By Major W. Cox
WEDOWEE... In February 1994, the small East Alabama town of Wedowee became another marker along Alabama’s sanguineous civil rights trail. However, unlike Bull Connors' Birmingham or Jim Clark's Selma, very few folks have heard of Wedowee. Hulond Humphries placed Wedowee's name on the nation’s civil rights map and reminded us just how fragile Martin Luther King's dream remains.
Mr. Humphries is principal of Randolph County High School in Wedowee. He has held the job for 25 years... That’s too long for some folks, they want him fired. Others, including a majority of the Randolph County School Board, say he is doing a good job and want him to keep on doing what he has been doing.
Mr. Humphries told Randolph County High School students that he would cancel their prom to prevent mixed-race couples from attending. Sixteen year-old Revonda Bowen saw this as a problem. It was a problem because Ms. Bowen, who classifies herself as black, dates seventeen year-old Chris Brown, from neighboring Bowdon, Georgia, who classifies himself white, and she wanted to bring Chris to her prom. Ms. Bowen's dilemma stems from her parents, her mother considers herself black and her father considers himself white. She explained her situation to Mr. Humphries and according to news reports he told her, "That’s just it. Your mom and dad made a mistake, having you as a mixed raced child."
That's the briefest possible explanation of what brought on the controversy. Since then, the media focus on Wedowee has been relentless. Most major news organizations have carried the story. With rare exception, all of the media coverage rebukes Mr. Humphries statement to Ms. Bowen. He simply has no business implying to this child that because her parents are a mixed-race couple, they made a mistake by conceiving her. Mr. Humphries deserves condemnation.
Other individuals in Randolph County need condemning. For example, the school board members that voted to reinstate Mr. Humphries, without a hearing, after the School Superintendent suspended him for the remarks, deserve condemnation. The Randolph County School Board’s continued support for Mr. Humphries is misguided. The best action that the school board can take for their beloved principal is to retire him -- retire him before he costs the citizens and tax payers of Randolph County more than some embarrassment.
The situation would be humorous if it was not so tragic. The tragedy is that Hulond Humphries remained on the public payroll with these racist beliefs for three decades, responsible for educating the community’s children. How many young minds did Mr. Humphries warp, bend, distort and twist in order to keep the boys and girls in his charge from "making a mistake?" Maybe that is a question best not pondered.
The humorous part of the situation is yet to be played. This will be staged when one of the several lawsuits being considered against the school board and Mr. Humphries reaches the U.S. Supreme Court. The citizens of Randolph County, Alabama, represented by their school board will argue through their lawyers that Mr. Humphries, the Randolph County High School principal, was executing his lawful duties. School board lawyers will make evident mandated responsibilities for the high school principal to look after the health and safety of students. Lawyers will argue that when he threatened to cancel the high school Prom to prevent students from interracial dating, he was trying to prevent them from "making a mistake." Justice Clarence Thomas will surely stop rocking and break his self imposed silence. Because he and wife, Virginia, are a couple of child bearing age, he will surely want to hear more of Mr. Humphries views about mixed-race children.
There is a local political side to the Wedowee situation. Charlie Mayfield, a candidate for Sheriff of Bullock County, Alabama, refers to the Wedowee situation in his campaign literature. Mr. Mayfield, a graduate of Randolph County High School, is running a political advertisement that states he attended the high school in Wedowee and that, "God didn’t make any mistakes." The statement is an appeal to the counties non-white and comparatively high percentage of mixed-race voters.
When all is said and done, Wedowee will certainly be on the civil rights map. What is not yet clear, is how it will be known. Will it be known as the place where a racist high school principal called a mixed-race child’s birth a mistake? Or will it be known as the place where a child received justice for this particularly degrading racist attack?
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Originally Published: May 1994, Montgomery Advertiser
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