Industry: Government

Alexis M. Herman

  • September 29th, 2022

The Honorable Alexis Herman has made her mark as one of the most accomplished women to ever emerge from Alabama. A social worker, politician, and entrepreneur, Herman now works as chair and CEO of New Ventures, LLC, a corporate consulting company, and serves on the boards of directors for several major companies. She also chairs the Diversity Advisory Board for the Toyota Motor Company.

Born in Mobile in 1947 to a schoolteacher mother and an entrepreneur/politician father, Herman saw the effects of Jim Crow firsthand. Her parents, who were devout Catholics, sent her to parochial schools that were still segregated at the time. As a girl, Herman witnessed the impact of segregation on her community, and this sparked a passion in her for social justice and activism. As a sophomore in high school, she questioned the archdiocese’s practice of excluding Black students from full participation in religious pageants and placing them at the rear of religious gatherings. This resulted in her suspension from school. However, she was readmitted when Black parents protested. More importantly, the ultimate result was the desegregation of the Mobile Parochial School System the following year.

After earning a degree in sociology from Xavier University of Louisiana in 1969, Herman devoted herself to social work, returning to Mobile to help desegregate public schools. She began her career as a social worker helping young men gain admittance to apprenticeships in the Pascagoula, Mississippi shipyard. Because of her passion and success in placing the first minority males in apprenticeship jobs, she was asked to move to Atlanta, GA to spearhead a similar effort. This effort established a ten-city program to recruit and place women of color into professional and managerial jobs in private industry. She helped place the first women of color into professional and technical jobs in companies that included General Motors, Delta Airlines, and Coca-Cola. This work gained her national recognition, and in 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed her, at age 29, to be the youngest director of the Women’s Bureau in the history of the U. S. Department of Labor.

At the end of the Carter administration in 1981, Sec. Herman founded A. M. Herman & Associates, a consulting firm that led to significant diversity and inclusion work with a number of companies, including Proctor & Gamble and AT&T. She remained a high-profile political figure and was eventually called to serve as Chief Executive Officer of the 1992 Democratic National Convention. After the inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1992, she was appointed as the first African American woman Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison. In 1997, she again made history when she was sworn in as the first African American to be appointed and confirmed as Secretary of the U. S. Department of Labor.

During her tenure as Labor Secretary, unemployment reached a thirty-year low. Sec. Herman garnered praise for her efforts to institute effective child labor standards, her deft handling of the UPS worker’s strike of 1997, and her advocacy to increase the minimum wage. Her public service has supported five presidents of the United States, both Democrat and Republican.

Sec. Herman has been awarded more than 30 honorary doctorates and is an inductee into both the Minority Business Hall of Fame and the National Women’s History Project. Her non-profit work includes service on the boards of the National Urban League and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She is a former trustee for her alma mater, Xavier University, a current trustee of the Toyota Technological Institute at the University of Chicago, is on the board of the Bush-Clinton Presidential Leadership Scholars initiative, and chairs the Dorothy I. Height Educational Foundation, and the Advisory Board of her alma mater, Heart of Mary, in Mobile.

In 2000, Secretary Herman married the late Charles L. Franklin, a successful family physician in McLean, VA.

William Dorsey Jelks

  • October 26th, 2021

William Dorsey Jelks has been described as a man with ability, integrity, and a habit of action – a man sensitive to human needs but also a very bold and determined man. These qualities become readily apparent in the story of his accomplishments in jour­nalism, politics, and business.

This distinguished Ala­bamian was born to Joseph William and Jane Goodrun (Frazer) Jelks in Warrior Stand, Macon County, Alabama, on November 7, 1855. Young William’s father, a captain in the Confederate Army, was killed in 1862. Subsequently, the youngster grew up in Union Springs in Bullock County where he was educated in the common schools. Loans from kind relatives enabled him to enter Mercer Univer­sity in 1873 from which he graduated in 1876. He returned to Union Springs and worked as a book­keeper to pay off the money he had borrowed.

In 1879, William Jelks acquired an interest in the Union Springs Herald, but sold his shares and moved to Eufaula later that same year. He bought the Eufaula Times. He was highly successful both as an editor and publisher. His newspaper is said to have been probably the most often quoted of the state’s newspapers. William Jelks stated later that in the nineteen years he owned and published the Eufaula Times, he acquired a “country competency.”

Long before William Jelks entered politics at the state level, he had shown an active interest in public affairs. When he was twenty-two, he was a member of the Union Springs common (town) council. In Eufaula he served from six to eight years on the school board and held the honorary title of superintendent of education. Through his editorials, he had become widely and favorably known.

In 1898 he ran for and was elected to the Barbour County seat in the state senate. In 1900, he aspired to be the president of the state senate and again was successful. This victory was a much more important one than appears on the surface because it was generally known that Governor-elect William J. Samford suffered from what was presumed a fatal illness, and in those days the president of the senate was the first officer in line for succession. Senator Jelks indeed took the oath of office in Samford’s stead and served the first thirty days of the term. Then the elected governor regained enough strength to take over and serve until his death six months later.

When the two-year term to which he had succeeded neared its end, William Jelks became a candidate to succeed himself and was elected to what was then a four-year term.

Both as State Senator and Governor, William Jelks exerted a major influence on the new con­stitution of 1901. He was chairman of the senate committee which drafted the enabling act and the elected chairman of the joint legislative commit­tee which revised the bill. He signed it both as president of the Senate and as Governor. As Governor, he had, perforce, to demonstrate the workability of the new constitution.

William Jelks earned the reputation as Alabama’s “Business Governor.” When the state bonded debt of $8.5 million fell due during his term, he refunded it. He affected the refund with a saving of $100,000 a year in interest and got a premium of $300,000 in addition. He en­couraged the passage of a uniform schoolbook law, which saved the state hundreds of thousands of dollars. He found no surplus in the State Treasury when he went in office, but he left about S1.8 million when he went out.

But this business-like executive was also a humanitarian. During his term, child labor legis­lation began. Appropriations for education were about twice as large as during any previous six years, and old soldiers’ pensions were quadrupled.

