Richmond McDavid Flowers, Sr. (November 11, 1918 — August 9, 2007) served as Attorney General for the US State of Alabama from 1963 to 1967. He is most notable for his opposition to then Governor George C. Wallace who espoused a doctrine of racial segregation.[1]
Flowers was born in 1918 in Dothan. After graduating from Dothan High School, he attended Auburn University and the University of Alabama School of Law.
Flowers enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942, where he earned the rank of Captain. He served as a member of General Douglas McArthur's Special Staff during the occupation of Japan. He was honorably discharged in 1946.
After his discharge, Flowers returned to Dothan where he worked for the Dothan Bank and Trust Company and co-founded the Flowers Insurance Agency.
Flowers was elected to the Alabama State Senate in 1954 and later served as a floor leader. He was subsequently elected as the Attorney General of Alabama in 1962.
While attorney general, Flowers was renowned for his opposition to the policies of George Wallace, then Governor of Alabama, and his highly publicized clashes with him were widely reported. In part because of this, he was invited to speak at Yale Law School in the fall of 1965, a venue that had recently booed Gov. Wallace from that same stage. Instead of echoing the then-popular (in the North) criticisms of Gov. Wallace, Mr. Flowers began his speech with a lengthy, withering, and completely unexpected indictment of his hosts' poor manners for their refusal to listen to Gov. Wallace. In his ensuing remarks, Mr. Flowers discussed not only the importance of civil rights to all races, but also emphasized the need for civil discourse, and honoring the fundamental principles of the First Amendment. By his example, he showed that free speech applies to those with whom we disagree equally as to those with whom we agree, and that bigotry can take many forms, and can as easily exist in the North as in the South.
During his tenure as Attorney General, Flowers won two landmark voting 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 Primary for Governor of Alabama to succeed Wallace but was defeated by the Governor's wife, Lurleen Wallace. Flowers asked for black support in his campaign; in the general election Wallace defeated conservative Republican James Martin and captured a majority of the black vote.
Flowers prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan and fought for school integration. As a result of his opposition to the Klan, Flowers reported crosses were burned in his yard and bricks were thrown through his windows.[2] He was later convicted of extortion and served two years in Federal Prison. Flowers was pardoned by President Jimmy Carter in 1978.
Because of the trouble in Alabama, Flowers' son, Richmond Flowers, Jr., declined an offer from University of Alabama football coach Paul W. Bryant to play at Alabama. Flowers, Jr. had been an athlete in Alabama but played college football out of state at the University of Tennessee and was instrumental, scoring the game winning touchdown, in defeating Alabama and Coach Bryant during his senior season while his father watched from the stands in Neyland Stadium in handcuffs. He was also a member of the University of Tennessee track team. He was a world-class hurdler and played in the NFL with the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants. The third generation Richmond Flowers III was a wide receiver at Duke before finishing his college career at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He was drafted by the Jacksonville Jaguars but was cut from the team. He also tried out with the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League.[1]
Flowers, Jr. was the subject of a CBS television docudrama in 1989 entitled "Unconquered."[3]
In his later years, Flowers taught criminal justice and American history at Wallace Community College in addition to serving as a legal advisor to Flowers Hospital. He was also a lifetime member of First United Methodist Church and taught the Men's Bible Class for 25 years.
| Legal offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by MacDonald Gallion |
Attorney General of Alabama 1963-1967 |
Succeeded by MacDonald Gallion |