Spat Gives Alabama Senate Black Eye

In this image from video, Alabama Sen. Charles Bishop, R-Jasper, right, punches Democratic Sen. Lowell Barron of Fyffe, left, on the floor of the Senate, Thursday, June 7, 2007, at the Statehouse in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Alabama Public Television, Adam Vincent) (Adam Vincent - AP)

Windom, now a lobbyist, declined to discuss the Senate's latest incident.

Black said the punch reinforces images of rural Southerners settling differences with their fists. Alabama still struggles with negative images created during the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

"For a lot of people, their image of Alabama is stuck in 1965," said David Lanoue, chairman of the political science department at the University of Alabama. "When something like this happens, it plays into their image of Alabama."

Lanoue said both incidents caused the state great embarrassment, but noted one major difference with the latest one.

"The difference is we have the video and we are in the age of YouTube," he said.

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Associated Press writer Bob Johnson contributed to this report.

(This version corrects spelling of 'Emory University.'. AP Video.)