After Governor Jelks left office in January 1907, a new challenge beckoned. As Governor, he had read the reports of the Insurance Commissioner and noted the volume of insurance premiums going out of the State with no such premiums coming in. Though he probably never used the term “balance of payments,” he understood the idea, grasped the unfavorable position of his state and set about improving it. He conceived the idea that there should be a strong life insurance com­pany in Alabama. He moved to Birmingham and organized a life insurance company, with himself as president. He drew to him strong support. His first board of directors, thirty in number, reads like a roster of the foremost leaders of the time in Alabama. The company was capitalized at a hundred thousand dollars, with a paid-in surplus of twenty-five thousand, no small sum for the time and place. It was incorporated on July 26, 1907, and issued its first policy on September 3, 1907. The selection of the name, “Protective,” for the new company was a touch of genius, for the com­pany was founded in a period of financial panic when all men yearned to be protected.

The new company had a hard time. Because of one of the sharpest money and banking panics in U.S. history, most banks were limiting cash withdrawals from individual accounts to around $50. All of the South’s large cities, including Bir­mingham, issued clearing house certificates to take the place of currency. The financial conditions were further aggravated by the fact that estab­lished northern companies were in firm possession of the insurance field. It was indeed difficult to sell insurance.

William Jelks met the situation with caution, economy, and patience. He conserved his capital. He and his fellow subscribers to Protective stock absorbed all of the newborn company’s promo­tional and organization expenses. (The cost of the stamp on the envelope carrying the charter application to the secretary of state appears on the Company’s records as “Total Organization Expense, $.0 2”) The first home office was housed in one small room.

As he reported to stockholders in 1909, he believed that success in the insurance business lay in “making haste slowly.” The new company did not clamor for a large volume of business. Following a motto of “conservatism, consistently, persistently, and insistently,” Protective Life grew steadily and uninterruptedly throughout the twenty years that Governor Jelks was its president.

In 1927, Protective Life (often called “The Governor’s Company “) and Alabama National Life Insurance Company of Birmingham were consolidated. The united company retained the name “Protective.” Governor Jelks was made chairman of the consolidated company and F. Clabaugh (president of Alabama National) was the president. As chairman, seventy-two-year-old Governor Jelks turned all responsibilities over to the new president, except control of the Company’s investments. He was ready to retire. On January 1, 193 0, he gave up the chairmanship.

A few days later at a dinner given in his honor by his associates and friends, he bade farewell to his corporate child born twenty-three years before. In his words, Protective was his “own child … fed by me and my associates and nourished . . . It was an honest child and now is a strong and healthy one. All its early years I tried so to build that its foundations would hold any weight . . . let it live forever.”

William Dorsey Jelks went back to Eufaula to the home he had kept all those years. His productive life ended on December 13, 1931, but the fruits of his labors remain.

Sources of biographical information: A. B. Moore, History of Alabama, 1927; The Book of Alabama and the South, by John Temple Graves II, 1933. William J. Rushton, ”The Governor’s Company,” presented at the 1957 Alabama Dinner Meeting of the Newcomen Society in North America, Birmingham, Alabama.

Frank L. Mason

  • October 25th, 2021

In 1947, Mr. Sam Mason was having a hard time making a go of things with his business, Southeastern Tool & Die Company. Aluminum window screens were still new then, and the firm that originally only manufactured tools and dies had added three-screen parts to its production line, right as Mr. Mason’s health was beginning to fail.

“At that time,” recalls Frank L. Mason, “I really had not thought too much about starting with the company … It was more an effort to help my father. He’d helped me all his life.” So, the loyal son laid aside his mechanical engineering studies at The University of Alabama to go into business with his father. It was the first of a lot of smart business decisions the 1982 Alabama Small Business Person of the Year would make in his career.

Frank L. Mason was born May 7, 1924, to Sam Mason and Ruth Jacobs Mason in Birmingham, Alabama. He completed three semesters at The University of Alabama before enlisting in the U.S. Navy, where he completed flight training immediately prior to the end of World War II. Shortly after he went to work with his father, the company was incorporated on April 1, 1948, just five days after Frank Mason had wed Bess Powell Cooper. He received 25 percent of the stock at that time, and the business was incorporated, going on to change its name to the Mason Corporation in 1969.

Today Frank Mason is chairman of the board of his firm, which now manufactures aluminum building products for the home improvement industry, as well as some commercial building products. The Mason Corporation home office is still located in Birmingham, but the concern has grown to include locations in Dallas, Texas; Kansas City, Missouri; Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Edison, New Jersey. The latest stats on the company show that it has more than 400,000 square feet in total building area, more than 180 employees at eight locations, and offers some 3,000 market items.

Over the years Mr. Mason’s entrepreneurial expertise prompted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to put him on its board of directors and its Small Business Council. A strong advocate of sharing profits with employees, he served a stint as chairman of the Profit Sharing Council of America, an organization of companies that have profit-sharing plans. He just recently stepped down from that body’s board of directors and served as a director for the Alabama Profit Sharing Council. Profit-sharing, Frank Mason says, is one way of showing the employee he or she is important, and it makes good business sense. “With profit-sharing, you’re really following with deeds what you’re saying with words … it’s a matter of mutual interest and welfare of the company,” he says. And Mr. Mason did indeed back up his words with deeds: his company began profit-sharing as soon as it got on its feet in the early 1950s.

He has been on the National Advisory Council for the Small Business Administration, chairman of the Employee Benefits Committee for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and served as the second-ever chairman of the Business Council of Alabama, as well as on its board of directors. He was a member of The University of Alabama College of Commerce and Business Administration Board of Visitors. And the list goes on.

As president of the board of directors of the Alabama Chamber of Commerce, he has been a leader in the state’s push to become a player on the global business scene, stressing teamwork as the necessary element for success in such ventures. “If Alabama is to reach its full international development potential, it will be because we have all worked together to make it happen,” he was known for saying at one point.

In 1980 he was singled out by the Women’s Committee of 100 in Birmingham as the Citizen of the Year and earned his Small Business Person of the Year honors soon after that. At one point he was the member representing small businesses on the Labor and Agriculture Advisory Council for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Two times he chaired the Alabama delegation to the White House Conference on Small Business, once in 1980 and then again in 1986. He is currently vice president of the Treasure Forest Landowners Association of Alabama, president of the Alabama Farm Owners Association and serves on the board of Canterbury United Methodist Church in Birmingham.

Over the years as he combined his business interests and natural bent for leadership, Frank Mason found himself drawn to the political arena. He became one of the first two Republicans elected to office in Jefferson County, Alabama when he won the race for justice of the peace in 1956. In 1958 he was the first Republican candidate for the U.S. Congress from Jefferson County. Then, in 1976 he served as an alternate delegate pledged to (now) former U.S. President Ronald Reagan at the Kansas City National Republican Convention; and was a delegate, again pledged to Reagan, at the Detroit Convention in 1980. He served his state in the very visible position of member, and then chairman of the State Ethics Commission during the first half of the 1990s.

