite their discomfort, for fear of being pushed even further down in the stack.

Hamill said her own studies of reactions in Alabama to attempts to re-structure the tax system or the Constitution have echoed those of the turtles. People are afraid, she said, of going against the opinions of their social network or of moving further down than they are.

In Seuss’ book, a turtle named “Mack” upsets the stack, freeing all of the turtles – including the king stuck on top – when he burps.

“Ladies and gentlemen of faith,” Hamill said in closing, “The reason we’re stuck in this rut is because we need a special breath to stop this oppression. Only the church can supply the ‘burp’.”

Following Hamill’s talk, local leaders discussed programs in North Alabama of mentorship and training that have helped people step out of poverty.

“The church has not done what we could have done,” said the Rev. Dr. Wayne Snodgrass, pastor of Progressive Union Missionary Baptist Church and one of the symposium’s panelists. “The church is the best resource for awareness of where people are, for nurturing people so they can stay on their own.”

Information on resources aimed at helping people toward self-sufficiency are listed at www.AlabamaPoverty.org. Local speakers on issues of poverty and anti- poverty programs are available through the Interfaith Mission Service’s Faith Coalition on Poverty & Public Policy: www.InterfaithMissionService.org, 536-2401.

Did you know?

- Alabama, the 6th poorest state, has a 17 percent poverty rate.

- More than 50 percent of Alabama’s children live in households eligible for free or reduced school lunches.

- More than 575,000 non-elderly adults and more than 70,000 children have no health insurance.

- More than 46 percent of Alabama citizens in poverty are too young or too old to work.