African Americans in Alabama

Last updated
African Americans in Alabama
Total population
1,348,681 [1] (2017)
Regions with significant populations
Bullock County, Dallas County, Greene County, Hale County, Lowndes County, Macon County, Marengo County, Montgomery County, Perry County, Sumter County, and Wilcox County. [2]
Languages
Southern American English, African American English, African American Vernacular English
Religion
Historically Black Protestant [3]
Related ethnic groups
Black Southerners, Alabama Creole people
National African American Archives and Museum in Mobile National African American Archives Mobile.JPG
National African American Archives and Museum in Mobile

African Americans in Alabama or Black Alabamians are residents of the state of Alabama who are of African American ancestry. They have a history in Alabama from the era of slavery through the Civil War, emancipation, the Reconstruction era, resurgence of white supremacy with the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow Laws, the Civil Right movement, into recent decades. According to the 2020 Census, approximately 25.8% of Alabama's population is African American. [4]

Contents

History

African slaves were brought to Alabama during the slave trade. [5]

Business and finance

In 1890, The Penny Savings Bank, the first black-owned and black-operated financial institution in Alabama, was founded by William R. Pettiford. [6] In 1997, the 19,077 businesses owned by black people in Alabama generated around $1 billion in revenue and employed 13,232 people. Businesses owned by black people made up 6.7% of all non-farm businesses in Alabama placing Alabama ninth in the United States for the percentage of black businesses. [7]

In 2010, 15% of white Alabamians, which was 487,100, were in poverty while 37% of black Alabamians were in poverty, which was 457,900. [8] In 2013, the median household income in Alabama was $42,849, the average white household income was $49,465 while the black household income was $29,210. The national median household income was $52,250, the average white household income was $55,867 while the black household income was $34,815. [9]

Entertainment

In 1914, the Lyric Theatre was created in Birmingham, Alabama, and was one of the first places in the American South where black and white people saw the same shows although black people were in an isolated section. [6]

During the time of Negro league baseball the Birmingham Black Barons was organized in 1920. [10]

Population

Historical population
CensusPop.Note%±
1800 517—
1810 2,624407.5%
1820 42,4501,517.8%
1830 119,121180.6%
1840 255,571114.5%
1850 345,10935.0%
1860 437,77026.8%
1870 475,5108.6%
1880 600,10326.2%
1890 678,48913.1%
1900 827,30721.9%
1910 908,2829.8%
1920 900,652−0.8%
1930 944,8344.9%
1940 983,2904.1%
1950 979,617−0.4%
1960 980,2710.1%
1970 903,467−7.8%
1980 996,00010.2%
1990 1,020,6772.5%
2000 1,138,72611.6%
2010 1,251,3119.9%
U.S. Decennial Census [11]
African American family in Alabama -African-American Family at Gee's Bend, Alabama- MET DP212791.jpg
African American family in Alabama

Black slaves arrived in present day Alabama during the late 18th and early 19th century in the Mississippi Territory. At the time of the 1800 Census there were 517 black people in the Alabama portion of the Mississippi Territory, with 494 slaves and 23 free blacks. By the time of the 1810 Census the population of black people had risen to 2,624, with 2,565 slaves and 59 free blacks. [11]

In 1817, the Alabama Territory was formed from the Mississippi Territory and was later admitted as a state in 1819. [12] The 1820 Census showed that the population of black people had increased by 1,517.8% to 42,450, with 41,879 slaves and 571 free blacks. [11]

In 1808, the importation of slaves was banned, but the external importation of slaves would continue with the last slave ship, Clotilda, bringing slaves into Alabama in 1860. [13] The last three survivors of the Atlantic slave trade, Cudjoe Lewis, Redoshi, and Matilda McCrear, were all brought to Alabama. [14] [15]

Politics

Appointed and elected officials

In 1870, Benjamin S. Turner, who was born a slave on March 17, 1825, in Weldon, North Carolina, was elected as Alabama's first black member of the United States House of Representatives. Turner would serve until 1873, as he lost reelection in 1872 due to the black vote being split between himself and independent candidate Philip Joseph allowing Democratic nominee Frederick George Bromberg to win. [16]

In 1870, Jeremiah Haralson, who was born a slave on April 1, 1846, in Columbus, Georgia, was elected as the first black member of the Alabama House of Representatives. [17] [18] In 1868, Benjamin F. Royal was elected as the first black member of the Alabama Senate. [19] In 1970, Fred Gray and Thomas Reed became the first black people elected to the Alabama House of Representatives since the end of Reconstruction. [20] In 1992, Sundra Escott-Russell was elected as the first black female member of the Alabama Senate. [19]