Remembering his early years in the business of politics, he says he did not run for justice of the peace because he coveted the position, but because, as a Republican, he believed voters in the heavily Democratic Alabama should have a choice. They agreed; he won. That victory spurred him on to his other efforts.

“I think that small business has some real assets to bring to the political process,” says Mr. Mason. “It’s easy for people passing laws and regulations to overlook the impact of them … A person who has had to mortgage his house to meet a Friday payroll looks at spending differently than if he has never had that experience. So, I think there is validity to the small business perspective in managing government.”

Although retired from day-to-day participation in the management of the business that became his life, Mr. Mason has not retired in the traditional sense. He spends his time now on a farm of some 3,000 acres in North Alabama, where he is involved in efforts to enhance the wildlife populations of the area, and where he works about 80 head of cattle, planning to expand even more in that area. He says he enjoys meeting new people who share these interests he is able to devote more time to now, as he enjoys using talents and skills entirely different than those called for in the metal and building products industry.

Asked how he would like to be remembered, Frank L. Mason does not have to ponder long on his answer.

“I guess being remembered as a person of integrity would be about the best thing you could think of,” he says.

Earl M. McGowin

  • October 20th, 2021

Earl McGowin decided early on in his career as an elected official not to play political games with the voters of Alabama.

“I went out to the people of Butler County with a number of disadvantages,” he recalled late in his life. “I was inexperienced, young, and I had a mustache.” That mustache, wrote Alabama journalist James Saxon Childers, told a story about McGowin that nothing else could tell so well.

When he was thinking of running for office, a friend told him to shave it off. Earl said, “It’s my mustache. It’s a part of me. If I should shave it off, I’d be doing a political trick and I’m damned if I’ll start by tricking them, by pretending something merely to get their votes. They’ll have to take me with my mustache and all my other detriments, or else they’ll have to leave me out.” They took him.

Earl Mason McGowin was born November 18, 1901, to James Greeley McGowin and Essie Stallworth McGowin in Brewton, Alabama. A product of the public schools of Chapman and Greenville, Alabama, he received a degree from The University of Alabama in 1921, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. Out of fourteen candidates from Alabama, he was elected a Rhodes Scholar and attended Pembroke College at Oxford University in England from 1922-1925. Earl’s zest for politics, friends said later, was kindled during that time. Again, words from journalist James Childers: “Earl would go to the House of Commons to listen to the debates … always it was government with McGowin. That was what he was studying at Oxford.” Although Earl returned home to the family business after his experience abroad, his ties with the British institution and the program remained strong. The well-stocked McGowin library at Pembroke College, donated by the family in 1974, is one of the prominent landmarks of the campus, and Earl served for many years as secretary of the Alabama Rhodes Scholarship selection committee.

In the book Earl McGowin of Alabama, the story is told of the young McGowin’s return to Chapman to work at W.T. Smith Lumber Company. He arrived from Europe Friday, September 1, 1925. His father greeted him with warmth, but also with the admonition: “I’ll expect you at work Monday morning. Remember, you’re on your own.” Earl quickly became immersed in and conversant with the administrative acts of sawmilling, learning of lumber and mills, ripsaws, and railroads. He and his brothers, as operators of one of the largest lumber companies in the South, were front-runners in putting into practice the concept of the sustained yield – the idea of treating trees as a crop and adhering strictly to selective cutting to extend the lifespan of a forest indefinitely.

And some of the Oxford-educated mill worker’s most lasting accomplishments were in the area of resource management and forest conservation. He spearheaded the passage of legislation outlawing the practice of burning millions of acres of woodlands for pasture (Alabama’s “stock law “); improving forest fire protection and control programs; and forming the Alabama Forest Products Association. In 1941 he was elected president of the Southern Pine Association – at forty, one of the youngest executive officers in the group’s history. He was also instrumental in Governor Chauncey Sparks’ selection at the end of World War II of Auburn University as the site of Alabama’s School of Forestry.

And although the family sold W.T. Smith Lumber and its some 197,000 acres of timberland for approximately $50 million at the height of the concern’s success in 1966, Earl would remain in the lumber business, becoming increasingly active in the fight for improved lumber standards and quality control with the Southern Pine Inspection Bureau, of which he had been chairman of the board since 1960. He was simultaneously engaged in other efforts to develop uniform American lumber standards as chairman of the American Lumber Standards Committee of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

But Earl McGowin was not known in the public service arena strictly for his work regarding forestry issues. The gentleman began his political career in 1930 as an elected member of the Alabama House of Representatives, and throughout his five-term career as a state legislator, displayed a stubborn integrity – perhaps best exemplified in his refusal to have any dealings with the then-powerful Ku Klux Klan, and in his efforts in the reform of state government while serving as Governor Frank M. Dixon’s House floor leader. In recognition of his contributions, he was voted “Legislator of the Year” in 1939 by the Alabama Press Association, and Dixon also appointed him as a member of the State Board of Education.

While Earl was making his mark on state history as a legislator, he also added some extremely significant chapters to his personal history. He married Miss Ellen Pratt December 29, 1937, and the couple would go on to have two children, daughter Florence McGowin Uhlhorn and son Earl Mason McGowin, Jr. And in 1942, much to the chagrin of those in Butler County who would have had him remain at home in charge of a lumber concern that was then playing a vital role in the war effort, he volunteered his services to the U.S. Navy, turning down an opportunity to serve as speaker of the House.

Earl was accepted by the Navy as a senior lieutenant, and after a few weeks was assigned to open a Navy lumber unit in Jacksonville, Florida. He eventually became chief of the Memphis and New Orleans offices of the Central Procuring Agency and Navy Lumber Coordinating Unit, jointly operated by the Army and Navy, and was also in charge of a unit at Shreveport. The Alabamian’s contributions to his country while on active duty did not go unnoticed; he received a citation for outstanding performance of duty during World War II from Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal.

In 1949, at the age of 48, Earl declined to run for a sixth term in office. That did not, however, end his career as a statesman. In 1950 he was appointed director of the Department of Conservation, and he served as director of the Alabama State Docks from 1959 to 1963. It was during this time that Ellen Pratt McGowin, who had been fighting a battle with cancer, passed away in 1962. Earl remarried July 28, 1964, taking Claudia Pipes Milling, widow of New Orleans attorney Robert E. Milling, as his bride.

