All was sweetness and light Monday morning at a ceremonial ribbon-cutting for Mobile’s wider, deeper ship channel – at least until U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures took his turn at the podium.
An impressive array of local, state and national elected officials past and present were on hand, not to mention business executives, port leaders and even an assistant secretary of the Army. Former Sen. Richard Shelby was repeatedly showered with tributes and ovations, described as the visionary who’d seen the need for the project and then brought home much of the money to pay for it.
Figures took a slightly different tack. “I’m actually going to break protocol a little bit,” he said as the took the mic. “Talk about something that is little bit contentious, something that’s sensitive to a number of people, something that’s quite honestly a divisive issue…