By George Alexander

My home state of Alabama gets a bad rap.

On a recent visit home to see my parents in Mobile, I realized that people are always talking down about my home state. I swear, it seems like almost across the board, whenever I tell anyone—black, white, Asian, Latino, whatever—that I’m from Alabama, their reaction is visceral, dramatic, and visibly negative.

I get all sorts of remarks from, “Oh, you got out of there,” and “That’s scary,” to questions like, “How was it for you?” It’s as if I grew up in South Africa under apartheid or in Nazi Germany. Everyone seems skeptical about anything good or sophisticated or admirable coming from Alabama; that the state is frozen in the era of George Wallace, water hoses, vicious dogs, civil rights marches, church bombings, and the night-riding KKK. It’s as if nothing has changed since the days of Jim Crow.

George Alexander, right, today. From left: George heads to his first ball, Mobile style; George celebrates Mardi Gras 1001 with his parents Velma Griffin Alexander, and Lionel Alexander Jr.; and George with two of his siblings, Adrienne Alexander (deceased), and Lionel Alexander III.

To me, that’s scary. It demonstrates how little people know about our fascinating country and how stereotypes become rooted in our minds and passed on for generations. It also says just as much about Alabama’s public relations problem.

I first experienced these reactions when I attended Morehouse College in Atlanta in the 1980s. There, people from Alabama were teased about being “Bamas,” which meant we were supposed to be unsophisticated and backward. In fact, some friends even affectionately called me “Bama George.” That didn’t bother me one bit; I actually found it endearing.

I found it interesting that the term, “Bama,” was not restricted to Alabama natives, but used as a general description of anyone perceived to be ‘country,’ backwards, unsophisticated. It also reflected behavior that was considered socially unacceptable much the way ghetto is used today.

I wondered why people viewed as uncool from Brooklyn, Chicago, D.C. or Los Angeles were tagged with the “Bama” label instead of perhaps being called “Cali.” In my view, there were certainly just as many unsophisticated people from other states as from Alabama.  They just didn’t know they weren’t sophisticated, hiding behind geography as if that automatically made them urbane. Give me a break. The Gheri curls answered all questions.

And when I tell them that Alabama, in spite of its undeniably horrid past, was an incredible place to grow up, their suspicions only seem to grow. Perhaps they think I’m lying or in some state of denial. “How could you possibly enjoy your life in Alabama?” is the look they have on theirs faces. It’s not my fellow Southerners who are usually the worst offenders. In my experience, it seems that for people who grew up outside the Sun Belt, Alabama might as well be Siberia.

Here are some of the answers to the most Frequently Assumed Stereotypes about my Alabama roots and childhood:

No, I didn’t grow up on a farm.

No, I don’t recall anyone ever calling me the N-word, except maybe under their breath…

No, I’ve never seen a cross burning.

Yes, I did wear shoes growing up.

Yes, we had A/C and paved streets.

Yes, we had running water and indoor plumbing.

Yes, I love going back to my class reunions and listening to classic rock with the black and white kids.

Yes, we do have beaches in Alabama. FYI, the body of water is called the Gulf of Mexico! Not to mention Mobile Bay, Fowl River and on and on.

I once worked with a guy who had the nerve to look at my extensive jazz collection and innocently ask me how was it that I acquired a taste for jazz given that I was from Alabama. He was serious.

What?! Ummm…maybe because jazz started in New Orleans then traveled north, my brother? I politely pointed that out.

Just last week I asked a good friend, who grew up in Philadelphia, what came to mind when he thought of Alabama. His response: “Segregation, poverty, angst, intolerance, unhappy times.”

Of course, those things exist in Alabama. But they also existed and still exist, including segregation—not legal, but segregation, nonetheless—in New York, where I live now, and in other parts of the country. In fact, a childhood friend, who now lives in Chicago, told me that she, too, was never called the N-word in Mobile growing up, but has been called the N-word in Illinois. How ironic. Many of my New York friends have similar stories.