As a member of the legislature, Earl McGowin had led extensive efforts to reform and enhance education in Alabama, and his interest in this area continued throughout his life. He served as president of the University of Alabama National Alumni Association from 1950-51, was an emeritus trustee of the Alabama Association of Independent Colleges, and in 1970 at the age of sixty-nine was named the first chairman of the newly formed Alabama Commission on Higher Education. In 1975 his former political foe, Governor George Wallace, inducted him into the State Academy of Honor for these and other accomplishments.

So much could be written to memorialize the life of Earl Mason McGowin, but perhaps his own words best capture the spirit of the man. “In retrospect,” he said in the mid-1980s, “I have enjoyed a full life.”

Earl McGowin died June 2, 1992, at his home in Chapman.

Arthur R. Outlaw

  • October 18th, 2021

Arthur Outlaw is a man whose roots run deep in lower Alabama: the first elected mayor of Mobile in the latter half of the 20th century, the impact he made on that city’s political and business communities have forever made his name synonymous with success in Alabama’s port city.

Born September 8, 1926, to parents Mayme Lily Ricks and George Cabell Outlaw, Sr., Arthur Robert Outlaw lived on a farm outside Mobile until his family’s move into the city when he was 14. Arthur’s father Cabell was one of the found­ing fathers of Morrison’s Cafeteria in 1920 and an exemplary role model for his son to follow. In his early years, Arthur received a Catholic education through his second year of high school at the McGill Institute before transferring to Riverside Military Academy in Georgia. The man who would later give hope to Mobilians and rebuild their shaken trust in local government enlisted in the U.S. Air Force Cadet Program after his 1945 graduation and served his country for two years during World War II.

Arthur left the military in 1947 to attend The University of Alabama, where he studied for one year before completing a business degree at Spring Hill College in Mobile. His friends are quick to point out that the degree should have been in golf, for although it was not Arthur’s formal course of study, he excelled in it to such a degree that his alma mater’s golf team had an undefeated season his senior year. And while he is proud of that college accomplishment, Arthur himself is quick to point out that it was not his greatest one while at “The Hill”: that, he says, was marrying Dorothy (Dot) Smith on November 23, 1949. The couple would go on to have three children – son A. Robert Outlaw, Jr. and daughters Karen Outlaw and Mary Gay Outlaw.

While still a college student, the already ambitious Arthur took a position with the Mobile accounting firm of Holiman, Childree, and Ramsay, which held the Morrison’s account. He quickly advanced, and after graduation was employed full-time. It wasn’t long before this aggressive young businessman joined the Morrison organization itself, as a full-time assistant auditor in 1951. His initial work centered on modernizing the company’s accounting system, and later he enlisted IBM to help structure payrolls and handle food inventory and billing for warehouses. This technologically advanced arrangement occurred long before the computer age, marking Arthur as an executive with a great deal of foresight.

As he made his way up Morrison’s career ladder, Arthur found himself increasingly interested in politics. In 1964, while serving as assistant secretary and treasurer for Morrison’s, Arthur was also an adviser to Republican Jim Martin in Martin’s bid to unseat long-time U.S. Senate Democrat Lister Hill. Although Arthur’s man lost the race by a narrow margin, the race made a lasting and dramatic impact on the development of an active Republican Party in Alabama.

That same year, Arthur endured another loss – one of a more personal and tragic nature – when his beloved father passed away. Despite all this, Arthur refused to accept defeat, coming back in 1964 to help prominent Republican Jack Edwards in his successful bid that year for Congress. Then in 1965, taking a leave of absence from Morrison’s to run his own campaign, Arthur defeated eight opponents and took office as public safety commissioner of Mobile. For four years Arthur worked diligently with his fellow commissioners to increase the city’s revenues by some 60 percent, revising the gas tax and redistributing funds based on a per-capita system. But after just one term, at the urging of his brother Arthur returned to Morrison’s in 1969. And as if he had never left, within four years Arthur was named secretary and treasurer of the company. The next decade marked a period of exceptional growth for Morrison’s, which grew to encompass more than 100 cafeterias; a food service division with contracts with health care industries and hospitals, schools, and even movie sets; Admiral Benbow Inns; Morrison Imperial House Restaurants; and food service equip­ment companies. With its warehouses, coffee plant, Morrison Assurance Company, and plants for the manufacture of stainless steel, furniture, and china, Morrison’s became the most vertically integrated company in its industry.

In a display of remarkable business acumen, in 1982 Arthur supported Morrison’s acquisition of fledgling restaurant chain Ruby Tuesday, which at that time consisted of 12 units. Arthur’s vision of expanding the business his father founded quickly became a reality, and today there are more than 350 Ruby Tuesday locations. In 1984, Arthur was appointed vice-chairman of the board of Morrison’s, and while this was a major step in his business career, the Mobilian’s strong devotion to his city would again lead him into local politics. He easily found success when he ran for the post of city finance commissioner, serving out the term of the incumbent who had been ousted from office – and jailed – for fraud and extortion. Arthur was quoted at the time as saying, “None of us are very proud of the events that have taken place in the last few months, and we are certainly concerned about the image it has projected on our fine city I can­not sit on the sidelines.”

During his seven-month term, Arthur worked with the state legislature to change Mobile’s form of government to a mayor/council system instead of one based on three commissioners. Following the city residents’ vote to make this change, Arthur ran for mayor in 1985 and won, becoming the first elected mayor of Mobile since 1911. A local who understood the needs of his community and envisioned reviving the declining city, Arthur’s eight-year strategic plan for Mobile included the downtown redevelopment of a waterfront convention center, constructing a naval home port, solving the stormwater drainage problem, and developing a “Keep Mobile Beautiful” campaign. After breathing life back into his hometown during his one term as mayor, Arthur returned in 1989 to the family business, now Morrison Restaurant, Inc., as vice-chairman of the board, which is where he remains today. Seven years after his departure from politics, his company was spun off into three independent entities: Morrison Fresh Cooking, Inc.; Morrison Health Care, Inc.; and Ruby Tuesday, Inc. Arthur also currently serves as vice-chairman of the Ruby Tuesday Board of Directors.

Arthur’s successes also continued on the personal front. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Mobile in May 1994 and was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind in 1995, two additions to a list including well more than 15 civic and service appointments and accomplishments.

His friends say, Arthur Outlaw, with all of his personal and professional successes, hasn’t changed much over the years. Throughout his triumphs as both businessman and politician, he has remained loyal to his principles and fought for his beliefs. “I believe I’ve spent the majority of my career working on problems I see as solvable,” Arthur once said. “If a problem is solvable, a little action will usually uncover the necessary solution.”

