Richmond Flowers: Segregationist Geared to Adjusting to Change

Richmond Flowers, Attorney General of Alabama, has won northern praise and southern notoriety for his opposition to Alabama Governor George Wallace. Several weeks ago he was thrown out of a Lowndes County courtroom when he tried to take over the prosecution of Thomas L. Coleman, charged with killing a white civil rights worker. This week he was back in the same courtroom, this time handling the case against Collie Leroy Wilkins Jr., accused of murdering another white civil rights worker, Mrs. Viola G. Liuzzo.

This article first appeared in the SOUTHERN COURIER, in August and is reprinted with permission. Its author, Marshall Bloom, editor of the Amherst STUDENT reported on Montgomery for the COURIER last summer.

MONTGOMERY, Ala.--"By 1970, there will be absolutely, no chance for anybody to be elected here who doesn't counsel moderation," said Attorney General Richmond Flowers in an interview recently.

Flowers himself has counseled moderation since his inauguration in 1963, when he called for "calm deliberations and cool calculations." His stand has brought him into sharp conflict with Governor George Wallace.

Although he has simply spoken out against violence and urged acceptance of inevitable change, he has been attacked as a traitor to the white race.

These attacks have hurt his political chances. He said he was "not planning at this time" to run for office in 1966, but his final decision would not be made for one or two months. "I want to see what effect the new voting law has," he said.

Flowers said he was confident that by 1970 there will be large numbers of Negro voters. He said he planned to run for office in 1968 or 1970. "I definitely will not retire from politics," he declared.

Flowers pinned his own hopes on the national Democratic Party. He blamed the defeat of the national Democratic party in Alabama last fall on Barry Goldwater and Democrats who were not "true Democrats."

"The people will return to the Democratic party," he said. "The national Democrats--whites and Negroes--have to work together."

Is a coalition of Alabama whites and Negroes possible?

"Yes, sir!" Flowers snapped back. "There's a good many people working on it now."

He cited the recent integrated meeting of Mississippi Democrats in Jackson as an example of what he thought Alabama Democrats should be doing.

Confederate Ancestors

In many speeches Flowers insists that he is a segregationist. He reminds his audience that his grandfathers fought for the Confederacy.

Does he consider himself a segregationist as most people in his audience use that word?

"No," he replied slowly. "The only place it concerns me is socially.

"I am willing to give every man an equal shake. Economically, it's high time we judged people as individuals...Educationally, too. Every other way except socially.

"A man has a right to associate with whom he pleases," Flowers said. This sounded like the beginning of a standard conservative argument. But then Flowers added, "Public places have got to be open to all."

It is up to the person who doesn't want integration to leave an integrated facility, he said:

"Suppose there is an individual next to me in a picture show whom I object to. I have the choice of moving or staying there. I have moved in theatres many times because of white people I didn't want to sit beside."

Would he prefer two sets of comparable facilities, one for Negroes and the other for whites?

New Ideas

"I don't know," he replied after a pause. "I doubt it. I have always been willing to try new ideas."

Flowers said he believed that much of the whites' present hysteria comes from their exaggerated fears of what integration would bring. "Ninety-nine per cent of the people have no idea who stayed in a hotel room next to them," he said.

To calm these fears, Flowers called for "sound-thinking men" who will act "realistically."

He did not include the Rev. Martin Luther King among such "sound-thinking men." He said King was an extremist. "King and the Klan feed on each other," Flowers said. "Maybe King has accomplished something, but he's more of a deterrent now."

Flowers also strongly criticized "demagoguery" by Alabama politicians. He blamed many of the state's problems on "improper leadership...by those who have played on people's emotions and things up to get themselves elected."

But Flowers is not seeking change. Rather, he is concerned with adjusting to changes which he considers inevitable. He said he frequently included two phrases in his speeches:

"Those were the good old days," but "Those days are gone forever."

Where they really so good? "No," he answered, "but we thought they were."

"If we could write history, we might write it differently," he said. "That's the reason I say I'm a segregationist. I'm a Southerner.

"But those days are gone forever--I don't have my druthers. So I'm going to live good and enjoy it, and try to improve it so that others can live it good and enjoy it."

But Flowers is not seeking change. Rather, he is concerned with adjusting to changes which he considers inevitable. He said he frequently included two phrases in his speeches:

"Those were the good old days," but "Those days are gone forever."

Where they really so good? "No," he answered, "but we thought they were."

"If we could write history, we might write it differently," he said. "That's the reason I say I'm a segregationist. I'm a Southerner.

"But those days are gone forever--I don't have my druthers. So I'm going to live good and enjoy it, and try to improve it so that others can live it good and enjoy it."