Richmond Flowers Sr.

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Richmond Flowers Sr.
Alabama State Senator from Houston County (Dothan)
In office
1955–1963
Personal details
Born
Richmond McDavid Flowers

(1918-11-11)November 11, 1918
Richmond M. Flowers Jr.
Residence(s)Dothan, Alabama
Alma materAuburn University
OccupationAttorney
Military service
AllegianceUnited States
Branch/serviceUnited States Army
Years of service1942–1946
Battles/warsWorld War II

Richmond McDavid Flowers Sr. (November 11, 1918 – August 9, 2007) was the

Governor George C. Wallace's policy of racial segregation.[1] He also served in the Alabama Senate
.

Early life, education, and military service

Flowers was born on November 11, 1918 (

Flowers entered the University of Alabama School of Law in Tuscaloosa in 1941, but interrupted his law school studies in 1942 when drafted into the United States Army.[5] He graduated from Officer Candidate School in Camp Barkeley, Texas.[6] He was assigned to Fort Oglethorpe, then Fort McPherson, and then to Manila and Tokyo, where he was a hospital administrator assigned to General Headquarters, Far East Command during the occupation of Japan.[7] He was honorably discharged in 1946.[8]

After being discharged from the military, Flowers returned to Dothan, where he worked for the Dothan Bank and Trust Company, which his family owned.[9] Flowers returned to the University of Alabama School of Law.[10] He later co-founded Flowers Insurance Agency.[11]

Political career

Flowers was elected to the

Alabama State Senate
in 1954 and became the floor leader, serving until 1962, when he was chosen as attorney general in the same election that George Wallace won the first of four non-consecutive terms as governor.

As an intraparty opponent of Wallace, Flowers was invited to speak at the

First Amendment
.

During his tenure as attorney general, Flowers won two landmark voting rights cases, Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims, before the United States Supreme Court. He also was instrumental in allowing women to serve on juries in Alabama.

In 1966, Flowers ran in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in an effort to succeed the term-limited George Wallace. He faced former

Lurleen Burns Wallace, Wallace's first wife and his then-surrogate candidate. Flowers sought African American support in his campaign. He administered what may have been the death blow to his own campaign when he falsely suggested Lurleen Wallace had not graduated from high school and then said she had done nothing since except marry, work in a dime store, and be a housewife.[12] Mrs. Wallace easily won the Democratic nomination and then handily defeated the conservative Republican U.S. Representative James D. Martin of Gadsden and in doing so captured a majority of the black vote.[13]

Flowers prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan and fought for school desegregation. He reported that crosses were burned in his yard, and bricks were thrown through his windows.[14]

Conviction

In 1968, Flowers and two others were indicted on federal charges of a conspiracy to extort payments from life insurance companies that sought licenses to conduct business in Alabama.[15][16] The three were convicted the following year, and Flowers was sentenced to eight years in prison. He was paroled in 1973 after serving 16 months. Flowers maintained that the prosecution was politically motivated by opponents of his anti-segregation stance, but the appeals courts affirmed the conviction.[15][16] The portion of the Hobbs Act under which Flowers was convicted was later struck down as unconstitutionally vague.[17] President Jimmy Carter granted him a pardon in 1978,[15][16] after which Flowers' license to practice law was restored.[18]

Family

Because of the trouble in Alabama, his son

Paul W. Bryant to play football at Alabama. Flowers Jr. had been an athlete in Alabama but played college football at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and was instrumental, scoring the game–winning touchdown, in defeating Alabama and Coach Bryant during his senior season. At the time, his father watched from the stands in Neyland Stadium in handcuffs. Flowers Jr. was also a member of the University of Tennessee track team. He was a world-class hurdler and played in the National Football League with the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants
.

The third generation Richmond Flowers, III, is a former wide receiver at

Washington Redskins
.

Later years

In his later years, Flowers taught criminal justice and U.S. history at

United Methodist
Church, he taught the men's Bible class for twenty-five years.

Flowers Jr. is the subject of a 1989 CBS television docudrama titled Unconquered, with screenplay by Pat Conroy.[19]

References

  1. ^ a b David, Darrell (2007-06-08). "It hasn't always been rosy for Flowers family". The Leader-Post (Regina, Saskatchewan) (Newspaper). Southam Publications. p. C1.
  2. ^ Hayman, pp. 16–20.
  3. ^ Hayman, p. 37.
  4. ^ Hayman, pp. 40–41.
  5. ^ Hayman, pp. 41, 50.
  6. ^ Hayman, pp. 52–54.
  7. ^ Hayman, pp. 54–61.
  8. ^ Hayman, pp. 61–62.
  9. ^ Hayman, p. 64.
  10. ^ Hayman, pp. 65–67.
  11. ^ Hayman, p. 118.
  12. OCLC 32739924
    .
  13. ^ Billy Hathorn, "A Dozen Years in the Political Wilderness: The Alabama Republican Party, 1966–1978", Gulf Coast Historical Review, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Spring 1994), pp. 22, 28
  14. ^ Carr, A.J. (1998-10-22). "Trials and triumphs times III". News and Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina) (Newspaper). News and Observer Publishing Company. p. C1.
  15. ^ a b c Dennis Hevesi, Richmond Flowers Is Dead at 88; Challenged Segregation and Klan, New York Times (August 11, 2018).
  16. ^ a b c Phillip Rawls, [1] Richmond Flowers; Ala. Attorney General Opposed Segregation, Associated Press (August 12, 2007).
  17. ^ Hayman, p. 5.
  18. ^ Hayman, 'pp. 5 and 287.
  19. ^ Collins, Monica (1989-01-13). "An Unconquered civil rights drama". USA Today (newspaper). Gannett Company, Inc. p. 3D.

Works cited

  • John Hayman, Bitter Harvest: Richmond Flowers and the Civil Rights Revolution (NewSouth Books, 2016).

External links

Party political offices
Preceded by Democratic nominee for Attorney General of Alabama
1962
Succeeded by
MacDonald Gallion
Legal offices
Preceded by Attorney General of Alabama
1963–1967
Succeeded by