Pike County hosted the Alabama Cooperative Extension System’s “Grassroots Needs Assessment” meeting at Cattleman Park Wednesday.

Grassroots Needs Assessment meetings will be held in all 67 counties to determine the most important areas for Extension System programs and events for the next five years.

The Pike County event attracted Extension System staff members, volunteers and users who also participated in a follow-up survey that will be used as a guide for planning local programs and events.

Brandon Dillard, Pike County Extension interim coordinator, presented 14 topic areas that have the potential to impact Extension programs.

“Setting priorities involves deciding what is most important to do and which needs will not be addressed or will be addressed with limited effort,” Dillard said. “The number one priority, as expressed by the assessment survey, was health and wellness across the lifespan.”

Given the facts, Dillard said it’s understandable that major emphasis would be placed on health and wellness.

“Heart disease, cancers, high blood pressure, strokes and sleep apnea are Alabama’s major health problems and we spent $1.32 billion on obesity related health issues in Alabama during the 1998-2000 period,” Dillard said.

“Obesity has reached epidemic proportions in Alabama. Alabama ranks second nationally in adult obesity and sixth nationally for ages 10-17. Two-thirds of adults in Alabama are overweight.”

Sustainable agricultural and forestry systems ranked second among those who participated in the local survey. “Global food production will fall short of population growth over the next 25 years,” Dillard said. “The current prediction by some scientists is that more food will have to be produced in the next 40 years than has been produced in the past 10,000.”

Dillard added that the challenge for the nation’s producers to continue feeding the world and sustaining the environment will be solved in part by technology improvements, unbiased university-based research and training and the adoption of production cultures for a changing environment.

Water quality and quantity, safe and secure food supply and viable small-farm businesses were ranked third, fourth and fifth respectively in the Pike County survey.

Dillard said Alabama is blessed with 1.3 million acres of surface water. Groundwater from eight major aquifer systems supplies about half of the drinking water for the state.

“Even with our abundant water resources and rainfall, Alabama has droughts about every 12 years, which may last from one to seven years,” Dillard said. “Droughts, population growth, climate change, aquifer depletion and competition for water underscore the need for wise planning for the future well-being of our state.”

The quality of the water supply is threatened by the same factors.

Alabama faces a double threat of its safe and secure food supply from food borne illness and limited access to healthy food.

Dillard said Alabama ranks 39th in the nation in food insecurity, which is a term referring to the lack of money and other resources that prevent access to adequate food.

The survey indicated that there is local concern about the future of small farms in Pike County. “About 92 percent of farms in Alabama are classified as small,” Dillard said. “The average age of the Alabama farmer is 55.4 years and there are three times as many farmers over the age of 65 as there are under the age of 35. Educational development and mentoring will be essential to help new small farmers develop and remain viable.”

Educational programs that focus on new technological advancement, farm resources and management skills are needed to keep small farms functioning. Education will help new farmers remain viable.

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This wasn't a movement limited to Alabama.  It actually started in Texas.  Wikipedia describes the national Farmers Alliance movement this way:

The Farmers' Alliance was an organized agrarian economic movement amongst U.S. farmers that flourished in the 1880s. One of its goals was to end the adverse effects of the crop-lien system on farmers after the Civil War. First formed in 1876 in Lampasas, Texas, the Alliance was designed to promote higher commodity prices through collective action by groups of individual farmers. The movement was strongest in the South, and was widely popular before it was destroyed by the power of commodity brokers. Despite its failure, it is regarded as the precursor to the United States Populist Party, which grew out of the ashes of the Alliance in 1892.

The Encyclopedia of Alabama is more specific about the goals and membership of the Alabama chapters:

 By the mid-1880s, the GLP had disintegrated and the Grange had lost much of its membership as its cooperative enterprises failed. But farmers' organizations with more radical agendas, such as the biracial Agricultural Wheel, the Farmers' Alliance, and the Colored Farmers' Alliance, superseded the Grange, and during 1887 and 1888, representatives of various farmer and labor groups organized a third party in Alabama. Initially known as the Union Labor Party and subsequently as the Labor Party of Alabama, this party won some local elections in 1888 in the hill country counties of Chilton, Cullman, and Shelby, as well as in Baldwin County on the Gulf Coast. These isolated victories foretold greater third-party strength in the 1890s.

By the end of 1889, the Farmers' Alliance had absorbed the Agricultural Wheel and claimed about 120,000 members in Alabama, and the Colored Alliance reported a membership of at least 50,000 by the end of 1890. In addition to reviving the practice of cooperative enterprises, the Farmers' Alliance also supported the free coinage of silver, governmental regulation of railroads (or ownership if regulatory efforts proved unsuccessful), and a farm credit scheme called the Thomas G. Jones subtreasury plan.

