The History of Brundidge, Alabama

The City the Klan Built

    This is the real history, the black history, of a quaint little town in Alabama that hides a dark & sinister secret the white towns people do not want to talk about! This is the history of how the white towns people of Brundidge, who were affiliated with the Klu Klux Klan, had Henrietta Collier, the mulatto daughter of G.C. Collier (the white plantation owner who founded the town) killed in a horrific manner in 1919 during the period known as the “Red Summer” - when the Klu Klux Klan was at it’s peak of power, and murdering black people all across the South — all because she had inherited Collier’s properties, businesses & financial assets, and had brought the black family to a level of prosperity the white families felt blacks in Brundidge should not have attained. The history of how, in 1925, the white families had the KKK run Henrietta’s children out of town so they could take over the black family’s properties & assets! And the history of how the white families have been using fear, intimidation, and corruption, for over 95 years, to keep the black heirs of the Collier-Johns estate from reclaiming their inherited properties — by using political pressure to keep the Pike County probate court from releasing any of the Johns family’s property title documents to the Johns family, and have prevented any investigation into the property issues by the state attorney general’s office; and the history of how Mr. James T. Ramage (the long running Mayor of Brundidge, and President of the First National Bank) has failed to provide notice of the existence of the Collier-Johns estate bank accounts, and had Charles Kelvin Johns (Henrietta’s great-grandson) arrested because Charles presented official documents to Ramage indicating there is an account being hidden at the First National Bank under Charles name & SSN, an account which Charles had never opened, and had never place any monies.

     This is the REAL history of Brundidge, Alabama, a history of white greed, white jealousy, and the white abuse of political power to keep what is not lawfully theirs. If the civil rights movement is to have any real meaning, then the injustice that occurred in the past, and is occurring today, to Charles Kelvin Johns & his family needs to be reconciled and the truth become known! When black people were freed from the shackles of slavery, one of the most significant rights of their newly found citizenship was, and is, the right to own property. This right is meaningless if it does not apply to all black citizens, to include the Johns family in Brundidge. Charles should not have to suffer the pain of repeated arrests, & repeated incarcerations, all because he has had the courage to stand up for the rights of his family and has valiantly tried to get copies of the property title documents for the land upon which they live, and information about the family’s estate accounts at the First National Bank of Brundidge!