Wallace Answers Callaway Article

Description

In February of 1921, a controversy involving local African-American educator Prof. Young A. Wallace (1848-1937) erupted when local white physician Dr. William J. Callaway (1879-1939), a member of the county medical society, writing to the local newspaper "the Daily News," accused Wallace of failing to comply with city health ordinances regarding the proper “sanitation connection” of the privy at his rental house on West College Street, which was vacated for this reason but then re-occupied, without being brought up to code, after the recent election of Mayor Delos Bacon (1921-1922), this despite repeated citations by the city. Dr. Callaway asked if it was "fair or just" of Prof. Wallace to attempt to jeopardize “the health of a community or otherwise barter community welfare, for the sake of personal political advancement.” To which Wallace responded via a letter to the editor of the "Florence Herald" which was published on the front page of its February 18th issue. Wallace defended himself by saying:

"On May the 19, 1920, two of the commissioners came out to my little farm of less than three acres. They walked over it and viewed everything with close attention, and became well acquainted with how the land lay. They then said to me, “You get a sanitary privy, and comply with the rules and regulations for such an outhouse and get a renter for your house.” I have the sanitary requirements on my place, and everything has been and is now in a sanitary condition.

"I cannot see how that little sanitary privy of mine out there on that little farm of mine . . . can jeopardize the health of the citizens of Florence, while in the city, where there are streets and alleys, there are hundreds and hundreds of sanitary privies, and the houses in some places are as close together as they are in the city of Chicago or New York, and not a word is said about the health of the people being in jeopardy by these privies in Florence.

"If it is fair and just to single out that sanitary privy of mine, on that little farm of mine, to be published and read everywhere the paper is sent, as jeopardizing the health of the citizens of Florence, while I have complied with the sanitary rules and regulations, and then letting all the other sanitary privies in town go free, then I have an incorrect idea of what is fair and just. What personal political advantage can anyone see for me?"

Source

Florence Herald

Publisher

Newspapers.com

Date

1921-02-18

Contributor

Lee Freeman

Rights

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Format

Jpeg

Language

English

Type

Still Image

Files

Wallace Answers Calloway FH Fri Feb 18 1921p 1.jpg

Collection

Community

Citation

“Wallace Answers Callaway Article,” Shoals Black History, accessed April 25, 2024, https://shoalsblackhistory.omeka.net/items/show/1194.