Glenn Feldman UA Press.jpg
UAB history professor Glenn Feldman put exhaustive research into 11 books on Southern history. He died on Oct. 19. He was 53.
(University of Alabama Press)
Southern historian Glenn Feldman wrote 11 books that made him one of the most serious scholars on race and politics in the South.
He was also a light-hearted joker who kept people laughing, while building close family, professional and church relationships that inspired thousands of friends and students.
Feldman, a professor of history at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he had taught since 1996, died Oct. 19 of a heart attack. He was 53.
Feldman was the premier scholar of this generation on race and politics in the 20th Century South, said retired history professor Wayne Flynt of Auburn University, where Feldman earned his Ph.D.
"He's done more on that than anyone else," Flynt said. "He was the most productive Ph.D. of the 26 I taught. He was exhaustive in terms of research. His doctoral dissertation started at 1,000 pages. I tried to get him to pare it down. Of course, He would dig in his heels and resist authority. His capacity to push back was priceless."
Flynt still wears a modest gray windbreaker that Feldman gave him two decades ago when he was a graduate student on a tight budget. "He was enormously generous and kind," Flynt said. "He was always promoting younger peoples' careers."
Feldman's wife, Jeannie, teaches on the staff at All Saints' Episcopal Church. His daughters, Rebecca and Hallie, spoke Friday at his funeral.
"There was not a day that went by without him making me feel loved and that's the kind of parent I want to be," Hallie said.
Rebecca said he was like "an abandoned puppy; he was so sensitive. He loved making new friends, at the grocery store, on the street. He loved messing with his friends. He would tell you something outrageous and see if you believed it."
Feldman's pranks included putting on dark glasses on at the optometrist's office, then stumbling around, saying, "I can't see! A simple appointment, and I'm blind," brother Danny Feldman recalled.
He once dispersed a line at the mall by grabbing a public address system in a department store and announcing that $60 handbags were on sale for $19.99, brother Rich Feldman recalled.
In books such as "The Irony of the Old South" and "Politics, Society and the Klan in Alabama," Glenn Feldman often challenged traditional scholarly interpretations.
In books such as "The Irony of the Old South" and "Politics, Society and the Klan in Alabama," the more serious Feldman often challenged traditional scholarly interpretations.
He challenged the idea of an enlightened period in Alabama when progressivism flourished due to high union membership.
"Glenn took the contrarian view that the South was never liberal," Flynt said. "Even when it tried to be progressive, it was not, in all kinds of ways."
He challenged the traditional historical view of three different periods of the Ku Klux Klan that had different motivations and tactics.
"Even if in ideology it morphed, it was always violent, always dedicated to the proposition that its members did not want to live in a place that was not like them," Flynt said. "He argued that the basic thrust of right-wing politics was always to force anybody different than us to leave. In Glenn's view, the Klan was always there beneath the veneer. He very shrewdly argued against putting rouge on a corpse of Southern racism."
Aside from historical scholarship, his greatest contributions were in living a full life devoted to teaching and loving others, family and friends said. "He teased and told stories and shared wisdom and insight," said the Rev. Glenda Curry, rector of All Saints' Episcopal Church.
His father was a Brooklyn Jew; his mother was a Catholic from Lima, Peru. Feldman was raised Catholic and attended Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Homewood, where he was a parish council member, before moving down the street to become an active member at All Saints' Episcopal Church. He continued to pray the divine mercy devotion every day at 3 p.m., including the last day of his life, when he prayed it with his mother, Danny said.
"He always helped people; he was a family man," Rich Feldman said. "He had great accomplishments, but was very humble."