Don't know who to slap

A college loan program creat­ed by the Alabama Legislature in 1955 to honor Confederate Lt. Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jack­son is still handing out money -- much to the surprise of black legislators who consider it an outdated relic.

State audits show the Stone­wall Jackson Memorial Fund has awarded 53 interest-free col­lege loans of $1,000 each since October 1989.

The longest-serving black member of the Alabama Legisla­ture said he didn't know about the fund.

"I don't think we should be spending any funds on Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jeffer­son Davis or any other Confed­erate leader. They fought to maintain the institution of slav­ery," state Rep. Alvin Holmes, D-Montgomery, told The Bir­mingham News.

Supporters laud the fund as a way to educate students about Alabama's past.

"Any time you can make stu­dents in this day and time aware of their heritage and how much they should be proud of being from the South and Southern, to me, you have accomplished something," said Connie Ansley of Huntsville, corresponding secretary of the United Daugh­ters of the Confederacy's Alaba­ma division.

The Legislature passed a law in 1955 to create the fund to me­morialize Jackson as a "great American and Confederate gen­eral." It set aside $20,000 to start the program, with the require­ment that the original appropri­ation can't be spent.

A three-member board uses the earnings from the invest­ment to award loans to students who submit essays.

State archivist Ed Bridges, state Superintendent of Educa­tion Joe Morton and Jack Ack­erly, president of the Lee-Jack­son Foundation in Charlottesville, Va., serve by law on the board. The state De­partment of Archives and Histo­ry handles the operation and no­tifies school counselors about the loans being available.

Just five students applied for the loans by the May 1 deadline this year, said Debbie Pendle­ton, an assistant director at ar­chives.

Archives officials raised the awards to $2,000 each this year.

Bridges, when asked about the program, said, "We do what the law tells us to do."

Ansley, a retired farmer and private school teacher, helped judge this year's essays, as did Murfee Gewin of Montgomery, a lobbyist for the Eagle Forum of Alabama and a member of Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Gewin said Jackson was a trusted lieutenant of Lee.

"I don't think there's any­body alive who wouldn't benefit from studying the life and char­acter and career of those two men," Gewin said.

Holmes said he wants the Legislature to abolish the me­morial fund and use its money for general scholarships.

A black legislator who heads the Senate's education budget committee said the timing of the fund's creation is significant.

Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, said in 1955, when legislators de­cided to honor Jackson, many state politicians were trying to undermine a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 1954 that said public school segregation was unconstitutional.

"This sounds like it ought to be a private fund rather than a state-operated fund," Sanders said. "It's set up to advance one narrow element of history."

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Comment... This is another example of why people should always wear clean drawers