Tommy,

I am truly shocked that someone was so offended by your questions and comments about Council High.

I would like to think that we have moved past that era, but we all did live in it and those memories will always be with us. You have a knack for bringing up things that I have wondered about and I am happy that we do have a voice out there that has the courage to speak out.  Keep up the good work.

Jim Myrick
Class of '66
Like all newsletter readers, I read Tommy's original article on Council High School in Huntsville but did not see racial tones to it at all.  In fact, as I have read the responses each week from other LHS readers, it seems obvious that each writer was genuine in their comments.  J.R. had positive comments and added a few of his own thoughts about CHS.  Sara Jane indicated she had spoke with friends from CHS and indicated they did not recall the cheer.

I viewed the article from a historical perspective.  My parents had relocated to Huntsville at the start of my seventh grade and like many, I attended LHS for six years.  I was in a new city at a critical point in my life where fitting in was very important.

  I never questioned LHS being segregated because it was exactly like what I had left in Anniston, AL.  Blacks had their schools and for much of my early life I reasoned that it was because their schools were close to their communities.  As we moved into the mid 60's it became obvious to me it was the communities that were segregated which caused the schools to be as well.

There may be other readers that agree with the person that no longer wants to be part of our weekly newsletter and have just not voiced that opinion.  I feel that is not the case.  We are each products of our enviroment and none of us can change the social ill's of the day and to me Tommy's article was a timely reminder that CHS was real and did exist and we should each strive to not forget our past.

To boycott the newsletter, one should also boycott ESPN because at least once each season in games that are aired from our state, we will see those damn fire hoses and dogs.

HBO had a very good series during the holidays called "Breaking The Huddle" that delt with the integration of college sports, especially football and if any of you watched it, we had to sit through the fire hoses and dogs and I for one am tired of it but it is the national media that has to keep this image alive.  I have traveled for years in sales outside the south and I have made it a point on each trip to not perpetuate the image that each of us has to overcome.  Now will I cancel my cable TV because the media feels it important to keep the image of Alabama alive?  No, it is up to me to not display that in my life each day.

Marty (Marty Fincher,  '65) and I have a large picture from the front page of The Birmingham News in 2001 taken on the night that Thomas Blanton was finally convicted for his role in the 16th Street Church bombing that took the lives of six young ladies on that Sunday morning in 1963.  Marty was living in Birmingham at the time before relocting to Huntsville and this event shaped her memory of racial issues.  On that night in 2001 she indicated she just had to do something so she and I stopped in a grocery store and picked up six red roses that she intended to take to The 16th Street Baptist Church and lay on the steps.  Not known to her at the time was every media outlet in the south was at the church and she was reluctant to get out of the car as I circled the block but she did. 

I continued to circle and Marty was no where to be found.  Finally she appeared out of a group of news folks and was very upset.  All she wanted to to was pay her respects to those babies but a white person with six red roses was more than the media could resist.  Turns out that The Birmingham News asked her to take the roses inside to the alter instead of the steps out front and that is the picture that made the front page.

We did not cancel our paper because of the coverage of the conviction, we just had to deal with it.

Thanks Tommy for touching on this subject as painful as it may be for some.  Keep us on the mailing list.

Dink Hollingsworth
Class of  '65
January 11, 2009

"On Mel at the Pitcher Show..."

...Say whaattt...? Sure...OK. Enough already!  Jim is right. Trash the Past! We'll talk about stupid cigarette ads so as not to offend anybody!... I don't know Jim Bannister. He doesn't know me. Safe to say he knows less about my film viewing habits. Would like to say I don't obsess over Scottish history and I'm not a big fan of Mel Gibson. It is ironic that Jim references "Braveheart" though. Seems our American colonialist ancestors shared the same "obsession" as Wallace, the Gibson character, namely : his vigilant stand against a tyrannical English king. Sound familiar? I can't speak for Jim, but I'm grateful our American ancestors were "obsessed" enough to defeat another tyrannical (and crazy) English king. Remember ole Georgey boy? Didn't have to go to Lee to learn about him; they done learned us 'bout him in ellamenttree skool. I think the only fitting thing for a gentleman to do is offer Jim a proper dinner invitation for further deliberation...past Castle Gate, dinner at eight...I'll leave you now a couple quotes, and go away...Sir James.

"The history of mankind is the history of arrested growth."  Ralph Waldo Emerson

"History teaches the mistakes we are going to make."  Lawrence J. Peter

"The darkness of history...conceals a light. Beyond the mystery is meaning. And the meaning is destined to be disclosed."  Abraham Joshua Heschel

"Say whaatt ??!!"...(Sir James)

Jim Ballard
Sorry to here the reader that wanted to end his connection to your writings because of the subject matter. This is one of my top five complaints I have with our country now- "don't talk about this or that you might offend someone."  Sounds to me like he hasn't moved forward. Also, we are either  AMERICANS or we are not AMERICANS-  not African/American or Irish/American or Italian/Americans.

Love the website, keep it up, thanks.

Steve Craig
Class of '71
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