Arthur Outlaw’s life has been one of just such action, and he will be remembered for the problems he solved.

Alfred J. Saliba

  • October 11th, 2021

Alfred Saliba’s favorite quote in large measure describes the life he has led. The quote is from Leo C. Rosten, the Polish-born American humorist-sociologist:

I cannot believe that the pur­pose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter; to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.

No wonder, then, that Alfred Saliba, businessman, builder, and former Mayor of Dothan, has spent his life being useful, responsible, hon­orable and compassionate, making sure that he stands for something, that his actions mat­ter, that he has made a difference to those around him and to his community.

Born February 22, 1930, to Joseph Elias Saliba and Marie Violet Accawie in Dothan, Alabama, Alfred Joseph Saliba comes from roots that reach deep into Dothan history. Lebanese immigrant Elias Thomas Saliba began a one-mule trade business while visiting friends in nearby Ozark. Hotel owner and Dothan Mayor Buck Baker struck up a friendship with the young man and loaned him a building rent-free. After building his own wholesale grocery and tobacco business, Saliba sent for his younger brothers, Mike, Mose, and Abe, and set them up in business, selling groceries and running restaurants. The family patriarch returned home to Lebanon to visit, and while detained by World War I, he was elected mayor of his hometown. He was assassinated and the family returned to Dothan, where decades later his grandson would be elected mayor.

As a youth growing up in the Wiregrass, Alfred Saliba demonstrated quiet intelligence, high ethic caliber, and fair-minded commitment to justice, and a sincere understanding of people that combine to create fine leaders.

His organizational skills and inspirational leadership became apparent while in grade school. They were raised to the level of fine art at Dothan High School and became legendary at The University of Alabama, where he earned a degree in civil engineering/construction. His willingness to work hard and his ability to improvise were tested when he was misinformed about qualifying dates and missed placing his name on the ballot for the presidency of the College of Engineering at UA. He immediately sent hand­written notes to every engineering student, including the other candidate, explaining the error, assuring them of his desire for the position, and seeking their support. He won as a write-in.

In 1953, Alfred Saliba entered the U.S. Air Force as a 2nd Lieutenant, having been a member of the Arnold Air Society, the Pershing Rifles Honor Guard, and both a Distinguished Military Student and Distinguished Military Graduate at the University. He was released as a First Lieutenant after service in Japan and Korea and earning the UN Service Medal, Korean Service Medal, and National Defense Service Medal. He achieved the rank of Captain in the Air Force Retired Reserve.

Alfred Saliba is renowned for his tendency toward careful thought, consideration, discussion, and contemplation. No quick decisions. Except when it comes to matters of the heart.

When he returned home after his duty in Asia, he planned a visit to his younger sister at the University. It was April 1955, the annual A-Day event, and sister Norma scrambled to find her brother a date. Most people already had plans, so she begged her roommate, Henrietta Carpenter, to go out with Alfred as a favor. He proposed the next month and the couple was married on August 20, with sister Norma as a bridesmaid. The union produced three children, Annamarie Saliba Martin, Alfred Joseph Saliba Jr., and James Mark Saliba.

In 1955, Alfred Saliba set about earning a living in Dothan. He established his own home building, land development, and residential/commercial real estate firm. His professional standards and personal integrity provided a solid foundation for the business and, as founder and president, his hard work ensured the success of the Alfred Saliba Corporation. In addition, he is a shareholder or on the board of directors of Houston Properties, Inc., Wasco Properties, Southeastern Apparel, SMK (Ethan Allen, Dothan, and Birmingham), SMW (The Playground), Dothan Inn, Inc., PENTA, Inc., and Regions Bank-Dothan.

Saliba has been instrumental in boosting the growing business community and economy of the Wiregrass area. He was a founding partner in Aladan which quickly became the largest U.S. manufacturer of latex products and Columbia Yeast Company which became the largest American producer of yeast. He also helped engender Behavioral Health Systems, one of the Southeast’s leading providers of corporate mental health management care.

As diverse and impressive as his business career is, his community and civic service may eclipse it. He has been president of the JayCees, Rotary Club of Dothan, Dothan Chamber of Commerce, and the Hawk-Houston Boys Club. He has been active in the Republican Party, serving as Chairman of the Houston County Republican Executive Committee and as a member of the State Executive Committee. Through service as an elder at Evergreen Presbyterian Church, he helped establish the area’s first senior citizen hot lunch and day program and the city’s first church-sponsored kindergarten/daycare.

He has served on the board of directors of the Salvation Army, Wiregrass United Way, Wiregrass Habitat for Humanity, Community Foundation of Southeast Alabama, and the Industrial Development Board.

His community service has brought him numerous honors: JayCee Boss of the Year, Builder of the Year, NASW Public Citizen of the Year, the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award, the Arthritis Humanitarian Award, and the Troy State University Dothan Community Service Award. He was tapped for Leadership Alabama, and former Gov. Fob James proclaimed November 21, 1997, as” Alfred Saliba Day.”

Given his record of business success and public service and his personal connection to Dothan’s history, it seemed natural that Alfred Joseph Saliba should follow the example of his grandfather, Elias Thomas Saliba, who had been elected mayor of his hometown long ago in Lebanon. At the urging of several friends, and without a shred of experience as a political candidate, Alfred Saliba ran for mayor of Dothan and won.

Through two, four-year terms he used the wisdom of a lifetime of business acumen to bring foresight, managerial expertise, diplomacy, and fiscal responsibility to the office.

He developed a long-range plan for revitalizing the infrastructure of a growing Dothan and initiated a comprehensive plan for funding needed capital improvements. For three consecutive years of his second term, Dothan was selected by Money magazine as the best place in Alabama to live, ranking as high as 39th in the nation for quality of life.

In 1993, Mayor Saliba formed a task force to assess community needs, seeking an alternative to welfare for Dothan’s struggling families. The task force reported gaps in community services, lack of adult education in living/working skills, and fragmented delivery of services, which often resulted in multigenerational dependence on welfare. Emboldened by Saliba’s vision, the task forces brought together health and service organizations to co-exist and cooperate in one central location.

The result, which bears the name Alfred J. Saliba Family Services Center, was a prototype in the state. Its complement of agencies and innovative programs has aided and uplifted hundreds of impoverished families and has been declared a model for welfare to work, inspiring 15 other Southern cities to follow suit.

