NewSouth author Warren Trest and former Alabama Governor John Patterson were featured on the Tapestry radio program on May 29, 2008. They spoke about Trest’s new biography of Patterson Nobody But the People: The Life and Times of Alabama’s Youngest Governor which one reviewer calls “a thoroughly readable and fair-minded account of John Patterson’s career, which was one of the most important in Alabama’s recent history.”
In the interview, Trest describes Patterson’s father, noting that “there was no more principled man than Albert Patterson.” Indeed, Trest focuses in the biography on Albert Patterson’s death as the turning point in both the political and personal life of the former governor.
Also in the interview, Patterson discusses the political and social climate in regards to public school segregation into which he stepped as a political candidate. Moreover, Patterson reflects on his own civil rights record — what he considers to be the greatest failure of his political tenure: “I believe that I was in a position to really do something to bring the black community into the political process to really do something to bring the black community into the political process and by registering people to vote. I believe that I could have done that and I regret very much that I didn’t do that.” Patterson goes on to assert, “If you get the power to vote in the hands of the people, everything else comes along.”
Listen to the full interview at the Tapestry website.
Nobody But the People: The Life and Times of Alabama’s Youngest Governor is available from NewSouth Books, Amazon.com, or your favorite local or online book retailer.