Alex Leatherwood isn’t one for the limelight. The senior has managed to duck cameras for the majority of his college career and is perfectly content with the lack of attention that comes with playing offensive line.
However, this summer Leatherwood’s voice was the loudest on Alabama’s football team. The senior wrote an essay calling for social justice which was then read out by him, his teammates and head coach during a video posted by the team on June 25.
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Wednesday, Leatherwood addressed local media for the first time since delivering his message, describing the creative process that inspired the essay.
“It was almost like it came to me out of nowhere,” Leatherwood said. “I’m by no means a writer or anything like that because I’m very math-minded, left-brain, you know what I mean. But I felt like it’s just something that came to me, and I felt like… I’m not really an outspoken person, but I felt like those thoughts and those feelings that I had toward the situation needed to be heard.”
Leatherwood’s message was delivered in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement following the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Both Saban and Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne spoke out against racial injustice. However, it was Leatherwood’s message that perhaps held the most weight.
“Just seeing this past summer, all the things that were going on and taking place, it was just very disheartening,” Leatherwood said. “I felt like us being who we are and us having this platform, I felt like it was a great opportunity to be a voice for my people.”
Leatherwood said Alabama players feel the same way about that video today. That especially holds true after the officer-involved shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin.
“Of course it’s been discussed around the team and stuff like that,” Leatherwood said. “But, I mean it’s like I said earlier, we feel the same way as we did a few months ago when we put out the video… We don’t feel good about that kind of stuff. We don’t like to see it. It shouldn’t be normal to be seeing that stuff every few weeks, every month or so. It’s not good.”