Newspapers are not usually given to applauding politicians. Yet The Dothan Eagle, in an editorial praising the oratorical prowess of Mayor Saliba, said: “We still remember the brief talk he gave before a group of veterans in the Civic Center on Memorial Day morning. Anybody in that audience who did not feel chills along his spine or who left not feeling proud to be an American was listening to another drummer.”

In an article in that same newspaper, Mayor Saliba, writing in a guest column, referred to his grandfather. ” … His vision and love for this small corner of the New World inspire me even today.” And, in a life of achievement, service, leadership, and compassion, Alfred Saliba shares his own vision and love for Dothan, inspiring present and future generations.

1st. Lieutenant William J. Cabaniss

  • October 4th, 2021

William J. Cabaniss, Jr. has had successful careers in business, public service, and community affairs, including serving as U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic.

Ambassador Cabaniss was born in Birmingham, the son of William Jelks Cabaniss and Florence Pierson Sanson Cabaniss. He attended The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey where he graduated in 1956 and then enrolled at Vanderbilt University.

After graduating with a bachelor of arts degree from Vanderbilt University in 1960, Ambassador Cabaniss entered the United States Army, having received his commission as a second lieutenant through the U.S.

Army ROTC program. On active duty, he served as an Airborne Ranger first lieutenant. In 1964, after a three-year tour of duty in Germany, he was awarded the Army Commendation Medal. After his service in the armed forces, Ambassador Cabaniss returned to his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, where he began his business career with the Southern Cement Company Division of Martin Marietta Corporation.

In 1971, he resigned from his position as director of market development with Southern Cement and acquired the assets of a small metal grinding company. Since then, he has built Precision Grinding, Inc. into a successful steel plate processing and metal machining business.

Ambassador Cabaniss ran for public office in 1978 and served in the Alabama House of Representatives from 1978 to 1982 and the Alabama State Senate from 1982 to 1990.

Ambassador Cabaniss has been a leader in the Birmingham business community, having served on the Boards of Directors of the following publicly-held companies: AmSouth Banlc, Birmingham Steel Corporation, the Southern Company, and Protective Life Corporation. He served on the Metropolitan Development Board and was past chairman; served on the Board of the National Association of Manufacturers; and previously served on the Board of the Southern Research Institute. He has held

membership in the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Alabama, Association of Iron and Steel Engineers, and the National Tooling and Machining Association. In 2002, Mr. Cabaniss received the Distinguished Builders of Birmingham Award.

He was sworn in as U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic by Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington, DC on December 9, 2003. He arrived in Prague on January 9, 2004, and presented his credentials to President Vaclav Klaus on January 13, 2004. In community affairs, Ambassador Cabaniss has served on the following Boards: A+ (The Coalition for Better Education), Kings Ranch (a residential ministry for neglected women and children), and the Boy Scouts. He previously served as Board Chairman of Junior Achievement of Jefferson County and is a current member of the Birmingham Rotary

Club where he has served on the Board. He also led the Alexis de Tocqueville Society of United Way in the 2000 campaign; previously served on the Board of Trustees of Sweet Briar College; and is past Senior Warden of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.

Ambassador Cabaniss received the Community Service Award from the Rotary Club of Birmingham in 1993. In August 2004, Ambassador Cabaniss was inducted into the Alabama Academy of Honor.

Ambassador Cabaniss and his wife Catherine, an artist, have two daughters, Mary Cabaniss Ballard of Seattle and Frances Cabaniss Johnson of Mobile, and two grandchildren.

Thomas E. Kilby

  • September 22nd, 2021

Thomas Erby Kilby served as Governor of Alabama from 1919-1923, the years after World War I when society was being catapulted into the modern age. He brought to the governorship a record of business expertise and successful administrative experience, as well as a reputation as a man more interested in commercial, ed­ucational, and agricultural progress than in politics.

Thomas Erby Kilby was born in Lebanon (Wilson County), Tennessee on July 9, 1865. The son of Peyton B. and Sara Ann (Marchant) Kilby, he was educated in the public schools of Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1887, he moved to Anniston, Alabama, as station agent for the Georgia and Pacific Railroad. He continued in that position until 1889 when he saw an opportunity to establish a railway supply business with Horry Clark. Kilby rapidly demonstrated his entrepreneurial ability and soon this partnership styled Clark and Kilby, grew, and was incorporated in 1892 as Smith and Kilby, a man­ufacturer of railway supplies.

Under Kilby’s leadership over the next three decades, this business expanded and became a rebuilder of steam locomotives, manufacturer of railway cars, and producer of basic steel. During this expansion, the company established a steel foundry, a rolling mill, and a large forge shop. The company went through a series of name changes becoming Kilby Locomotive and Machine Works in 1903, later Kilby Car and Foundry Company, and finally Kilby Steel Company in 1938.

Kilby established a sub­sidiary company in 1903, Alabama Frog and Switch Company, a manufacturer of railroad switches. He served as president until this business was moved to Birmingham in the 1920s becoming Kilby Frog and Switch and later Wier Kilby Company.

Foreseeing a bright future for the cast iron pipe indus­try, Kilby organized the Alabama Pipe and Foundry Company. Within a decade, Anniston became the center of the soil pipe industry. In 1921, he formulated plans for the consolidation of some dozen independent plants into the Alabama Pipe Company, which became the world’s largest cast iron soil pipe manufacturer. He served as Board Chairman until his death.

Due to his business acumen, Kilby was named a Director of the City National Bank of Anniston. In 1902, he became president. When this bank merged with the Anniston National Bank to become Anniston City National Bank, he served as president until 1919, when he resigned to become Governor. He was subsequently elected chairman of the board of directors of the bank from 1923-1930.

According to reports, Thomas Kilby had given no thought to entering the political arena until 1889 when his friends persuaded him to run for the City Council. The city needed a good businessman on the council to rescue the city from potential bankruptcy. He ran, was elected, and as Finance Chairman managed to get the city finances in order during his two-year tenure.

In 1900, he was appointed to a two-year term on the Anniston City School Board. In 1905, he was persuaded to run for and was elected to the mayor­ship of the city. As mayor of Anniston for two successive terms, he put into operation policies of economy, law enforcement, internal improve­ments, and social reform which later became state policies during his term as governor.

After the successful completion of his mayor­ship, he traveled to Europe to study state and municipal governments of the old world. This instructive study further increased his growing interest in state government.

