The mayor of Carbon Hill, a town about an hour north of the University of Alabama, submitted his resignation letter after criticizing the powerful video by the Crimson Tide soccer team that speaks out against racism.
Mark Chambers submitted his resignation to the town secretary on Saturday, Mountain Eagle reported. Written on a blank piece of paper, it said: “I resigned as mayor from June 27 at 4:30 pm.” A special city council meeting was called for Wednesday in the city of about 2,000 people.
The move comes after Chambers made a controversial Facebook post criticizing the Alabama football team and its support for Black Lives Matter. He posted it on a private page, but the screenshots were widely shared.
Via AL.com:
Chambers’ initial post read: “I have several Alabama pictures for sale Nick Sabin (sic) and the tide is out in my opinion, I’ll post them tomorrow.” When one person commented, “I think you may be right, they haven’t looked so good in recent years,” Chambers replied, “I’m not going to get rid of them because of their performance. They regret it: political views are the reason. why (sic) they leave my house “. In response to another comment, Chambers wrote: “When you put black lives before all lives, they can kiss me a …”.
The Alabama soccer program released a video Thursday speaking out against racism and calling for unity. The script was written by offensive tackle Alex Leatherwood and includes head coach Nick Saban and several star players.
The two-minute video concludes with the players repeating “Black Lives Matter”. The words “All lives cannot matter until black lives matter” on a black background end the clip.
Chambers has been controversial before. A year ago he made online comments about “killing” gay and transgender people, complaining about “baby killers” and “socialists.” At first he denied the comment, then he apologized. Two of the five city council members reportedly resigned out of shame for being associated with Chambers and the comments.
After the 2019 incident, he said he planned to run for reelection. The qualification period to apply at Carbon Hill begins on July 7 with elections scheduled for August 25. The six-person board is already up against a council member, who is in jail on a murder charge.
An Alabama mayor resigned after critical comments about the Crimson Tide video on racism and unity. (AP Photo / Richard Shiro)
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