A Jefferson County judge granted bond to a well-known Birmingham activist charged in connection with a fire deliberately set inside a Homewood Walmart during a Jabari Peoples protest.

The judge, however, also had a message for 40-year-old Mercutio Southall, who is charged with first-degree arson, first-degree criminal mischief, and possession of Psilocybin mushrooms.

“I will say this to you, sir,” Circuit Judge Kechia Davis told Southall, “This is not the way to honor Jabari Peoples. It’s not.”

“Protests that resulted in true change, protests that resulted in you and I enjoying the rights that we have now, they were not violent, they were silent,” Davis said. “This ain’t the way to do it.”

During a 40-minute hearing Wednesday, a Homewood police detective testified to Southall’s all

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