The symbol of the black panther was an export from Alabama. That's right. It didn't come from the streets of Oakland but from the struggle for freedom in the rural south. Alabama to be precise where the cat was once common and eventually became a symbol on ballots during the voting rights drive in Lowndes. That is just one of the remarkable stories in Hasan Kwame Jeffries' new book, Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama?s Black Belt. A professor of history at Ohio State University, Jeffries discusses the legacy of the African-American struggle for freedom and the roots of the civil rights movement, which he traces back to the moment of emancipation. Less