Anti-Murphy Protests Plague Alabama Historical Association Conference

 

Not since the late 1980s, when the head of the Muscle Shoals Regional Library System was ousted, have citizens been so polarized about a government employee. This week the animosity toward Florence's Pope's Tavern director Brian Murphy boiled over into the annual Alabama Historical Association meeting in a very public way. This is obviously not the image the City of Florence wished to project to the visiting dignitaries.

Murphy himself was scheduled to be one of the speakers at the annual conference. Perhaps his topic of choice, the reimaging of Pope's Tavern, was not the best theme if the city wished to avoid any more protests over the director's job performance? We know that morals clauses are passe'; however, we feel public employees should have certain restraint when dealing with the citizens.

Perhaps it's time to discuss the "State of Pope's Tavern?" Just what was the museum's role in the city when it was inaugurated sixty years ago and what is it now? Is Murphy's vision of the museum innovative or revisionist?

We'll be presenting the second part in this series in days to come.