B. B. Comer - Legacy

Legacy

By the mid-twentieth century, Comer was hailed as a reformer who brought Alabama's primary and secondary educational systems into the mainstream. He was praised as an enlightened business man for bringing Avondale Mills to Birmingham and Central Alabama. A product of his time, he relied on a system of segregation and white supremacy, and child labor to earn profits for his plantations, mines and mills.

His attempts to improve Alabama's educational systems did not provide sufficiently for African-American children. Although literacy rates for whites increased during his tenure as governor, his administration achieved little for blacks. The White Democratic legislature consistently underfunded African-American education.

Comer was successful in turning back the peonage investigation. The use of convict lease labor continued to provide incentives to police and local officials to entrap, convict and lease African Americans as laborers.

Numerous institutions and places were named for Comer:

• B.B. Comer Memorial High School, B.B. Comer Memorial Elementary School, and B.B. Comer Memorial Library, all in Sylacauga, once home to one of Avondale’s largest mills.
• B.B. Comer Hall at the University of Alabama houses the Department of Modern Languages.
• The federal building in Birmingham.
• Braxton Bragg Comer Hall at Auburn University houses offices and labs for the School of Agriculture.
• BB Comer Bridge in Scottsboro, Alabama.