Alabama’s Blood Money: Football, Prisons, and the Price of a Child’s Future

Alabama’s Blood Money: Football, Prisons, and the Price of a Child’s Future

By Joni N Johnson – The Grim Gavel

I may live in Georgia today, but Alabama runs through my blood.

My mama was from Clay County. My daddy was from Randolph County. They lived on Lake Martin when I was conceived. My Social Security number was issued there. My father is buried in Alabama soil, right alongside my brother and my grandparents. My people are there, resting in that red dirt.

By the time I was born, my mama had already made her way to LaGrange, Georgia — strong enough to leave what wasn’t good for her, strong enough to drive herself to the hospital alone when it was time for me to come into this world. Some kind man had to help her inside or I would’ve been born right there in the parking lot. That’s the kind of woman she was. That’s the kind of people I come from.

So when I speak about Alabama’s choices, I’m not speaking as an outsider. I’m speaking as someone tied to that place by blood, by history, and by the memory of the people I love.

The State’s Dirty Priorities

Alabama says it’s broke. Says there’s not enough money to fund schools, pay teachers well, or fix crumbling classrooms. But there’s money — oh, there’s money.

There’s $1 billion for the shiny new Kay Ivey Correctional Complex, complete with its death chamber, ready to churn out nitrogen suffocations like a well-oiled machine. There’s $826.7 million in the Department of Corrections budget — an 84% increase since 2018.

But you go into an Alabama classroom and you’ll find teachers scraping by on $43,000 to $55,000 a year, trying to hold onto their jobs while coaching football is treated like gold. You’ll see textbooks that are decades old. You’ll see kids set up to fail before they even get the chance to dream.

And while those teachers struggle?The University of Alabama’s athletics department spends $262.8 million a year — with coaches pulling seven-figure salaries. Nick Saban (before retirement) made $11.4 million annually, while some assistant coaches brought in over $2 million.

The highest-paid public employee in Alabama wasn’t a teacher.

It wasn’t a doctor.

It wasn’t anyone whose work saves lives or shapes the next generation. It was the football coach.

Where’s the Justice in That?

Alabama spends about $13,461 per student in K–12 education — which sounds decent until you realize that puts the state 39th in the nation, falling $4,009 below the national average. They got an ‘F’ grade in funding fairness between rich and poor districts.

You can’t tell me Alabama is too broke for its kids while it’s pouring money into prisons and paying coaches like kings.

This isn’t a funding problem.

This is a values problem.

The Real Cost of Blood Money

Alabama is quick to tell you it’s tough on crime. Quick to crank up the nitrogen gas and kill another human being. But ask them to pay their teachers better, or to give those same condemned men and women access to decent legal defense or mental health care? Suddenly, the wallet slams shut.

The state’s leaders don’t care about justice. They care about power. They care about control. They care about punishment — especially if it makes them look “tough” to their voters.

But here's the truth they don’t want to face:You can’t call yourself pro-life while you’re building death chambers. You can’t say you care about the future while you starve the schools and fatten the prisons. You can’t tell me about law and order while your state helps Louisiana set up suffocation chambers that echo the darkest chapters of history.

I’m not here to make anyone comfortable.I’m here to say the hard things.And I’m not going anywhere.

Because my people are in that dirt. And I owe it to them — and to every child still stuck in this rigged system — to speak the truth.

This is The Grim Gavel. And this is just the beginning.