ALABAMA TARNISHES ITS FREE PRESS RECORD
By DeWAYNE WICKHAM
On October 1 of this year, Alabama reversed a 207-year-old democracy guarantee when a piece of state legislation – called the Gulf of America Act – became law.
The bill genuflects to President Donald Trump’ s demand that the body of water known as the Gulf of Mexico for 476 years be renamed in honor of America, which he naively believes refers only to the United States.
The Alabama law requires all state and local entities, and their employees, to use the words“ Gulf of America” when referring to the gulf that spans the territorial waters of Mexico, Cuba and 5 U. S. States.
This mandate applies to journalists who work on university campuses and the state’ s public radio stations.
The law sullies a 207-year-old history of press freedom in Alabama.
When 44 men from across the territory of Alabama met in Huntsville on July 5, 1819, to adopt a constitution that would prepare it for statehood, press freedom was not an afterthought – as it had been with the Constitution of the United States.
While the Bill of Rights and its Freedom of Press guarantee was added to this nation’ s governing document 3 years after the U. S. Constitution took effect in 1789, Alabama’ s founding fathers did not delay in securing this right for its citizens.
In the state’ s 1819 constitution, Alabama’ s founders enshrined this language in Article I, Sec. 8 of that document: Every citizen may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty.”
Even in the state’ s darkest moment, when it attempted to secede from the United States, the constitution that Alabama adopted in 1861 – while explicitly protecting the institution of slavery – forbade the passage of any laws that would“ curtail or restrain” the freedom of press or the freedom of speech.
In a“ Letter to the Editor” of The Montgomery Advertiser, a reader complained that the new legislation, which Gov. Kay Ivey signed on April 7, 2026,“ was a landmark in obsequiousness” – for which, I am sure, President Trump thanks Alabama’ s body politic. n
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