Not ignoring its past, the Alabama I remember was a magical place to live growing up. I always like to say that it was our version of the 1970s sitcom “Happy Days.” It was Friday night football games followed by pizza at a packed pizza joint with guys in letter jackets, girls in their cheerleader outfits, civilians sporting school pride to the max and dudes cruising around in their father’s car. It was Mardi Gras parades. Yes, Mobile—not New Orleans—is the site of the original, thank you, which came to the USA in 1703, when Mobile was the capital of what was then French Louisiana. The Alabama of my youth had the best gumbo, fried fish, oysters and shrimp you’ll ever taste anywhere on the planet.

And while, for the most part, the white kids went their way and we went ours when it came to our social lives, there have been lasting interracial friendships and even some interracial marriages in my Alabama world. Believe it or not, it is not uncommon to see interracial couples walking hand-in-hand in urban and rural areas with nary a glance. In fact, the mom of one of my best friends married a white gentleman in Mobile nearly thirty years ago; they’ve been happily married ever since. These people are still a part of my life. Plus, thanks to Facebook, I’m now in contact with many of my white classmates, some of whom I’ve known since grammar school. But all and all, growing up, we just did our thing and the white kids did theirs. Still, there was no memorable hostility in the 1970s or early 80s.

The fact was that we didn’t feel we needed white validation to feel good about ourselves. Our parents handled that.  It was an African American community of family and extended family and friendships spanning three, sometimes four, generations. It was a world where everyone knew everyone, where teachers—including my now octogenarian mom, who entered the classroom during segregation—believed their duty was to teach the “whole” child from math to manners. Where there was more concern about where you were going than where you were from. Where expectations were set high, whether you were from the projects or from a pedigreed black family. Where folks were judged more so by their character than by their possessions. Where college was a given for many. Our parents had seen the best and the worst of segregation and were keen on making sure we were exposed to the things they were not able to enjoy in their youth while under girding us with race pride.

The Alabama I remember is an Alabama made up of fighters who stayed behind to put up the good fight of faith when others moved north. It’s the Alabama of Booker T. Washington, who founded Tuskegee University; and A.G. Gaston, who grew up in poverty, but went on to become a millionaire businessman who helped fund the civil rights movement. It’s the Alabama of people like civil rights attorney Vernon Z. Crawford, a good family friend whose firm handled some of the most far-reaching cases of the civil rights era, breaking down barriers including integrating trial juries; and of  Mobile activists like John L. LeFlore, who along with J. Gary Cooper, was the first black elected from Mobile to the Alabama House of Representatives since Reconstruction.

I come from the land of Wiley Bolden, who challenged Mobile’s at-large form of government in a case that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court; of James H. Finley who owned a chain of drugstores and helped form Neighborhood Organized Workers (N.O.W.), a nonviolent, direct action initiative, which worked to obtain economic, civil, and human rights for blacks; and of Yvonne Kennedy, the first black woman from Mobile County elected to the Alabama House.

It was the Mobile where I grew up hearing stories of Dr. James Alexander Franklin, who selflessly served the local black community for over sixty years. I remember a Mobile, Alabama that produced former U.S. secretary of labor Alexis Herman; former U.S. ambassador to Jamaica J. Gary Cooper; and President Obama’s surgeon general nominee Dr. Regina Benjamin. I could go on and on. My friends, Alabamians are amazing!

Now, I’m not naïve. There is racism in Alabama. There was even a lynching in Mobile in 1981, so I get it. Alabama has a long way to go. But there is racism in America. There is racism in the world! And for the record, Alabama has come a mighty long way since the tumultuous 60s. Mobile even has a black mayor, has had a black school board president, and blacks have managed to gain leadership positions in companies in Mobile. Black Mobilians now work in some of the best medical and law practices in the city and live in some of the most affluent neighborhoods.

So the next time someone tells you they’re from Alabama, please don’t assume you know their story or what Alabama must’ve been like for them. Trust me. You just don’t know. But I encourage you to visit and find out more for yourself. It’s great to be from Alabama!

George Alexander is the author of Why We Make Movies and Queens: Portrait of Black Women and Their Fabulous Hair. He is at work on his first novel, Alabama Reign.