Words matter. A couple of years ago, I heard about an infamous textbook from the state of

Alabama. It was called No Alabama. That's K-N-O-W as in get-to-know Alabama. It was a statewide public

school textbook. Now, I grew up in Alabama,

and I remember learning state history in fourth grade. That was the norm back then, which would

have been around 1991. But the infamous textbook I heard about was much older, in use from the

1950s through the 1970s.

So, what made it infamous?

Well, based off what I'd read about it, it sort of made slavery out to be not so big of a deal.

But I wanted to see for myself, so I started Googling like crazy trying to find a digital version.

No luck.

I looked on eBay, nothing there either. But I'd learned an eBay trick years earlier. You can save a search and if anything ever pops up with that term,

it'll email you. I'd done this with lots of rare collectibles waiting for years, hoping they'd

appear for sale at some crazy cheap

price one day before I died. So I saved the search, no Alabama textbook, and I waited. I forgot about it,

until I got a notification about a year later. One was for sale. So for $10.96, plus 604 in shipping and 1961 version of

No Alabama arrived on my doorstep. I tore into the package. The book itself was pretty beat up.

The cover was Hunter Green with a Civil War cannon and a rocket on the front,

symbolic, I suppose, of past and future.

The inside cover had a stamp saying Briarwood Christian School,

which I'm familiar with. It's in Birmingham, Alabama.

Penciled on the inside cover and kid handwriting was the name,

Bucky Hodges.

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