Bill Baxley

Who is Bill Baxley?

William Joseph Baxley, II, is an American Democratic politician and attorney originally from Dothan, Alabama.

In 1964, Baxley graduated from the University of Alabama School of Law in Tuscaloosa. He served two terms from 1971 to 1979 as Attorney General of Alabama. At the age of twenty-seven, he was the youngest person in U.S. history to hold a state attorney generalship. From 1983 to 1987, he served a single term as the 24th Lieutenant Governor of Alabama. During his time in politics, Baxley aggressively prosecuted industrial polluters, strip miners, and corrupt elected officials. He appointed the state's first African American assistant attorney general, Myron Thompson, who later became a U.S. District Judge.

Baxley incurred the wrath of the Ku Klux Klan when he reopened the case of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. In a letter, the Klan threatened him, compared him to John F. Kennedy, and made him an "honorary n*gger," but Baxley responded, on official state letterhead: "My response to your letter of February 19, 1976, is—kiss my ass."