Perry County, a largely black county in Alabama that voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama on November 4, has decided to set aside every second Monday in November as Barack Obama Day. On that day, all government offices will be closed and all government workers will be given a paid day of leave.

Sounds nice! Um, except for the fact that Perry County is one of the poorest in Alabama, and a day off for all government employees will cost the county thousands of crucial dollars in payroll expenses. Here's what Brett Harrison, the sole member of the five-person county commission to vote against the holiday, says: "I'm a Democrat, but just in these financial times, it's not using the county's money wisely … The recognition is certainly well-founded."

Albert Turner Jr, the commissioner who introduced the holiday bill, said he hopes the county's school board will soon pass a similar resolution. Because nothing pays tribute to Obama's tremendous successes better than not going to school.

On this day in 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to leave her bus seat so a white man could sit. Parks' arrest sparked a year-long bus boycott that ended up desegregating Montgomery buses.

Eventually, the same type of peaceful protesting that changed Alabama would change the whole South (kinda, but that's a different story).

Remember Rosa today.

CONTINUED »

Pandering 101:

African-American women serenaded Republican presidential candidate John McCain with gospel songs on Monday as he began a tour of economically ailing "forgotten places in America."

Trying to appeal to independent voters who could be crucial in the November election, McCain spent the day in some of the poorest areas of Alabama, arguing that the United States needs nonpartisan ways to attack economic dislocation.

If John McCain knows what's good for him, he didn't kick off his tour of poor black neighborhoods and Civil Rights landmarks in Alabama with a speech about how he voted against MLK Day.

• A black Chicago police officer says that a rule barring the city's police from associating with convicted criminals discriminates against black officers, since a disproportionate number of black people are convicted with crimes. Hmmm. [CS-T]

• A political activist thinks that removing race from Alabama state documents will combat racism. Why didn't we think of this before? [WSFA]

• Maybe Pharrell Williams has better things to talk about than Britney Spears? [PA]

• Blacks in the Detroit area find the transition from city to suburbs difficult. [DN]

• Civil Rights activist-turned-Congressman John Lewis just endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Ouch, Obama. [WP]

I can't imagine that, in the case of a white judge removing black prisoners from their cells and paddling them in a storage closet near his office, the NAACP would be far more interested in the prisoners' side, even if they suspected that the prisoners had been coerced into testifying against the judge.

But the scenario I just described wasn't exactly how the case went. It's was a black Mobile County, Ala. judge who was paddling the inmates, at least a few of whom I would suspect are black. And the local NAACP is railing against the District Attorney for, what they call, criminal coercion of the inmates. Lawyers correct me here, but isn't it perfectly lawful to offer a reduced sentence in exchange for information on a crime? I'm not saying the DA was on the up-and-up — if he wasn't, he deserves to be punished in some way — but the NAACP isn't saying that this weirdo didn't spank a bunch of prisoners, either.

CONTINUED »

Like Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama is deeply, profoundly, immeasurably sorry for the role it played in American slavery. Georgia's still not sure, but it should jump on the bandwagon, lest influential voters get the idea that they aren't sorry.

Obviously, apologizing for slavery is the cool thing to do. And I don't know if it's because it is currently trendy or because these proclamations are coming from politicians who may preside over people still struggling from slavery's after-effects but did not have any direct involvement in the institution itself, but all of these apologies annoy me. Pandering is rarely sincere. Neither is succumbing to peer pressure. Instead of a making a declaration, maybe these state governments should put more resources into righting slavery's wrongs, something no one has managed to completely accomplish since it was abolished.

[MSNBC]

An entire generation of Southern blacks are dying off with Civil Rights-era criminal charges, proven over time to be trumped up, racist, and unconstitutional, still on their records. There are little old ladies in the South with criminal records for doing things like walking to the front of the bus to ask the driver for a transfer. It's ridiculous that after half a century, these charges haven't been expunged — until now. At long last, Southern states are making moves to pardon these imaginary crimes.

Last year, Alabama became the first state to pass the Rosa Parks Act, which gives people the option of having their records expunged, and Tennessee's version won final approval in the Legislature on Thursday and awaits the governor's signature. A similar measure failed in Florida.

"Unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct, refusal to move — all of these were catch-all charges under Jim Crow," said Rep. Thad McClammy, a black Montgomery Democrat who sponsored the Alabama law. "A lot of these followed individuals throughout their lifetime, and they shouldn't be criminalized."

It's funny how these things work. As blacks get their crimes from the 50s and 60s erased, whites are finally having to answer for theirs.

[MSNBC]