Friday night more than 1,000 people gathered at Boutwell Auditorium for a prayer rally hosted by Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford.
At the arena entrance, ministers greeted visitors with sackcloths and ashes. The voice of James Earl Jones reading from Revelation boomed through the auditorium speakers. Above the crowd, two wide white banners hung from the ceiling. Each read, “A world without Jesus is a mess waiting to happen - Mayor Larry P. Langford.”
On either side of the stage, two projector screens displayed the Birmingham skyline with the message “A city not forsaken.” On those screens, the event began with an animated film of the last supper, crucifixion and resurrection.
Langford took the stage with a group from Indiana who had come to Birmingham to take part in the event. True to his word, Langford traded in his Gus Mayer suits for a burlap sack, although he did still wear a Rolex watch and designer shoes.
“The only reason he is here is because God put him here,” T. L. Lewis, pastor of Bethel Baptist Church, said of Mayor Langford at the end of a lengthy and raucous sermon. Lewis told the crowd not to tolerate “journalistic terrorism” and said that no one could harm Langford because God was protecting him.
Langford closed the event, drawing largely on his stock of political boilerplate.
“What in hell do you want?” Langford asked the crowd, a line he uses frequently. “There has got to be something in hell we want because we are fighting so hard to get there.”
Mayor Langford called the event because of rising crime in Birmingham. The city’s murder rate is out-pacing 2007 by more than 40 percent.
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Sackcloth and Ashes Highlights
Sackcloth and Ashes Finale Part One
Sackcloth and Ashes Finale Part Two
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April 26th, 2008 at 7:32 am
What a complete muppet! Only in the United States of Jesus…
April 26th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Hard to believe we live in the 21st century. What an idiot!
April 26th, 2008 at 8:54 am
First the governor of Georgia asks his citizens to perform a rain dance, now the mayor of Birmingham has people dress up in cheap Halloween costumes to fight crime. Please tell me not all southerners are superstitious fools; that some of you realize that magic doesn’t work.
Or does Langford think that criminals will be too busy laughing at him to commit crimes?
April 26th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Out in California, we use burlap sacks to hold our catch on the sportfishing boats.
But then, we’re kind of edging into the 21st century here. Egad…burlap, ashes and a Rolex??? That mayor made a complete ash of himself! Come up to present time, you second-century idiots! You think Gangsta Flash and his crew is gonna stop committing crimes because you douse your head in ashes and wear fish sacks?
Amazing…simply amazing!
April 26th, 2008 at 11:13 am
What do you call a thousand insane people gathered in one location?
A church.
April 26th, 2008 at 11:17 am
what nonsense. i just hope the crime rate starts decreasing before they start sacrificing goats to appease their master in the sky.
April 26th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
You dont really expect him to take off his ROLEX do you ?
There are some things even a pretend christian will not do.
April 26th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
I live in a little redneck villa just outside Birmingham called Leeds, and I am an atheist, but I’m not alone, not even here. My input is simply that people like Langford are the one’s who give the south a bad rep. We’renot all loony toons down here. Personally I strongly disdain anybody of faith (though it should be known I’m not a big fan of Richard Dawkins either, he seems far to supercilious and pompous for my taste). Langrford was not voted for, yet simply the other guy was voted against, that and his promise to build what has been dubbed the “The Larry Dome.” He’s not the worst, but what makes this so apalling is that he is playing the cards dealt by the hand of religion and faith in an attempt to solve my city’s crime problem. I don’t believe him to be a charlatan thogh, I’ve met met before and he seems to enjoy taking pride in his obnoxiousness of credulity, as well as his stern sense of stupidty. He’s a very loud person, and forcefuly offers you your own acceptence. And he hasn’t, from as far as I could tell, a sred of intelligence, though I highly doubt any of you are oblivious to that fact.
April 27th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Speechless that such idiocy and delusion gets to appear in public. Somebody please shut down this zombie death cult.
April 28th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Why did people vote him in to office? What was wrong with Cooper that Birmingham could not vote for the more intelligent of the two.
Birmingham will never prosper so long as they continue to vote in people that have done no good for the city or state.