We won’t be silent on Roy Moore
As dogs lunged at children and fire hoses knocked protesters to the pavement in the 1963 battle for civil rights, the Birmingham News splashed a plea to President John F. Kennedy across its front page:
“Dear Mr. President: Negroes are gathered, are excited by speeches, and then are sent boldly into the streets where they openly taunt police and provoke not only the white community but the very law itself . . . we ask you to . . . end this open law violation and provocation.”
In an American city with apartheid laws, Alabama’s biggest news organization stood on the wrong side of history.
Today, we’re the state’s largest media company, reaching more than 10 million people a month through our website and social media. We still publish the Birmingham News and papers in Mobile and Huntsville, the state’s three largest. We can no longer stand quietly in the face of ongoing efforts to divide Alabamians, by those who want to control or punish us for our bodies, how we worship, who we marry, where we were born. We can’t be silent as a man who preyed upon children seeks election to the United States Senate.
Roy Moore was unqualified for the Senate before we learned he had undressed and groped a girl of 14, before a long line of women told their stories of abuse at his hands. He has said Muslims shouldn’t hold elected office, gay love should be illegal, 9/11 might have been punishment for America straying from God. He has been removed from the bench for defying the law. Twice.
This week, he boasted that his followers stand up for their rights as Alabamians did in the Civil War. (That war about the rights of what was then half the state’s population — Alabama didn’t stand up for them, it enslaved them.)
Last Sunday, we stripped another editorial across our front pages: “STAND FOR DECENCY, REJECT ROY MOORE.”
We wrote: “This election is a turning point for women in Alabama. A chance to make their voices heard in a state that has silenced them for too long.
“Every day, new allegations arise that illustrate a pattern of a man in his 30s strutting through town like the cock of the walk . . . preying on young women and girls. A vote for Roy Moore sends the worst kind of message to Alabamians struggling with abuse: ‘If you ever do tell your story, Alabama won’t believe you. Or worse, we’ll believe you, but we just won’t care.’ ”
We have been asked how difficult it is to take this position in a conservative state, where almost twothirds voted for Donald Trump (with his own long record of abuse of women.) It’s not difficult. We don’t decide right and wrong based on elections or polls. We will not be on the wrong side this time.
We have faced rancour from the right (and left) on other stories this year. We led in reporting misconduct of Gov. Robert Bentley, who resigned in disgrace in April. We led the charge against Bentley’s appointment to the Senate of Luther Strange, the attorney general who was supposed to investigate Bentley (ironically, that’s why there is a Dec. 12 special election, with Moore having defeated Strange in the Republican primary.) We led in reporting events that saw the former speaker of the legislature convicted, and a Birmingham member of the legislature, too.
It would be easy to focus only on divisiveness. But we’re committed to building bridges, too. In a months-long project, we brought together 25 female Alabama Trump voters with 25 Hillary Clinton voters from the San Francisco area for a private Facebook conversation. It showed that people can have civil conversations across big divisions of culture and geography.
Those women’s cross-country relationships remain alive; they have created their own online space, full of dialogue and debate, frustration and respect. We’re collaborating with Politifact on fact-checking this campaign, with special emphasis on conservative news consumers.
Roy Moore’s camp has told the media, “Y’all can quit asking questions now, we aren’t going to answer.” We will keep asking. Our job is to reflect the truth in Alabama — for Alabamians and people across the world who rely on an independent free press to stand for freedom in threatening times.