Alabama
Politics of libraries and migrants, and the quiz: Down in Alabama
Library leadership
The Alabama Public Library Service’s board of directors elected state GOP chair John Wahl as its head, reports AL.com’s Howard Koplowitz. The governor appoints a board member from each of the seven congressional districts. Wahl has been on the library board since 2022.
There have been times in our history I’m sure when a library board election has gone fairly unnoticed and not drawn criticism, but Wahl’s promotion comes at a time when public libraries have become a front in the culture wars.
There are groups such as Clean Up Alabama that say they’re trying to prevent children from having access to sexually explicit material in the libraries. Others, such as the group Read Freely Alabama, accuse the more conservative groups of targeting libraries for books with LGBTQ or racial-justice themes.
Read Freely Alabama released a statement calling Wahl an “anti-library extremist” for aligning with Clean Up Alabama and Moms for Liberty.
Back in January, the library service board voted to split from the American Library Association over how it categorizes sexually explicit material.
Migrant anxieties
Concern over migrant workers from Haiti, who have moved into many places in the country on a temporary federal work program, continue to roil small towns in Alabama.
AL.com’s Mike Cason reports that a couple of local officials in Enterprise tried to tamp down anxieties there through statements similar to that from majors and council members in other cities: They weren’t given personal information about the newcomers, they’ve seen no increase in reported crime, and they have seen misinformation on social media.
Mayor William Cooper acknowledged the possibility for unintended consequences of an influx of people and said he’s communicating with law enforcement, the healthcare community, local school systems and other cities in a similar situation to monitor for problems.
There was a meeting billed as “open to the public” last night at a church in Enterprise to discuss the migrants, although people there told one of our reporters to leave. A flyer advertising the event said it would have a former Trump advisor as a speaker.
Environmental settlement
Warrior Met Coal has agreed to fix a coal slurry impoundment, stop wastewater from polluting a Tuscaloosa County waterway, and pay $250,000 per a settlement with Black Warrior Riverkeeper, reports AL.com’s Margaret Kates.
The wastewater has been leaking into a tributary of Texas Creek, which flows into the Black Warrior River. The environmental group filed a lawsuit in 2022 over 21 leaks it had documented since 2021.
The deal also calls for Warrior Met Coal to place the impoundment in the Alabama Dam Safety Program. That means it’ll face more monitoring and regulation by the local EMA.
The company is reimbursing Black Water Riverkeeper $28,000 in legal fees. The $250,000 is going to the Freshwater Land Trust for a project in that river system.
By the numbers
415
That’s how many citations and warnings Mobile police issued Tuesday and Wednesday as part of a “Red Light Blitz” focused on traffic-light violations.
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Entering year three in Tuscaloosa, the Kalen DeBoer era at Alabama has already proven to be a memorable one on the recruiting trail.
Following the retirement of legendary head coach Nick Saban, recruiting has not slacked at all for the Crimson Tide under DeBoer, with Alabama having compiled a top three class nationally each of the last two years, per 247Sports.
The Crimson Tide appear set to do so once again this upcoming cycle as well, with Alabama off to a strong start to the 2027 class as we enter the summer months, a period that has certainly been impactful for the program over the last two years in terms of landing commitments.
A list likely to grow in the future, here are five of the biggest early high school recruiting wins of the DeBoer era in Tuscaloosa.
5. Michael Carroll commits to Alabama
One of the highest ranked recruits to commit to Alabama under DeBoer so far is Carroll, a prospect who is certainly looking to be a home run addition for the Crimson Tide entering his sophomore season. The IMG Academy (Florida) standout was considered as the nation’s No. 1 interior offensive lineman, per 247Sports, out of high school, and is set to start for the second consecutive season this upcoming fall.
4. Alabama lands top 2027 quarterback Elijah Haven
Haven’s commitment is the most recent recruiting win featured on this list, with the Crimson Tide landing the elite quarterback prospect back in April. Considered as the nation’s top quarterback in the 2027 cycle out of Dunham (Louisiana), Haven is one of the highest-rated signal callers to ever commit to Alabama, and has star potential with the Crimson Tide, should he eventually make it to campus.
