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2 books match the query 'Phenix City (Ala.)'

cover of Patterson for Alabama: The Life and Career of John Patterson

Patterson for Alabama

The Life and Career of John Patterson

Gene Howard

University of Alabama Press, 2013

John Patterson, Alabama governor from 1959 to 1963, was thrust into the Alabama political arena after the brutal murder of his father, attorney general Albert Patterson in 1954. Allowed by the Democratic Party to take his father’s place and to complete the elder’s goal of cleaning up corruption in his hometown Phenix City, Patterson made a young, attractive, and sympathetic candidate. Patterson for Alabama details his efforts to clean up his hometown, oppose corruption in the administration of Governor Big Jim Folsom, and to resist school desegregation. Popular on all three counts, Patterson went on to defeat rising populist George Wallace for governor.
 
Patterson’s term as governor was marked by rising violence as segregationists violently resisted integration.  His role as a champion of resistance has clouded his reputation to this day. Patterson left office with little to show for f his efforts and opposed for one reason or another by nearly all sectors of Alabama. Stymied in efforts to reclaim the governorship or a seat on the Alabama state Supreme Court, Patterson was appointed by Wallace to the state court of criminal appeals in 1984 and served on that body until retiring in 1997. In 2004, he served as one of the justices who removed the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Roy Moore for ignoring a federal court order.
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cover of When Good Men Do Nothing: The Assassination Of Albert Patterson

When Good Men Do Nothing

The Assassination Of Albert Patterson

Alan Grady

University of Alabama Press, 2003

A true crime classic, the definitive account of the notorious 1954 assassination of Alabama Attorney General Albert Patterson

On June 18, 1954, just a few weeks after being elected Alabama's Attorney General, Albert Patterson was assassinated outside his law office in Phenix City, Alabama.  His campaign promised hope and inspired reform to law-abiding citizens of Phenix City, which was notorious for organized crime, prostitution, gambling, bootlegging, and political corruption. Patterson's stance on cleaning up Phenix City had been met with threats and intimidation.  With millions of dollars in illegal income and hundreds of political and professional careers at stake, the motive for his killing seemed apparent.  The primary investigation surrounding Patterson's shooting focused on who pulled the trigger.

Alan Grady has exhaustively mined the state's original murder case files; the papers of John Patterson, Albert's son; records from the Office of Alabama Attorney General (who directed the murder investigation); the case files of the Alabama Department of Toxicology and Criminal Investigation; National Guard reports; and more than 30 interviews with eyewitnesses and interested parties.

Grady takes a complex story of multiple dimensions—a large cast of judicial, criminal, and political players; a web of alliances and allegiances; and a knotted sequence of investigative revelations and dead ends—and transforms it into a readable, incisive analysis of the powers and loyalties that governed, and corrupted to the core, the body politic of the state. Readers will be enthralled and educated by this authoritative account of the most compelling crime drama in Alabama during the 20th century.
 

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