Junior High Students on UA/Stillman Campuses for Figures Leadership Experience

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – More than 100 students from eight counties in Alabama, primarily around the Mobile, Montgomery, Birmingham and Tuscaloosa areas, have converged on the University of Alabama and Stillman College campuses to learn leadership in the Michael A. Figures Leadership Experience. The group will conclude with a luncheon on Wednesday, July 24.

The Michael A. Figures Leadership Experience is named in honor of the late State Senator Michael A. Figures (D-Mobile), and is a three-day series of seminars designed to develop leadership skills in young people who demonstrate the capacity for leadership, but have not yet held leadership roles. Participants are incoming ninth graders who were initially selected by their school counselors before going through an additional interview process.

The group kicked off Sunday morning with seminars on etiquette, volunteerism and citizenship. Monday’s program features moot court sessions with Judge John England at the UA Law School before the group heads to Birmingham to the Civil Rights Institute for a tour and seminar on politics with State Senator Charles Steele. On Tuesday, an egg drop will force the participants to quickly decide how to come to a team decision on what will be the best course of action. The egg drop will take place at Stillman College’s Wynn Center from 1:45-2:45 p.m. and again from 3-4 p.m.

Vivian Davis Figures (D-Mobile), the widow of Michael A. Figures, will be present during the program to share her late husband’s vision and his 3 B’s: Be prepared; Be there; and Be on time. The late Figures believed that while some rare individuals may be born leaders, most become leaders through a commitment to personal growth that includes building strength of character, embracing high moral and spiritual values and acquiring knowledge through education.

Figures was a five-term senator who died in Mobile on Sept. 13, 1996, of a brain hemorrhage. The 49-year-old legislative leader was only the third African American to serve in the state senate. Figures was a Mobile attorney and was widely recognized as a skilled debater whose passionate oratory helped him have an extremely successful political career. He worked to involve the African American community in the political process in the aftermath of the Civil Rights era.

In the 1980s, Figures was the attorney in a lawsuit against two Ku Klux Klan members convicted in the 1981 lynching of Michael Donald in Mobile. A jury returned a $7 million judgment that bankrupted the United Klans of America. In 1995, Figures was elected Senate president pro tem. He was known for his ability to resolve conflict rather than champion it. At the time of his death it was widely thought both inside the state of Alabama and in Washington, D.C., that Figures had a long and successful political career ahead of him.