Thus, in 1911, Kilby ran and was elected as a state senator from Calhoun County. In 1914, he ran a successful campaign for the lieutenant governor­ship, and in 1918 he launched a campaign for the governorship.

During his gubernatorial campaign, Kilby allowed no one to contribute to his campaign fund and he made no commitments for any appoint­ments, pardons, paroles, or other favors.

Kilby’s platform was simple but purposeful. As usual, he placed first importance on the intro­duction of business methods into the affairs of the state. He also pledged support for policies and laws to improve the educational, agricultural, commercial, and social environment in the state.

Thomas Kilby was inaugurated governor of Alabama on January 20, 1919. Then began an administration marked by achievement. With the support of the Legislature, he established the Budget Commission and revenue measures which equalized the tax burden. He improved the public highways and fostered the development of the port of Mobile. He enforced the laws of the state, especially those pertaining to prohibition, and he curtailed the pardoning power.

He initiated social legislation which has had far-ranging effects. For example, he was instrumental in improving the care of and facilities for prisoners.

Kilby Prison was one result of his efforts and at the time of its construction was considered one of the most modern in the U.S. He increased appro­priations for Bryce Hospital and other institutions for the mentally ill. He sponsored legislation to provide for mentally deficient children, resulting in what is called Partlow School today. He can also be credited with the establishment of the Child Welfare Department and the Public Health De­partment; passage of a fair Workman’s Compensation Act; assistance to agriculture; and support of veterans.

At the end of his term, said one newspaper editor, this ‘business governor” had lifted the economy of Alabama from a “hand-to-mouth” economy to an economy that looked at least twenty-five years ahead. Another newspaper stated that Kilby’s administration had attained the status of the unique with its vast gains for education, the eleemosynary institutions, public health, and road and water transportation.

Thomas Erby Kilby, 37th Governor of the State of Alabama, died October 22, 1943, at his home in Anniston. He was survived by Mrs. Mary Elizabeth (Clark) Kilby, his wife of 49 years.

At the time of his death, Alabama leaders and newspapers again proclaimed his administration one of the finest Alabama had ever experienced. In recognition of this fact, in 1946, the state of Ala­bama invited the Kilby family to place a memorial plaque in the department of Archives and History in Montgomery-a building which was the cul­mination of the late Governor’s dedication of his money, time, and energies to a useful and enduring memorial to Alabama’s war dead. At a ceremony on October 25, 1946, Mrs. Kilby presented the plaque on behalf of the family.

Thus, the State of Alabama honors Governor Thomas Erby Kilby and assures him a permanent and illustrious place in its history.

Johann Gottfried Cullman

  • September 22nd, 2021

The life of the founder of Cullman and of Cullman County, Alabama, has been scantily recorded in history books. But when his accomplishments are measured against the adversity he overcame, he can be ranked among the bravest and greatest of Alabamians.

Johann Gottfried Cullmann, son of Gottfried and Juliana (Schneider) Cullmann, was born July 2, 1823, in Frankweiler, Canton Landau, Rheinpfalz, Bavaria. The exact details of his early life are somewhat sketchy, but it is known that he entered upon a mercantile career after completing his education at the local school. Eventually, he became proprietor of an export business at Neustadt an der Haard where he met and married Josephine Low. They had four children: Theodore, Otto, Maria, and Alice.

The young Bavarian believed in the rights of the common man as evidenced by his participation in the Revolution of 1848, and in the Danish War in 1864. In these fights against the oppressive rule, he expended the resources of two businesses. In 1864, it became obvious that he was no longer welcomed by German authorities because of his revolutionary activities. Thus, at the age of forty-one, he left his family, friends, and homeland to begin a new life. He came to the United States with a burning ambition to establish a German colony where he and his countrymen could be free to live in peace and happiness. Many long, hard years were to pass before he was to realize his dream.

John Cullman (the Americanized version of his name) entered the U.S. through New York. Finding no suitable work, he moved to Philadelphia where he worked as a clerk. He then moved to Cincinnati which had a large German colony. Being ambitious, he studied law at night. After being ad­mitted to the bar, he found a large clientele among the Germans of the city. By 1871, he had amassed enough resources to begin his search for a place to establish a colony.

The extent of his search is unknown. But in 1871, he was in North Alabama where he made the acquaintance of former Governor Patton, who gave him much encouragement.

The beautiful Tennessee Valley must have reminded John Cullman of his native Rhine Valley. Near the end of 1871 or in early 1872, he attempted to buy land for his colony near Florence, Alabama but met with opposition (probably stemming from people’s distrust of “foreigners” during the bitter period after the War Between the States).

This failure did not discourage him. Through Governor Patton, John Cull­man learned that the Great North-South (later, L&N) Railway had completed the mainline connecting Nashville with Montgomery and was interested in any scheme of development of a largely unsettled area of North Central Alabama through which the line passed. The governor arranged for John Cullman to meet Lewis Fink, the L&N agent of Decatur. The two men explored every mile of land along the line between Decatur and Montgomery.

For his colony, John Cullman initially purchased around 350,000 acres fifteen miles on each side of the railroad near the highest point along the line between Mobile and Cincinnati. He then returned to Cincinnati to “recruit” German families for the new colony in Alabama. His oldest son Theodore (who had joined him by this time) was a great help in these efforts. Unfortunately, Theodore died of typhoid fever. A grieving John Cullman buried his twenty-five-year-old son in Cincinnati and then once more turned from adversity to work.

The actual settlement of the free German colony of Cullman began in late April of 1873. Five families were present when the first trees were felled. By the next year, there were 123 families.

John Cullman had the town laid off in perfect square blocks with streets wide enough to “drive four teams of horses abreast along their course.” The railroad was bordered on each side by parks and later hidden from view by lowering the tracks several feet below ground level. He also made certain that ground was laid aside for Protestant and Catholic churches. He himself established St. John’s United Church and donated the land on which it is built.

John Cullman does not seem to have rested a moment in his endeavors. He sought to find a suc­cessful economic pattern for his colony and to bring in as many immigrants as he could.

He encouraged the establishment of a variety of businesses in the town and in the county – including a land company, newspapers, a wine-producing company, and a savings and loan. (The Cullman Saving!? and Loan, which was the first chartered savings and loan in Alabama, was founded by John Cullman and a group of fellow citizens).

John Cullman made at least three trips to Germany to encourage immigration. It is evident that he would sell land to immigrants and then use the money from the sales to pay for others to come. They were settled in the town and in the area which became the county. Perhaps he brought more immigrants to the U.S. than any other individual.

