Alabama

The Little River, which flows down the middle of Lookout Mountain in northeast Alabama, is the nation's longest mountaintop river.

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The state of Alabama has been the scene of several defining moments in the history of the United States, from the American Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement, and it has produced some remarkable Americans, including educator and reformer Booker T. Washington, sprinter Jesse Owens, boxer Joe Louis, and singers Hank Williams, Tammy Wynette, and Nat King Cole. Today, it is a major center for the United States Armed Forces and NASA.

Stormy Weather

Alabama is situated in the Deep South, bordered by the Appalachian Mountains in the north and the Gulf of Mexico and Florida in the south. The wide Tennessee River runs like a main artery across the northwest, while much of the state consists of broad plains that are ideal for agriculture.

Alabama became the 22nd state to enter the Union in 1819, just over a century after the French brothers Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville founded the state’s first European settlement at Old Mobile in 1702. Many of the state’s place names are of Native American languages origin, including the name “Alabama,” which is believed to derive from a word meaning “thicket clearers.”

Civil Rights

By the time Alabama was readmitted to the Union in 1868, its population had grown from 128,000 half a century earlier to one million, about half of whom were Black Americans. This racial divide created tensions that would take nearly a century to address. The Civil Rights Movement, which began many of its most significant campaigns in Alabama, won important victories in establishing racial equality and outlawing segregation.

Although slavery was abolished after the American Civil War, Black people in Alabama continued to endure severe racial discrimination. They were denied the right to vote or serve on juries, and it was not uncommon for Black men accused of capital crimes to be lynched before receiving a trial. In 1931, the famous trial of the Scottsboro Boys trial, nine Black teenagers accused of raping two white women on a train, brought national attention to these injustices. The case, named after the town of Scottsboro where the boys were first imprisoned, helped pave the way for the end of all-white juries following intervention by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Cradle of the Civil Rights Movement

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a Black seamstress from Montgomery, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger. The incident became a defining moment in the Civil Rights Movement and caught the attention of Martin Luther King Jr., who helped organize the Montgomery bus boycott in protest against segregation on the city’s buses.

Helen Keller

One of the most remarkable people from Alabama was Helen Keller, the deaf-blind woman who learned to speak several languages and to read and write using Braille. Keller lost both her sight and hearing after an illness contracted at just 19 months old. She developed her extraordinary ability to communicate through the dedication and guidance of Anne Sullivan, her teacher and lifelong companion, with whom she traveled around the world.

Statehood

December 14, 1819

Fun Facts

Alabama was the first state in the nation to officially recognized Christmas as a legal holiday, doing so in 1836.

The world’s first 911 call was placed on February 16, 1968 in the town of Haleyville, AL.

At about 300,000 words and over 900 amendments, Alabama has the longest and most frequently amended Constitution in the world.

The first Mardi Gras celebration in the United States took place in Mobile in 1703.