Dr. Charles Steele Jr., former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and a former Alabama state senator, is urging the developer of a proposed Lowndes County, Alabama, data center to build the facility somewhere else, citing its proximity to ground used by participants in the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march.
In a guest column published July 23 by the Alabama Political Reporter, Steele wrote: “I am not writing to stop economic development that helps Lowndes County. I am writing about half a mile.”
The project, known as Project Red Clay, is being assembled by Houston- and Seattle-based Cloverleaf Infrastructure. Yellowhammer News reported July 24 that the company has assembled more than 800 acres, that the project’s eventual owner and operator have not been publicly identified, and that county commissioners have debated whether to make a tax abatement of up to 30 years available. The report placed the site about half a mile from Campsite 3, where marchers stopped the night of March 23, 1965, on land owned by a Black farmer named Robert Gardner. The campsite was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2023.
He said his objection is to the location, not the project. “I am not asking anyone to leave a dollar on the table,” he wrote. “Alabama has land, and a great deal of it sits nowhere near this highway. Build it there. Hire Lowndes County people to pour the concrete and pull the wire.”
He closed: “You can build the future anywhere. You only get to lose the past one time.”
Steele’s full column: https://www.alreporter.com/2026/07/23/opinion-build-it-just-not-there/
Additional reporting by Yellowhammer News: https://yellowhammernews.com/mystery-data-center-could-receive-30-year-tax-break-beside-sacred-selma-march-ground/
The Lowndes County Commission is scheduled to meet July 27.
About Dr. Charles Steele Jr.
Dr. Charles Steele Jr. is former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and a former Alabama state senator from Tuscaloosa.
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Company Name: Charles Steele, Jr ·
Contact Person: Charles Steele
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City: Lowndes County
State: AL
Country: United States
Website: https://nationalsclc.org/about-us/president-emeritus/
