Racial Reckoning: Will Southern Company’s Institutional Investors Terminate Balch?
Now is the time for institutional investors to bring an end to institutional racism.
The conviction of Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd is the first step in the fight for justice and equality, and against systemic racism in law enforcement.
While America let a sigh of relief that justice had been served, the fight against inequality, racism, and the abuse of People of Color has only just begun.
Southern Company, the sister-wife of Balch & Bingham, has funneled millions of dollars to an alleged racist law firm, Balch & Bingham, which among a list of alleged unsavory, racist conduct, refuses to apologize for criminal conduct of a now ex-partner who targeted poor African-American children in North Birmingham as part of a larger, bribery scheme.
Tom Fanning , the CEO and Chairman of Southern Company, (above, left) had his Chief Compliance Officer Jim Kerr (above, center) reach out to us. Kerr had the sheer stupidity to call the suppression of African-Americans in North Birmingham “a hypothesis.”
Kerr refused to acknowledge or accept that the North Birmingham scheme discriminated against poor African-Americans, declaring, “I have no evidence that that is the case that any entity involving my organization or any entity based on the information that I’ve been given that that is the case. Your analogy is unfounded.”
Instead of cutting ties with Balch & Bingham, Southern Company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Alabama Power, continues to utilize the law firm.
Alabama Power’s CEO Mark A. Crosswhite (above, right) is a former Balch partner who appears to refuse to cut ties with the embattled law firm.
Now is the time for institutional investors to bring an end to institutional racism.
No matter what fluff or window dressing Balch does, the undisputed reality is Balch must be terminated, now, today, this very moment.
Institutional investors will be stunned to learn that only 1 percent of Balch partners are people of color and that Balch allegedly tried to “divide and dilute” the African-American vote in 2010, a decade before the new “Jim Crow” voting laws of Georgia were enacted.
A racial reckoning has just begun and Wall Street is listening.
