Hank Sanders
Henry "Hank" Sanders (born October 28, 1942) is a Democratic member of the Alabama Senate, representing the 23rd District since 1983. He is the longest-serving chair of a legislative budget committee in Alabama, having first been named to Chair of the Senate Finance & Taxation Committee in January 1996 and serving in it for four consecutive terms.
He is married to Faya Ora Rose Toure. Father of Malika Sanders-Fortier.
Background
Hank Sanders graduated from Douglasville High School, Talladega College and Harvard Law School, established a law practice (his own firm, Chestnut, Sanders, Sanders, and Pettaway), and served as the first African American State Senator from the Alabama Black Belt.
At the age of twelve, Sanders was inspired to become a lawyer after reading about Thurgood Marshall in a magazine article. Hank Sanders graduated near the top of his high school class in 1960 and college class in 1967; winning the Catherine Wardell Award after his freshman year as the "Student who contributed most to Talladega College the previous year". He received a special scholarship to Boston University for his junior year and Harvard Summer School after his sophomore year. He attended Harvard Law School on a Felix Frankfurter Scholarship "for poor young men who show great promise" and served as President of Harvard Black Law Students Association. In 2008, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Talladega College.[4]
After law school, Sanders won a Ford Foundation Fellowship that sent him to Africa for a year and a Reginald Heber Smith fellowship that sent him to Huntsville, Alabama to work for the poor with Legal Services. In 1971, Hank began Chestnut, Sanders, Sanders, and Pettaway, P.C., at one time the largest Black law firm in Alabama and one of the largest in the country. His law practice has been one of service helping poor and Black people save their lands, protecting Constitutional rights of citizens, incorporating new towns and building strong sensitive governmental institutions.
As a community activist, he helped found or build many organizations including Alabama New South Coalition, where he currently serves as President Emeritus; 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement; Alabama Lawyers Association; Black Belt Human Resources; The National Voting Rights Museum and Institute; C.A.R.E. (Coalition of Alabamians Reforming Education); the Slavery and Civil War Museum, and many others. In 2007, Sanders received the Federation of Southern Cooperatives Estelle Witherspoon Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding work over a lifetime.
Campaigning for Hillary
Terri Sewell Nov 5, 2016
US House candidate, AL-7
In Pensacola FL campaigning for Hillary!! So is AL State Senator Hank and Rose Sanders! #SelmaforHillary
Senate Sketches
On Saturday March 19, 2016 more than a hundred community leaders from around the state of Alabama convened at the Bridge Crossing Theater in Selma to celebrate the writing and publication of the 1,500th Senate Sketches column written by State Senator Hank Sanders.
Senator Sanders has been writing sketches for fifteen hundred consecutive weeks starting on April 29, 1987. The Greene County Democrat, weekly newspaper published on Wednesdays in Eutaw, Alabama, has printed each Senate Sketches column, in its entirety since the beginning 29 years ago.
Senate Sketches is now also circulated on the Internet, published in other newspapers, read on the radio and distributed in other ways but the Greene County Democrat remains the only publication that has printed all 1,500 columns in full.
The celebration included a reading by a number of people of their favorite Sketches column, special presentations including songs, plaques, poems and comments, and a response by Senator Sanders himself.
Scott Douglas of the Greater Birmingham Ministries read Sketches # 1437, “An Open Letter to Mr. Charles Barkley”. In this column, Sanders takes the basketball legend to task for statements he made that slavery was not very bad for Black people and its impact is exaggerated.
Alphonzo Morton III, a science teacher at Greene County High School and adult adviser to the Twenty-first Century Youth Leadership Movement, read Sketches # 905 “Men and Boys” which speaks to the differences, responsibilities and obligations of men as contrasted to boys.
Rose Sanders did a rap about Senate Sketches, sang some songs, helped some community people to put on a skit as part of the program. Faya Rose was instrumental in planning the celebratory program.
Carol Zippert, Co-Publisher of the Greene County Democrat was Mistress of Ceremonies and John Zippert, Co-Publisher of the Democrat said, “we are pleased and proud to be friends of Senator Sanders and to have published every word of every Senate Sketches column for three decades. I especially enjoy the Daily Diary section which lists the many activities that Senator Sanders is involved in each week.”
State Senator Vivian Figures of Mobile presented Senator Sanders with a plaque from his Alabama Senate colleagues recognizing the achievement of 1,500 columns. Alabama New South Coalition and other groups presented plaques and acknowledgements to the Senator.
In his remarks at the conclusion of the program Senator Sanders thanked the many people who help him type, proof read and distribute the Senate Sketches column each week. He said he was thankful and impressed at hearing people read the words of their favorite column to him. “It was a great and powerful experience,” he said.[1]
The groups in Selma, including the National Voting Rights Museum, Center for Non-Violence, Truth and Reconciliation and the Bridge Crossing Jubilee, compiled a book of the best-loved Senate Sketches, which they sold for $20.00 at the program. If you are interested in purchasing a book, contact the Center for Non-Violence, 8 Mulberry Road, Selma, AL 36703; phone 334/526-4533. Proceeds will go to support on-going community work in Selma and the Alabama Black Belt.[2]
Alabama New South Coalition
Circa 2014 Alabama New South Coalition disseminating a mailer to black households around the state warning them that if they do not vote, the state will be controlled by “extremists” who will take away their “right to speak,” continuously conduct drug raids “only in the Black community,” and “honor klansmen,” among other things.
