Southern Company CEO Chris Womack ‘deeply honored’ by Alabama’s Black Belt Community Foundation recognition
Black Belt Community Foundation President Felecia Lucky presents a special quilt from the famous Gee’s Bend quilters to Southern Company CEO Chris Womack. (Amarr Croskey / Alabama News Center)
For its milestone 20th year, the Black Belt Community Foundation (BBCF) recognized Chris Womack, a native of Greenville in Alabama’s Black Belt, and the Southern Company CEO called it one of his top honors.
“I am deeply honored to be here,” Womack told those gathered earlier this month at Birmingham’s Harbert Center for the 2024 Black Belt Legacy Dinner. “I have been blessed in my life to get a number of honors and recognitions. I have to say to you that this one rises to the top because the work of the Black Belt Community Foundation is very near and dear to my heart.”
For the past 20 years BBCF has worked to meet the real needs in the Black Belt.
From saving a local Head Start program from federal takeover to establishing programs during the pandemic to getting maximum participation in the 2020 Census, BBCF has worked for the betterment of the 12-county region. BBCF has parlayed millions of dollars in grants to support myriad initiatives including storm shelters, tornado relief, arts and culture, affordable housing, racial equity programs, civic engagement, capacity building, food distribution, pandemic relief and early childhood education.
“I want to say a special thank you to those of you who worked with us side by side to be able to bring a son of the Black Belt home,” BBCF President Felecia Lucky said of Womack.
Womack outlined the challenges he experienced growing up in Greenville in the 1950s and ’60s and how his mother taught him to meet challenges with love and determination.
“I always loved Alabama,” Womack said. “I always had this deep care and compassion and belief that Alabama could be all it could be. So I always had this desire to come back after I finished school. I came back and my mother wanted me to be a teacher. So I spent three days as a substitute teacher. And I said, ‘this ain’t for me.’”
That would lead Womack to Washington, D.C., where he would work on Capitol Hill as legislative aide for former Congressman Leon Panetta and as staff director for the Subcommittee on Personnel and Police for the Committee on House Administration.
And there was always this incredible interest about getting back home and seeing what life was like to live and work in Alabama,” Womack said. “And so I decided to come to Birmingham once again. Not sure what I was going to do. Once again, stepping out on faith.”
That would lead Womack to Alabama Power, where he would serve in a number of positions before eventually becoming the chairman, president and CEO of Georgia Power, Alabama Power’s sister company under parent Southern Company. He became chairman, president and CEO of Southern Company in January, following the retirement of Tom Fanning.
While at first glance there might not be much similarity between Southern Company and BBCF, Womack offered a comparison.
“I was so proud of our company when we built the first new nuclear plant in this country in over 30 years,” Womack said. “We faced incredible challenges. We have demonstrated we can do hard things.”
The Black Belt, too, has faced challenges, he said.
“It was relegated to just not getting things done. Relegated to conditions that had existed for far too long,” Womack said. “But when you bring people together, when you look beyond your own individual limitations and we commit ourselves and guess what? We are in this life not to make a living, as Denzel Washington says. We’re in this life to do what? To make a difference.
“And so as we come together as the great people that we are in this great sense of humanity in this great world in this great country that we’re blessed to be a part of,” he added, “to say, yes, we can do hard things. We can make a difference.”
Lucky noted that the Black Belt’s best days are ahead.
“I often say can anything good come out of the Black Belt? Do we not have exhibit A with Chris Womack? Something good can come out of the Black Belt of Alabama,” she said. “Just looking across this room, there is so much good that has come out of the Black Belt region of Alabama. Under invested in, under resourced, good has still come out of the Black Belt of Alabama.”
With support of major organizations like the Ford Foundation, F.B. Heron Foundation and the Alabama Power Foundation, BBCF is looking to do more.
“Can you imagine if good came out with a little, what happens when we have a lot? I told people I’m so sick of taking a little and making a lot. That is so old right now. In case you didn’t know, it is overrated,” Luck said. “We are done doing that. It is now time for us to take a lot and do a lot.”
Womack encouraged that sort of determination.
“The moral of the story is we’ve got a lot of work to do. We’ve got a lot of challenges to face,” he said. “We have a lot of opportunities in front of us and the only way we’re going to get there, the only way we’re going to overcome and achieve what we ultimately want to accomplish is each and every one of us working together. But also knowing that we can do this. We can do this. We can get things done. And not accepting status quo. Not accepting the way things always have been because they don’t have to be that way. But the only way it changes is by we the people.”
