https://www.al.com/opinion/2024/01/alabama-archives-hosted-an-lgbtq-speaker-now-lawmakers-want-the-board-fired.html

The point is erasing the LGBTQIA from public view.  Like Russia did.  Next is to make being LGBTQIA illegal, again like other countries do.  This is not the end of it.   It is a deliberate push to wipe out all progress of the past 70 to 80 years on equality and equal rights for those not cis straight white males.  It is the first part in a war to return to white Christian cis straight male rule.  Hugs.  Scottie

A bill before the Legislature this year would replace trustees with political appointments.

• Published on Jan 10, 8:09 AM

Gay Pride Marchers in Birmingham, Alabama The Birmingham News The Birmingham News

By Kyle Whitmire | kwhitmire@al.com

 

 

 

 

This is an opinion column.

 

History in Alabama is under attack again. A handful of state lawmakers are on a mission to erase it, to cancel those who would mention it and punish those who would protect it.

 

No less than a revered state institution is on the line — the Alabama Department of Archives and History — and the stories it exists to preserve.

 

But this time it’s not stories of Reconstruction or civil rights protests at risk of being lost. At least, not yet. Rather, something more recent.

 

 

It’s LGBTQ history in lawmakers’ crosshairs.

 

 

Founded in Birmingham in 2015, the Invisible Histories Project collects stories and material regarding LGBTQ history in the South — the things, it seems, many would like to pretend never happened.

 

 

In June, the Alabama Department of Archives and History invited one of the Invisible Histories Project founders, Maigen Sullivan, to speak in Montgomery about the group’s work, as part of a lunchtime lecture series.

 

 

And that’s where all hell broke loose — this time.

 

 

You see, the other Invisible Histories founder, Joshua Burford, had spoken as part of the same lunchtime lecture series the year before, and no one seemed bothered then.

 

 

But political winds changed. The Moms for Liberty types brought back the Inquisition and now a thing that had once escaped notice of all but a handful of history nerds became a moral panic of political importance.

 

 

A handful of lawmakers called the Archives and questioned why state money was being spent on such a thing. The Archives director, Steve Murray, explained it wasn’t state money but a grant that funded the lecture series.

 

 

Not that the funding mattered. These lawmakers did not want it to happen, period, regardless of who paid for it.

 

 

“I wanted to express my concern for this event,” state Sen. Chris Elliot, R-Josephine, wrote Murray in a text message I obtained through a public records request. “Ideally, I’d like to see it canceled.”

 

 

Canceled. There’s that word. The next time you hear someone yapping about cancel culture, look back at Elliot’s text message and remember who is trying to cancel who.

 

 

Murray declined, the event went forward as planned, and angry lawmakers began to plot retribution.

 

 

First Elliott tried to cut $5 million of state funding from the Archives, nearly half its budget. And remember, he already knew tax dollars hadn’t paid for the event.

 

 

This was punishment.

 

 

Elliott filed his first bill in a special session. Legislative leadership instead kept to the point of the special session to redraw congressional districts. Elliot’s bill died when lawmakers gaveled out and went home.

 

 

Now, Elliott has set his sites on those who control the Archives — its board of trustees.

 

 

“Ideally, I’d like to see it canceled.”

Alabama State Sen. Chris Elliott to Alabama HIstory and Archives Director Steve Murray regarding an LGBTQ historian invited to speak.

 

 

In a bill pre-filed for the 2024 session, Elliott would change the Archives governance from a self-nominating board to one controlled by the governor, lieutenant governor, and the Alabama House and Senate leaders.

 

 

All of the 21 current board members would be fired on June 1, 2024. Those board members include folks like Montgomery civil rights attorney Fred Gray, who knows a thing or two about Alabama history (because he made it).

 

 

But Elliott’s real target seems to be Murray.

 

 

“It really chaps me when we end up in a situation where you have unelected bureaucrats saying, ‘We know better. We’ll do what we want to do regardless of what the people think,’” Elliott said in a recent talk radio interview.

 

 

The thing is, I’ve seen Murray speak in at least a dozen public hearings, and I’ve seen him explain things to rooms full of lawmakers that they should have learned in fourth-grade Alabama History. Murray doesn’t fume, yell or condescend. Generally, he’s one of the more patient, soft-spoken people I’ve met in Alabama state government.

 

 

And I’ve never heard Murray speak the way Elliott described. Nor did Murray say any such thing in the text messages Elliott exchanged with him before the event.

 

 

 

 

I called Elliott to ask, who had spoken to him that way?

 

 

Turns out, no one. They just didn’t do what Elliott wanted them to do.

 

 

When I pushed him on it, Elliott argued that he doesn’t like how Archives and History board members are appointed and he said some things that weren’t exactly accurate.

 

 

“They are one of the few, if not only, self-perpetuating boards in the state of Alabama that does not at least answer to elected officials, or by extension to the people of the state of Alabama, and simply reappoints itself over and over and over again,” he said. “And you gotta wonder, is that good governance?”

 

 

There are a few problems with what Elliott said.

 

 

First, there are other boards that self-nominate to fill vacancies, including the University of Alabama Board of Trustees, and there are others controlled by professional associations, such as the State Board of Medical Examiners and the Alabama State Bar.

 

 

Elliott hasn’t filed bills to change how those boards work. I checked.

 

 

 

 

Nor is it true the board lacks political oversight or that it is purely self-perpetuating.

 

 

The board does nominate its members, but those nominations then go before the Alabama Senate, where Elliott serves, for up or down votes — much like Supreme Court nominees go before the United States Senate.

 

 

If Elliott didn’t like any of these prospective board members, he could have voted against them. In fact, he’s had that opportunity 20 times since he became an Alabama state senator in 2018.

 

 

Care to guess how many he approved?

 

 

In the last four years, Elliott voted to approve all the people he now wants to fire.

 

 

Elliott approved three of those nominees this year — just two weeks before he took an interest in the LGBTQ stuff.

 

 

Not only did Elliott vote to approve those people for the board, but so did the cosponsors of his bill.

 

 

I didn’t get to ask Elliott about this during our phone call.

 

 

When I asked him how many Archives and History events he had been to — not counting the open-bar receptions special interest lobbyists host there — the phone call suddenly ended.

 

 

“Have a great day!” he said. “Bye!”

 

 

And the line went dead.

 

 

 

 

Elliott’s record will have to speak for itself.

 

 

But what of his question: Is that good governance?

 

 

A handful of lawmakers out of 140 demanded an event be canceled because they didn’t care for its subject matter.

 

 

The director and the board declined to cancel it.

 

 

Because silencing a speaker who has tried to make Alabama history more accurate and more complete would be in direct conflict with Archives and History’s purpose — to document and share true Alabama stories.

 

 

They made the archives a place to tell Alabamians’ stories — not just the ones Elliott wanted told.

 

 

They did their jobs and now Elliott wants to fire them for it.

 

 

This is Don’t-You-Know-Who-I-Am politics.

 

 

This isn’t someone concerned with free speech.

 

 

This isn’t someone who cares about cancel culture. This is someone angry he doesn’t get to cancel someone else’s culture.

 

 

This is someone who wants to bring back the silence — to erase what little has been recovered and mute those who would speak of it.

 

 

Unless we say, enough.

 

 

Unless we say, this is history that won’t be forgotten.

 

 

Unless we say, not again.

 

 

 

 

 

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About the Authors

Kyle Whitmire

Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for AL.com, where he writes about political culture in Alabama. Dislikes: corruption, cruelty, incompetence and hypocrisy. Likes: quiet heroes. He is the 2023 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for commentary.