ANSC was founded in Birmingham in 1986 and featured Jesse Jackson as its first convention speaker. One of its founders was Sen. Hank Sanders (D-Selma), who continues to serve as the group’s president emeritus. Sen. Vivian Figures (D-Mobile), the current minority leader in the Alabama senate, also serves on the group’s board of officers.
Sanders has frequently used similar racially charged campaign tactics in the past.
In 2010 he warned voters in a robocall that Alabama would go “back to the cotton fields of Jim Crow days” if Republicans rose to power.
In 2013, Sanders joined Louis Farrakhan in leading a mass protest across Alabama of conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.[3]
Ride to Revive Section 5
A group of sixty community activists from Alabama went to Washington, D. C. in six vans from Sunday to Tuesday (June 24-27, 2017) to support the Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA), HR 2948, introduced last week by Alabama Congresswoman Terri Sewell.
The bill was introduced on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Shelby vs, Holder decision, which gutted Sections 4 and 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
The Voting Rights Advancement Act would restore and advance Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act to include 14 states and other political subdivisions. These areas would again be placed under the protection of Section 5 and be required to have any election changes pre-cleared by the Department of Justice before they could be implanted.
The VRAA updates the criteria and establishes a nationwide coverage formula for states and political subdivisions that would be subject again to the pre-clearance provisions of Section 5. Any state that has had 15 or more voting violations in the last 25-year period; or 10 or more voting violations, at least one of the violations committed by the state itself, would be covered. A political subdivision within a state can be covered if it commits 3 or more voting violations.
The bill also carefully defines what constitutes a voting rights violation and which election changes must be submitted for pre-clearance. Congresswoman Terri Sewell said, “The VRAA is an advancement bill, it advances voting rights throughout the country. Under this bill, all eleven states that were part of the Confederacy, including Alabama, as well as other political subdivisions around the nation and on tribal lands would be covered and subject to the pre-clearance provisions.”
The VRAA would classify voting changes such as strict voter photo identification requirements, and voter registration requirements to be reviewed and possibly overturned if they were deemed to be more stringent than the requirements in Section 303b of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002.The VRAA, HR 2948, has 182 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives. They are all Democrats. And the companion legislation S.1490 in the Senate has 46 co-sponsors, also all Democrats, so far.
The grassroots voting activists visited more than 75 Congressional offices, including the membership of the House Judiciary Committee, . The grassroots activists left a package of information including factsheets on the legislation, a Senate Sketches by State Senator Hank Sanders of Selma, which deals with the “power of one vote”, and materials about the Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma, the first weekend in March each year.
On Tuesday morning, the Alabama group joined by other activists in Washington from the Rural Coalition, Food and Water Watch, National Family Farm Coalition and other groups had a rally and press conference on the Capitol grounds facing the Cannon House Office Building on Independence Avenue and First Street NE.
The rally had many chants supporting the revival of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act along with civil rights freedom songs. Several Congresspersons, including Terri Sewell, G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina, Marc Veasey of Dallas, Texas and Katherine Clark of Massachusetts addressed the rally. Congressman John Lewis drove by the rally on Independence Avenue and saluted the crowd. On Monday night, the group had a meeting at Howard University Law School, which was addressed by several civil rights veterans, including former D. C. Congressman Walter Fauntroy, Viola Bradford, who wrote for the Southern Courier newspaper in Montgomery, Antonio Harrison, a former Alabama State Senator, who lives and works in D. C. Professor Ardua of the Law School spoke on the need for reparations to address the continuing impact of slavery on Black people.
The Ride to Revive Section 5 was sponsored by the SOS Coalition for Justice and Democracy, Alabama New South Coalition and other local groups in Alabama.[4]
Meeting Doug Jones
Doug Jones, Alabama’s newly elected Senator, met with a delegation of Alabama New South Coalition members on Saturday, January 6, 2018, in Birmingham. All of ANSC delegation members played an active role in the ‘Vote or Die Campaign’ to register, educate, mobilize and turnout voters in the December 12, 2017 Special Election, in which Jones defeated Judge Roy Moore.
Jones thanked the ANSC and the Vote or Die Campaign for their support and help in winning a closely fought contest with Judge Roy Moore. He said he appreciated “the early and continuing efforts of ANSC, ANSA and Vote or Die from the beginning of the race, starting at the first primary and continuing all the way through.”
Members of the ANSC delegation expressed congratulations and support to Senator Jones and indicated that they realized that “ a movement orientation was needed not just an ordinary political campaign, to create the excitement and interest, to generate the kind of turnout that was required to win this election.”
Senator Jones said that he would continue to communicate on a regular basis with the delegation about the upcoming state elections in 2018 and his own re-election campaign in 2020. Jones said that he would participate in the upcoming Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma, the first weekend in March, and other activities related to supporting voting rights.[5]
References
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ [2]
- ↑ Yellowhammmer, Cliff Sims 4 years ago Alabama progressives warn blacks to vote or face silencing, targeting and ‘Klan’ events
- ↑ [https://greenecodemocrat.com/tag/alabama-new-south-coalition/Greene County Democrat ‘Ride to Restore Section 5’ grassroots lobbyists push Voting Rights Advancement Act in Washington, D. C. Posted on June 28, 2017 by greenecodemocratcom Special to the Democrat by: John Zippert,]
- ↑ Greene County Democrat, Doug Jones meets with ANSC delegation to discuss plans and prioritiesPosted on January 10, 2018