David T Morgan

Alabama David T Morgan

This is the story of my living in Alabama for over 42 years, but it is much more than that. I make a serious attempt to define Alabama's people, society, and culture. What I hope to demonstrate is that Alabama cannot be sloughed off as a backward, Deep-South state without redeeming features, as it is so often in the national news media. Although Alabama is regrettably about George Wallace and Roy Moore, it is also refreshingly about Harper Lee, Rosa Parks, Helen Keller, and other outstanding people from various walks of life, Alabamians who have made contributions regionally, nationally, and internationally. Existing side by side with the state's impoverished rural environment, are Redstone Arsenal, where the rockets were developed that put Americans in space; world famous medical facilities like University Hospital and UAB Medicine in Birmingham; the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail that attracts golfers from all over the world; and one of the most heralded college football programs in the nation--the Crimson Tide of the University of Alabama. I considered calling the book "Alabama: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," for all three abound in the state, but, after being one of its citizens for over four decades, I chose to emphasize the good without ignoring the bad and the ugly. I trust that the reader will be aware of all three in the end and will see that Alabama's image as a cultural, economic, and political wasteland is far from totally deserved. The state truly has its redeeming features. While I refuse to close my eyes to Alabama's dark side, I am glad to show the reader that it has its brighter side, too. Read the book and meet some of Alabama's fascinating people (past and present) and discover some of its institutions that are equal to and, in some cases, superior to those that are found in other states.