Kathy Stiles Freeland

Kathy Stiles Freeland

Kathy Stiles Freeland is a leading environmental voice in Alabama. She served as executive director of Ruffner Mountain Nature Center and the Alabama Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. She also has worked with Conservation Alabama and the Birmingham Audubon Society. She was born in 1948 in a house on Warrior Road in western Birmingham and now lives in the Birmingham neighborhood of South East Lake. She has lived in various areas of Birmingham all her life except from 1955-57 when her family lived in Japan on an Army base. She was graduated in the class of 1966 from John Herbert Phillips High School.

Inspired by Kennedy’s call to public service

50 years ago today I was a sophomore at Phillips High School in Birmingham and in class when we were told President Kennedy had been shot and later died. I went numb with shock and fear. Our leader was gone. What would happen next? What I remember most vividly was how sickened I was that some of my classmates actually cheered. I had been inspired by his call to public service but others hated him for what was going on in Birmingham regarding desegregation. An ugliness I would have to deal with most of my life growing up in Birmingham was revealed as its most evil self in those cheers.