Do you know about Ernestine Cromwell?

As published on salvationsouth.com

Outside the fifth-floor elevators at the Alabama State House of Representatives in Montgomery, a white-haired man wearing a seersucker suit with a bowtie walks past a petite woman talking to a group of visitors.

“Holdin’ court again, I see, guv’nor,” he says to Ernestine Crowell, as she stands in front of the information desk where she’s been stationed for the past 40 years.

Crowell is the authority, the go-to person for the inner workings of the Alabama State House. Crowell started her job as the legislative receptionist at the Alabama State House during the early 1980s when Fob James, who campaigned as “a born-again Democrat,” was governor. Since then, Crowell has worked through eight administrations. Most recently, she has served under Kay Ivey, who became governor in 2017 after Robert Bentley resigned owing to a sex scandal involving a political aide.

All of the 105 representatives have their own secretaries, but all incoming calls and messages are first routed through Crowell. Over the years, Crowell has made it her mission to help every constituent who calls with a problem, doing her best to connect folks to the help they need.

“I’ve seen everything,” she says. “Each day is different. There’s never a dull moment.”

When Republicans swept the house in 2010, Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard advised each new member not to leave the building before meeting Crowell. As she met the nervous freshman, she informed each one of them, “I’m here to help you. I work for you. But I need your name, your phone number, and your spouse’s phone number, because if you get out of line, I will kick your butt and call your wife.” (To this day, women hold only 18 of the 105 house seats.)

“I will go to bat for them, but they know not to mess with me, and I don’t let them forget it. I’m a militant black woman.”

Crowell calls the representatives “my 105 fourth graders” because they remind her of the fourth-grade students who tour the statehouse every school year.

Freshman politicians quickly learn Crowell is indispensable and not to be trifled with.

“I will go to bat for them, but they know not to mess with me, and I don’t let them forget it,” she says. “I’m a militant black woman.”

She delivers the same message to all the men and women who represent the 105 districts across Alabama: “I’m your go-to person for your constituents. You don’t want to ever make me angry because I talk to your constituents before you do. And if I’m angry at you, I’m going say to them, ‘Well, you know he’s elected, but I’ve never seen him since he’s always out.’”

Even seasoned politicians tread lightly around Crowell. She tells about the time early in her career when she took a message and gave it to Jimmy Holley, who will soon retire after more than 40 years in the Alabama legislature. He immediately tossed it back at her and said, “That’s not me.”

She bristled. “How the hell am I supposed to know?” she asked him. “All you white people look alike.”

At countless social gatherings after that, Holley regaled his audience with this story. One day, his wife called to tell Crowell that she couldn’t bear another minute if her husband repeated that story one more time.

Crowell loves to harass people, and when I arrived to interview her and told the security guard I was visiting Ms. Crowell, he asked, “Do you know about Ernestine Crowell?” He was concerned I might not be prepared for what I was about to encounter.

At Crowell’s desk, photographs from the constituents she's helped cover the wall beside her, and a wooden gavel engraved with “Attitude Adjuster” sits close by. One time, when an uptight lobbyist who was accompanying the new president of Auburn University tried to walk past her desk without saying hello, she stopped them and introduced herself. She let the new Auburn president know, “If you do a good job, I will call and check on you.” She demanded his business card, and a few months later, she called him. He answered the phone, laughing delightedly. To this day, they are friends.

Answering the phone at the information desk may sound like a simple job, but most often Crowell’s responsibility is to assist people in dire straits by navigating, directing, and connecting them to the appropriate services throughout the state. “This state has serious problems, but the people who represent it will get my call and help get it done,” she says. “It’s not like snapping your fingers. You have to work at it.”

Each day when Crowell answers her phone, she’s confronted with every situation imaginable — housing problems, healthcare emergencies, transportation challenges, mental health issues, legal problems, and economic insecurity. When upset constituents call, she does her best to handle whatever need or crisis is facing them.

When a disabled veteran called — cold, hungry and homeless, living above a boat repair shop — she immediately enlisted the vast network of contacts and lobbyists she often relies on. She doesn’t quit until she’s figured out a solution, no matter how difficult. Here, she found the veteran shelter and medical care, and eventually reunited him with his daughter in Georgia.

Since she deals with a fair number of senior citizens struggling with Medicaid issues, she has a particular source for Medicaid help, Henry Davis, the director of the Alabama Medicaid Agency. She and Davis, Crowell says, “are two pit bulls when helping veterans and seniors.” And when a situation demands it, she even places calls to Washington on behalf of constituents.