The constitution of Alabama is over 300,000 words long. That's 40 times longer than the U.S.

Constitution. And according to people who claim to know such things, it is the longest
constitution in the world.

According to some Alabamians, like historian Wayne Flynt, who's a retired Auburn University
professor, its origins are so shabby that the 1901 constitution, with its hundreds of amendments,
ought to be scrapped, and they're suing to try to make that happen.

Welcome to the program, Professor Flynt.

Professor WAYNE FLYNT (Historian): Thank you.

SIEGEL: First, why does it take Alabama so many pages to do what every other state does with
relative brevity?

Prof. FLYNT: Well, the constitution of 1901 stripped local communities of home rule so that
cities, towns, counties do not govern themselves. We're governed essentially by their legislative
delegations. And to change any law, even to pay a probate judge or to establish a bingo game,
you have to amend the 1901 constitution.

SIEGEL: 1901 was during the Jim Crow era. Blacks, I saw, are referred to as negroes, with a
lower-case n, throughout.

Prof. FLYNT: I wish that were the only problem; actually, that's a minor part of the problem. In
addition to that, the constitution provided, in Section 102, that the legislature shall never pass any
law to authorize or legalize any marriage between any white person and a negro, or descendent
of a negro. And under Article 14, the education section, it provides that separate schools shall be
provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a
school of the other race.

SIEGEL: Well, take us back to 1901. How did the constitution get adopted, and why are there
grounds in that process for you to try to overturn the constitution?

Prof. FLYNT: Well, the motive for the 1901 constitution is fairly simple. People who had lots of
property didn't want to pay property taxes. And the best way to make sure they didn't pay
property taxes was to make sure that no African-American voted, because African-Americans
didn't own a lot of property and therefore, were anxious to tax it in order to provide decent public
schools, not only for their own children but for white children as well.

So the core of the issue is, basically, the way in which white property owners were trying to
protect their property, and the best way to do that was to disenfranchise blacks.

SIEGEL: And your reason for wanting to overturn the constitution isn't just to set the record
straight historically; you have present-day concerns.
Prof. FLYNT: That's absolutely right. The result of the way in which the tax structure was
developed out of the 1901 constitution is that the tax rate was shifted from property to, first,
personal income taxes and corporate income taxes and then finally, and most dramatically, to
sales taxes during the 1930s, so that a poor person in Alabama pays about 11 percent of his or her
income on state and local taxes and a wealthy person pays about 3 percent. So, we basically
shifted the tax structure for public schools from those who have money and property to those
who don't.

And our attempt is to actually create a more equitable constitution. In the original constitutional
convention, there were 155 delegates. All 155 were white. All of them were males. Ninety-six of
them were lawyers and bankers. And a fourth of them were Civil War veterans. That's not exactly
what you'd call a representative constitutional convention.

SIEGEL: Now, one could argue that every American document of the country's first century and
a half was largely or entirely the work of white male Protestants. If that invalidated documents,
we'd have to check out the Declaration of Independence.

Prof. FLYNT: That's correct. However, the Constitution of the United States has been changed by
both statutory amendment and also by federal law, whereas the funding base for taxes in
Alabama and the funding of education, those systems still pertain in Alabama. The tax structure
is still there.

SIEGEL: Do you think people in Alabama are still paying for the sins of 1901, in that case?

Prof. FLYNT: That's correct. But the country has changed and hopefully, the courts have
changed. And hopefully, this will be struck down.

SIEGEL: But you have this state constitution, which is so encyclopedic that it does everything
from banning duels to explaining how - one of my favorites -how Alabama would acquire
foreign territory. I don't fully understand that.

If you throw out the constitution, wouldn't there be a thousand holes in state law that the
legislature would then have to pass by statute?

Prof. FLYNT: What you're really saying is, then we would have to actually pass a modern
constitution that would allow local counties, local municipalities to solve their own problems,
and not have the people in my county, Lee County, vote on the prohibition of weeds, junk, motor
vehicles and litter in Jefferson County. That's Amendment 497, which is really not of great
interest to the people down in my area, and yet we have to vote on that.

And of course, that's the reason we have more than 800 constitutional amendments in a
constitution that is longer than "Moby Dick" and the Bible, among other books.

SIEGEL: Well Professor Flynt, thank you very much for talking with us today.