Perry County Commissioner Albert Turner Jr. (left) and Rep. Bobby Singleton await Obama Day golf tournament.
The Perry County courthouse sign read "Closed for the Obama Holiday." The rural county recently proclaimed an official holiday celebrating the election of the nation's first Black president, Barack Obama. It's one of Alabama's poorest counties, but sparred little during five days of festivities.
County employees, as well as city workers in Marion and Uniontown, will got a paid holiday Monday as government offices close, culminating a series of events including an old-fashioned civil rights rally and march, a golf tournament, a weekend carnival and a parade Monday through Marion.
Perry County is located in the heart of the economically depressed Black Belt region named for its rich soil. The county has a population of only a little over 11,000 residents, and an unemployment rate of more than 18 percent, one of the highest in the state.
County Commissioner Brett Harrison, who cast the lone "no" vote when the commission voted 4-1 to set up the holiday, questions adding a paid day off in such a poor county. He said the county already had 14 paid holidays and it didn't seem like the right time for such an ambitious event in the middle of a recession.
The Obama holiday was proposed by Commissioner Albert Turner Jr., whose father was one of the marchers beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the 1965 "Bloody Sunday" voting rights march in Selma. Many of the marchers were from Marion and were upset about the shooting death of Jimmie Lee Jackson during an earlier demonstration in the town. Perry County wanted to let the nation know the role the county played in protests that led to passage of the Voting Rights Act. Commissioner Turner said, "It's not that we're celebrating Obama. We're celebrating America living up to it's creed that all men are created equal."
Activities included a jamboree at Marion Military Institute, where high school students from public and private schools in three counties had a chance to meet with representatives of colleges from across the Southeast and were given instructions on how to apply for college.
The host of the golf tournament, state Senator Bobby Singleton said he hopes publicity surrounding the holiday will help lure new industry and jobs to the region.
No comments:
Post a Comment