By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on March 25, 2024
My departure from the Montgomery City Council in 1983 was hailed by longtime Montgomery Mayor and former Alabama Republican Party chairman Emory Folmar as "one of the greatest blessings since the Yankee troops went home in 1870.”
After a California federal judge ended all proceedings in my criminal case 4 years early on March 21, 2024, the forces that opposed my business success in Alabama echoed the same words used by Mayor Folmar after noting my relocation to California.
Today, Alabama has scores of black elected and appointed officials who are sworn to advance and protect the educational, economic, political, civil, and social justice rights of their political constituents. I will let the people they serve decide their usefulness.
The state also has a large number of digital media platforms that focus on news for the state’s black community. Whether these platforms are reporting a sedative of non-threatening "happy news" or a heavy dose of paradigm-shifting investigative reports is for their readers, listeners, and viewers to decide.
With the political and media resources available to Alabama's black communities, this is the perfect time for me to leave the frontlines of the never-ending battle for civil rights in the state and focus on advancing and protecting my business interests in the United States and abroad.
I owe this shift in priorities to the Watkins family, which has always loved and supported me on an unconditional and all encompassing basis.
Once in a Lifetime Business Opportunities
In Namibia, the oil and gas exploration company I co-founded with Olayinka Arowolo in 2011 is focusing on implementing the geotechnical work program required to extract 522 million barrels of “unrisked” recoverable Brent crude oil and 583 billion cubic feet of “unrisked” methane natural gas from our assigned oil block in the Walvis Bay on a non-farm out basis.
In South Africa, my project development team is securing the key vendors and $300 million in financing needed to successfully launch our first commercial-scale waste-to-fuel facility. The facility will be located in the Durban/Mandeni region. The second and third waste-to-fuel facilities are slated for Tangiers and Casablanca, Morocco.
In the United States, my project development team is presenting the innovative Dake Rechsand desert farming technology to Native-American tribes in the Southwest.
Personal Interests
On a personal note, I am readying myself to file a new application as a majority owner of an NFL team. I came very close to getting majority ownership of an NFL team in 2009. I am better prepared for success this time around.
I am also working to have a significant voice in who will become the 47th president of the United States. My friendship circle of Independent voters in California is ready, willing, and able to support the candidate of our choice in a major and sophisticated way.
On May 11, 2020, I was featured in the "King Richard" episode of the "Trial by Media" documentary series airing on Netflix. However, I did not produce this documentary. I plan on co-producing my next two documentaries for Netflix.
Everything is moving in a positive direction. The people in my inner circle today are relatively young, exceptionally gifted, goal-oriented, and super-smart. They generate positive energy around me every day.
My health, energy level, passion, and overall environment are pretty good.
The nay-sayers, backstabbers, and saboteurs who used to occupy time and space in my life are rapidly becoming a distant memory.
God has pruned my garden of life of all snakes and weeds and has given me an exciting future.
Finally, I kept my May 1973 personal commitment to Mr. Ramus Rhodes every day of the 46 years I practiced law. I never forgot or betrayed the people he trained me to fight for.
