Inspirations

I draw my inspiration from random places, but one source of inspiration throughout this trip has been my family.

This post highlights my great uncle Val McGee. He has been advocate for justice and equality for all people throughout his life.

Here is an excerpt from an email my mom sent to me about him. Uncle Val is still alive and doing well, and I have decided to spend time picking his brain when I return from this experience.


…he's a retired trial judge in Dale County, Alabama, a UA law graduate (went to law school with Harper Lee of "To Kill a Mockingbird" before she dropped out her last year to go to new york to become a writer!), also was there with Hugo Black, Stephen's grandfather.


As a judge he was very innovative in creating the program to keep first time drug offenders out of jail and in a program to help them rehabilitate and keep working (to help their families too, rather than being in jail and everyone suffering).   His book "Selma" was published when he was 88 (he is 90 now and still mentally going strong, though he can't come to Montgomery to see you due to not driving and physical problems).  My cousin Larry (the one married to William Faulkner's niece Dean) is in the publishing business and helped Uncle Val realize his dream of the book; it was so inspiring.

Uncle Val gotten all kinds of awards from the Alabama Historical Society, etc..  He is just totally awesome.  Have to laugh, in the book you can see he modeled some characters after my father...they had very different perspectives politically but loved each other dearly, Grandaddy McGee would rather be with his little brother Val than any other person outside his immediate family.

Here is a link to his book: http://www.yoknapatawphapress.com/mcgee.htm

Sadly enough, I have not read the book, but it is next on my reading list.

We're about to cross into Alabama, and Dr. Wayne Flynt, the premiere Alabama historian, is on my mind. He wrote this in the front of my copy of Alabama in the Twentieth Century.