3. Lotzeir Brooks commits to Alabama
One of Alabama’s biggest evaluation wins of the DeBoer era so far appears to be Brooks, a wide receiver who was among DeBoer’s first commits in Tuscaloosa out of Millville (New Jersey). Coming out of high school, Brooks was ranked as the No. 25 wide receiver nationally, per the 247Sports Composite, and the wide receiver appears set to be a major piece of Alabama’s wideout room for years to come after a big freshman season a year ago.
2. Ryan Coleman-Williams recommits to Alabama
Coleman-Williams was a long-time Alabama commit prior to his decommitment following the retirement of Saban in Jan. 2024, with DeBoer and staff eventually getting the in-state Saraland (Alabama) star to recommit a few weeks later. Despite some struggles at times a year ago, Coleman-Williams has been a star for the Crimson Tide across his first two seasons in Tuscaloosa, racking up 1,500+ receiving yards and 14 total touchdowns.
1. Alabama flips Keelon Russell from SMU
A long-time SMU commit at the time, Russell flipped his commitment from the Mustangs to Alabama back in June 2024, with the Duncanville (Texas) quarterback going on to eventually become one of the nation’s highest-ranked recruits in the 2025 class. Russell now enters his redshirt freshman season at Alabama in a competition to become the Crimson Tide’s starter at quarterback, and is considered one of college football’s top potential 2026 breakout candidates.
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What is it about the swaggering, sweltering heat of summer that stirs up so much bloodlust? By now it’s a platitude that murder and other violent crime rates rise when the weather gets hotter. And while there’s no time of year Alabama’s criminal justice and correctional systems don’t discriminate against Black people, recent years have demonstrated summertime is when Alabama especially seems to torture Black men with its racist capital punishment regime.
I wrote as much in my column “Alabama’s summer 2024 legal lynching” when I posited “it’s not officially summer in Alabama until a Black man’s been lynched — legally or illegally[.]” At the time I observed: “Alabama still has a despicable penchant for using a vestige of slavery — the death penalty — in the 21st century to subjugate and to disproportionately dehumanize its poor Black and brown condemned citizens, most of whom grew up in impoverished and hellacious homes very far from the kind of safe, stable, and suitably nurturing and loving environments many Alabama families take for granted.”
The name of that 2024 column was taken from an earlier essay I titled “Alabama’s summer 2022 legal lynching” concerning the execution of Joe Nathan James Jr.; in that 2022 piece I invoked “legendary Alabama lawyer [and Equal Justice Initiative Executive Director] Bryan Stevenson” who insists “[t]he death penalty’s roots are clearly linked to the legacy of lynching” and that “[w]e need to own up to the way racial bias and legalized racial subordination have compromised our ability to implement criminal justice.”
In that vein but perhaps more depressingly, more drearily, I expounded in the summer of 2023 in “Stopping Alabama’s addiction to torture” on how “Alabama’s addiction to torturing poor people — disproportionately Black and brown people — and more often than not, people who are severely mentally ill with inhumane correctional institutions, a dysfunctional parole system, and, in some cases, a secretive and sadistic lethal injection protocol, has been going on for so long, overwhelmingly, Alabamians and Americans are desensitized to it.”
After James was tortured, in the piece “Fascism, racism, sexism and torture: Alabama’s last execution had it all,” I implored: “Investigations should be launched immediately, and not just into the sexist jackasses ogling the outfits of female reporters, but, also, into why Alabama keeps torturing to death poor, disproportionately Black men, most of whom were condemned — as famed death penalty attorney Stephen Bright long ago observed — because they had the worst lawyer, not because they committed the worst crime.”
Fast-forward to this summer with the looming execution of another poor Black man, Jeffrey Lee. Despite lingering questions about the inequity, immorality, and inhumanity of it, Alabama is poised to execute Lee by nitrogen-gassing or “nitrogen hypoxia” sometime during a 30-hour window starting June 11 and ending June 12.
Ominously, Alabama’s last nitrogen-gassing was the October 23rd torture of yet another Black man named Anthony Boyd. Following Boyd’s execution, the New York Times reported “Witnesses described seeing Mr. Boyd convulse and heave for about 15 minutes before being pronounced dead about 15 minutes later.” The Times recounted that “Lee Hedgepeth, a journalist in Alabama who witnessed the execution, said he counted Mr. Boyd gasp for air for more than 225 times before he was pronounced dead.” Reverend Jeff Hood, a spiritual advisor to Mr. Boyd who was in the execution chamber, was also reported saying Boyd was “suffocating, trying to breathe for 19 minutes.”
