Past History
PAST HISTORY
Town of Brundidge and the Collier-Johns Family
The Johns’ family photographs from 1917 show the Collier-Johns family living quite opulent lives, as compared to the standard of living experienced by most black families living in rural Alabama. How the Johns family rose to, and maintained, this standard before being brutally “run out of town” by the Klu Klux Klan, is the history the whites families in Brundidge do not want to talk about, and have actually tried to erase from the historical record.
This the black history of Brundidge - The Johns’ family history - a history gleaned from the stories handed down from generation to generation, from family members who suffered the racial crimes of the past, from the older black towns people who worked for the Johns family & were alive at the time the family was banished and their properties were taken over by the local white families. This history also comes from archived historical records but, most importantly, this history comes from the faces you see in the Johns’ family photographs - faces that reach out across a 100 year span of time to tell you their extraordinary story. The Johns family’s story is unprecedented, in the state of Alabama, and is a story that needs to be told and remembered.