The town of Cullman was incorporated in 1875 and Cullman County, in 1877 – both by the act of the Alabama State Legislature with which John Cull­man seems to have had considerable influence. He was also an influential man in the town, but refused to seek civil office because, according to reports, “that would be too much like his homeland where the privileged often had too much to say and the common man, not enough.”

John Cullman’s hardships and disappointments did not cease with the realization of establishing a free German colony. He was the victim of an attempted assassination by crooks and squatters sometime in 1875. In 1884, his second son, Otto, (who had come to Cullman to join his father) succumbed to typhoid fever. Otto was only twenty-nine. He is buried next to his father in the center of the Cullman City Cemetery.

Robert Jemison, Jr.

  • September 20th, 2021

Energetic, independent, and adventurous, he was the inheritor of a pioneering spirit that had characterized the Jemison family for generations.

His great-grandparents had immigrated to the colonies in 1742, settling on a farm in Pennsylvania; his grandparents had moved to Augusta, Georgia, sometime before the start of the Revolutionary War; and his parents, prosperous Georgia landowners, sought out the rich farmlands of West Alabama and built there a plantation so productive and well-cultivated that it came to be known as The Garden.

It was near Augusta, Georgia, in 1802 that Robert Jemison, Jr.* was born. He attended the University of Georgia, read law, and in 1821 moved with his parents, William and Sarah Jemison, to Alabama. The family settled briefly in Greene County and then moved to the village of Tuscaloosa. In 1826 the elder Jemison transported his family to Pickens County where he founded and developed his prosperous plantation, The Garden, and helped finance blacksmith shops, lumber mills, and other services for the community.

Robert Jemison, Jr., who lived and worked at The Garden for ten years, returned to Tuscaloosa in 1836 and married Priscilla Taylor of Mobile. They had one child; a daughter named Cherokee. Jemison and his wife were said to be particularly fond of that Indian name because the story goes, several generations back the Cherokees had done a favor for the Taylor family and requested, in return, that the family perpetuate their name. Jemison more than complied with his wife’s ancestor al obligation by giving the name, not only to his daughter but to the large plantation he built beyond Northport.

Like his father before him, Robert Jemison was an enterprising businessman. In the 1820s he began to buy up small tracts of property in several counties. As the size of his holdings grew, he added buildings, im­proved the efficiency of his farming operations, and added grist and flour mills. By 1857, he owned six plantations, the largest of which was the 4000-acre Cherokee Place.

Industrial and commercial enterprises also interested him. He invested heavily in stagecoach lines, operated a large livery stable in Tuscaloosa, and built a thriving lumber and sawmill business. He erected a foundry in Talladega County, operated several surface coal mines near Brookwood, and constructed a plank road from the mines to Tuscaloosa. The lumber for all his enterprises, as well as for his several homes, came from his own mills; the labor, from his slaves – estimated to total nearly 500 at one point. Not surprisingly, Jemison was considered “the most enterprising all-around citizen in Tuscaloosa.”

It was as a statesman, however, that the people of Alabama knew him best. He first entered politics in the mid-1830s by filling a vacancy in the state legislature, then located in Tuscaloosa. In 1837 he ran on the Whig ticket for that same legislative post and won. For the next twenty-five years, he continued to win elections, serving in the statehouse of representatives until 1850 and in the state senate from 1851 to 1863. During his long political career, Jemison gained a reputation as a skilled debater who would speak his mind regardless of the unpopularity of his view. “The duty of a statesman,” Jemison reportedly said, “is to lead and not to follow popular sentiment. If he finds public opinion taking the wrong direction, it is his duty to throw himself in the breach and turn it the right way.”

Jemison frequently threw himself into the breach. He was a determined supporter of a system of railroads for Alabama, an active anti-abolitionist, and he fought tenaciously – and successfully – for the construction of a state hospital for the insane (Bryce). It was in 1847, though, that he took on what may have been the most challenging problem of his career – the failing financial affairs of the state of Alabama.

Jemison had long opposed the system of state banks. ‘This hydra of modern banking,” as he called it, had led to wild speculation schemes, to the panic of 1837, the failure of the banks, and to public debt that by 1847 had reached crisis proportions. Chosen by his constituents and the legislature to lead the state out of its financial mire, Jemison advocated the liquidation of state banks and the establishment of a well-regulated system of private stock banks. He was convinced that Alabama, by reason of her abundant resources, was amply able to pay her debts, and he dismissed arguments that a tax bill commensurate with the wants of the state would be disastrously unpopular. As chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, he introduced a revenue bill that, once passed, revolutionized the state’s system of taxation by establishing a broader and more equitable distribution of the tax burden. Even Jemison’s staunchest political adversaries applauded his skill in introducing sound business practices to the management of the state’s financial affairs.

In January of 1861, Jemison once again attempted to influence the direction of his state, but this time he was not successful. Representing Tuscaloosa County in the Secession Convention in Montgomery, Jemison argued against seceding from the Union. Such drastic action was premature and impractical, he reasoned; the Convention possessed no reliable evidence to suggest that the North planned to invade the South; the matter deserved careful consideration; perhaps there was still room for compromise. Amid the Convention’s emotional atmosphere, Jemison’s efforts to discuss the issue on practical grounds proved ultimately futile. Once the Ordinance of Secession passed, however, he stood behind the majority opinion and supported the Confederacy with all the resources at his disposal.

In 1863 he was chosen president of the state senate, and that same year he was elected by an overwhelming margin to suc­ceed the late W. L. Yancey in the Senate of the Confederate States of America. There he served actively until the fall of the Confederacy.

Senator Jemison was in Tuscaloosa in April of 1865 when Federal troops invaded the city and burned factories and mills and The University of Alabama. He escaped imprisonment by hiding in a swamp outside of town while soldiers searched his home, a large Italianate villa that still stands on Greensboro Avenue.

After the war, with most of his property destroyed, Jemison remained in Tuscaloosa and began to piece together the remnants of what had once been a vast system of enterprises. Although his health was failing, he built a ferry service across the Black Warrior River and devoted much of his time to the work of rebuilding The University of Alabama.

When he died following a long illness on October 17, 1871, the citizens of Tuscaloosa and Northport closed their shops and businesses and turned out en masse for his funeral. It was but one of many tributes paid throughout the state to Robert Jemison, Jr. – a man whose statesmanship, business acumen, and pioneering spirit had contributed to the development of the nineteenth century – Alabama to a degree that few of his generation could match.

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