According to a 1994 article by Harvey Jackson, III that's posted at the State of Alabama Archives site, the large landowners and merchants weren't about to take this threat to their power and profit lying down. 

The Farmers Alliance groups wanted to set up cooperative purchasing stores where they could buy supplies at a discount. They also sought to reduce the power of the cotton brokers (who would pay farmers a pittance and sell the crops to mills at a huge profit), and pushed for the state to provide relief to small farmers.

At this point in Alabama history (just like today, seemingly), the populist voices of the party weren't heeded by the powerful who controlled the Democratic Party at the time.  Jackson refers to them as "the Bourbons." So they revolted and the Farmers Alliance found a champion from the planter class: Reuben Kolb (that's his photo above).  Derided as a "traitor to his class," Kolb:

"...emerged as a powerful spokesman for farmer interests. Like the farmers who rallied to him, Kolb hoped to work for reform within the Democratic Party. But as Bourbon opposition grew, so too did rumors of rebellion within the party.

What Bourbons heard, or at least thought they heard, was that white Alliancemen might join members from the Colored Alliance in a coalition that could dominate the party and state. Such an arrangement might encourage black voters in the Black Belt to defy planter authority and take control of county governments. Once in power, Alabama's new leaders would find it only natural to confirm their authority with a new constitution, a document the Bourbons feared would be anything but favorable to their interests.

Frightened at this prospect, Bourbons reminded potential defectors that the "only place for a white man was the Democratic Party," and raised the specter of "black rule" if a third party was formed. It seemed to work."

To say that the Democratic Party establishment was hostile to this new movement is an understatement along the lines of "it's chilly in Siberia in the winter." The organizational meeting for the Alliance was a big enough deal to be written up in the New York Times in 1889 (pdf):

The platform demands the abolition of national banks, endorses the Greenback parties…. Demands that the railroads and telegraph lines of the country shall be owned and operated by the Government.  It also contains a stated resolution to elect men who will carry out the principles of the alliance and stand by its interests, independent of and uninfluenced by party caucus.  This latter clause is especially obnoxious to the people of Alabama, for here the compact organization of the Democratic Party and the rule and supremacy of the white people can only be maintained by a strict adherence to party principles  and loyalty to the party caucus.
[…]
The State Alliance lecturer, A. B. Brassel, recently delivered a public speech in which he advised the farmers to attend the meetings and primaries, and then, if necessary, to work for and elect men to public office who can be depended on to carry out the principles of the Alliance, independent of the Democratic or Republican Parties.

In the election of 1890, Kolb ran for governor in the primary but lost to Thomas Jones.  However, Farmers Alliance members won a majority in the House and got members elected to the Senate.

The election of 1892 was going to be pivotal and the Bourbons had no intention of losing.  Kolb went against tradition and challenged Jones for the nomination - something that just wasn't done.

Jackson's narrative continues:

Democratic Executive Committee, which decided which delegates would be seated at the convention. To no one's surprise, the majority of the approved delegates were Jones supporters.

Kolb's outnumbered forces tried without success to get some reforms adopted, including a primary to nominate candidates. Frustrated, they left the convention and met as the "Jefferson Democrats."

The defectors naturally nominated Kolb, who excited his supporters (and terrified the Bourbons) with an acceptance speech that promised prison reform, advocated "better schools and better roads," and called for the election of legislators who "would secure a fair ballot and an honest count."

That last pledge was not well received among the Bourbons. With the white Democrats split, they knew that the black vote was the key to victory. They also knew that if black voters were allowed to cast their ballots without interference, Kolb and the "Jeffersonian Democrats" could well carry the day.

The stage was set for one of the most bitterly contested and corruptly decided elections in Alabama history.

The election was decided for the Bourbon candidate based on a huge, fraudulent Black voter turnout in Bourbon-controlled Black Belt counties.  According to the victors, small black farmers in these counties preferred the ADP over the Jeffersonian Democratic Party by a margin of 30,000 votes. 

With no constitutional or legislative means to challenge the election, Kolb had no choice but to accept defeat. 

Not satisfied with that victory, the Bourbons changed voter registration laws to make it more difficult for the poor - black and white - register to vote:

• Local officials got more power to decide who could vote.
• Voter registration only took place in May - the farmers' busiest time.
• Passed election laws that made registration more complicated.

It worked.  Voter registration declined among poor farmers of both races.

And, since no victory is ever large enough or safe enough for the monied, anti-populist forces, this scuffle set the stage for the Constitution of 1901.  The one we need so desperately to reform in 2010.

We'll talk about that in the next installment.

In the meantime, feel free to draw your own parallels between a party establishment from a 100+ years ago that either ignored or was actively hostile to the people it was supposed to represent and issues progressives face with the state party structure today.