Alabama has savagely used nitrogen to kill seven men so far; 5 of these men were white and two were Black. Since this column is about Alabama’s torture of Black men, I want to conclude by focusing on Alabama’s first experimental nitrogen-gassing of a Black man, the February 2025 torture-execution of Demetrius Frazier. Reporter Ivana Hrynkiw who witnessed Frazier’s last minutes alive described how “About 6:11 p.m., Frazier started waiving his hands in circles toward his body. About a minute later his hands stopped moving. At approximately 6:12 p.m. Frazier clenched his face, and his nostrils flared, while his hands quivered. He appeared to say something, which was inaudible to the three witness rooms. His legs slightly lifted up off the gurney and he gasped. Then, his head rolled to the right side. Frazier exhibited sporadic gasping and shallow breathing until about 6:20 p.m. The curtains closed at 6:29 p.m., and his time of death declared seven minutes later[.]”
Adding to its extensive history of racial violence during and after slavery, the gas-torturing of Demetrius Frazier and Anthony Boyd are part of the modern-day record of Black men Alabama’s tortured to death the state will be building on if it goes forward with the nitrogen-gassing of Jeffrey Lee.
This essay was first published by The Times of Israel. It is being published here with the permission of the author.
Stephen Cooper is a former D.C. public. defender who worked as an assistant federal public defender in Alabama between 2012 and 2015. He has contributed to numerous magazines and newspapers in the United States and overseas. He writes full-time and lives in Woodland Hills, California. Read more of his writing at http://www.stephenacooper.net.
We’re less than three months from the start of Georgia’s 2026 season, with the Bulldogs opening against Tennessee State on Sept. 5.
But there’s still plenty of excitement about the upcoming campaign, especially after DraftKings shared some early look-ahead lines for several Georgia games during the upcoming season.
The first is against Oklahoma, who the Bulldogs will play on Sept. 26. The Bulldogs are a 10-point favorite over the visiting Sooners. This will be a matchup of College Football Playoff participants from last season.
This will be the first time the two teams meet as conference foes.
The next Georgia game to receive a look-ahead line was its Oct. 10 trip to Alabama. Despite not having won in Tuscaloosa, Alabama since 2007, Georgia is listed as a 3-point road favorite over the Crimson Tide.
Alabama and Georgia split their two meetings last season, with Alabama winning 24-21 in Athens before Georgia got its revenge in the SEC championship game with a 28-7 win. Alabama beat Georgia 41-34 in 2024, which was the last time Georgia visited Bryant-Denny Stadium.
The following will see Georgia return home to Sanford Stadium to take on the Auburn Tigers. DraftKings lists Georgia as a 16.5-point favorite against Auburn. Georgia beat Auburn 20-10 last season after falling behind 10-0 early in the game.
Georgia’s game against Florida on Oct. 31 has the Bulldogs as a 12.5-point favorite. Florida will be led by new coach Jon Sumrall as he replaces Billy Napier. This game will be played Atlanta, as the stadium in Jacksonville undergoes renovations.
The week after Georgia takes on Florida, the Bulldogs go on the road to face Ole Miss. Georgia is listed as a 4.5-point favorite. The Rebels ended Georgia’s season last year in the College Football Playoff. In 2024, Ole Miss pounded Georgia 24-10 in Oxford, Mississippi. Ole Miss will have a new coach this season in Pete Golding, as he takes over for Lane Kiffin.
In all five games listed by DraftKings, Georgia is a favorite. It would not come as a surprise to see Georgia listed as a favorite in every regular season game it plays next season.
A year after going 12-2 and winning the SEC, Georgia ranks inside the top-10 in returning snaps and returning starters for the upcoming season.
The Bulldogs bring back a number of star players, such as safety KJ Bolden and quarterback Gunner Stockton. While Georgia is young at a handful of positions, Georgia coach Kirby Smart exited spring practice feeling optimistic about what his team could accomplish this upcoming season.
“For the most part, I feel really good about it,” Smart said in an April radio interview. “We had a good spring. Got some guys coming back. Got some youthful spots that I worry about, but at the end of the day, you know, that’s what they pay you to do as a coach.
While gambling lines aren’t everything, the numbers from DraftKings only further highlight the confidence in Georgia entering next season.
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