In 1947, Oscar Adams established the first black law firm in Birmingham, Alabama, and was later appointed as the first black justice on the Supreme Court of Alabama. U. W. Clemon, who had aided in the Civil rights movement through lawsuit against discriminatory work practices, was appointed as the first black federal judge in Alabama in 1980. [21]

Adams was appointed to the court by Governor Fob James in 1980, and won election in 1982, making him the first black person to win a statewide office in Alabama. [22]

Andrew Hayden, who was elected as the mayor of Uniontown, Alabama, was the first black person to defeat an incumbent white mayor in Alabama. [23] Richard Arrington Jr., who had served on the Birmingham, Alabama city council from 1971 to 1979, was elected as the city's first black mayor in 1979, and took office in 1980. [21] Steven Reed served as the first black probate judge in Montgomery County, Alabama, and was elected as Montgomery, Alabama's first black mayor in 2019. [24]

Slavery

On December 2, 1865, the Alabama Legislature ratified the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution which abolished slavery. [25]

Voter registration

In 1901, a new state constitution was created for Alabama. When the convention opened John M. Knox, the chairman of the constitutional convention, stated that "[W]hat is it we want to do? Why it is within the limits imposed by the Federal Constitution, to establish white supremacy in this State,". Henry Fontaine Reese, a delegate from Selma, Alabama, stated that "When you pay $1.50 for a poll tax, in Dallas County, I believe you disenfranchise 10 Negroes. Give us this $1.50 for educational purposes and for the disenfranchisement of a vicious and useless class." A poll tax, a literacy test, property requirements, and disqualification for certain criminal convictions were added to the constitution. Following the passage of the constitution black voter registration fell from more than 180,000 in 1900, to less than 3,000 in 1903. [26]

Following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the percentage of black registered voters rose from 13.7% in 1960, to 61.3% by 1969. The highest percentage of voter registration between 1960 and 2004 reached its highest amount with 74.3% in 1998. [27]

Following the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 the United States Department of Justice blocked over one hundred voting policy changes in Alabama from 1969 to 2008, and had over eight hundred changed or withdrawn. [26]

On July 25, 2019, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill announced that 94% of all eligible Alabamians and 96% all of eligible black people in Alabama were registered to vote. [28] However, according to the United States Census Bureau only 69% of all eligible Alabamians and 67.4% of all black people in Alabama were registered to vote. [26]

Education

The Lincoln Normal School was one of the oldest HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities) in the United States, it was opened two years after the American Civil War in 1867 [29] and closed in 1970.

The Burrell Academy was a primary school located in Selma, Alabama, established in 1869. [30] It was the first Black school in the city of Selma, and it burned down in a suspicious fire in 1900. [30] In 1903, the Burrell Academy was rebuilt by the American Missionary Association (A.M.A), which had decided to move the building to Florence, Alabama and rename it the Burrell Normal School. [31]

The Calhoun Colored School, active from 1892 to 1945, was a private boarding and day school for Black students in Calhoun, Lowndes County, Alabama. [32]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alabama</span> U.S. state

Alabama is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama is the 30th largest by area and the 24th-most populous of the 50 U.S. states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Alabama</span>

The history of what is now Alabama stems back thousands of years ago when it was inhabited by indigenous peoples. The Woodland period spanned from around 1000 BCE to 1000 CE and was marked by the development of the Eastern Agricultural Complex. This was followed by the Mississippian culture of Native Americans, which lasted to around the 1600 CE. The first Europeans to make contact with Alabama were the Spanish, with the first permanent European settlement being Mobile, established by the French in 1702.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chilton County, Alabama</span> County in Alabama, United States

Chilton County is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2020 census, the population was 45,014. The county seat is Clanton. Its name is in honor of William Parish Chilton, Sr. (1810–1871), a lawyer who became Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and later represented Montgomery County in the Congress of the Confederate States of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clarke County, Alabama</span> County in Alabama, United States

Clarke County is a county located in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2020 census, the population was 23,087. The county seat is Grove Hill. The county's largest city is Jackson. The county was created by the legislature of the Mississippi Territory in 1812. It is named in honor of General John Clarke of Georgia, who was later elected governor of that state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dallas County, Alabama</span> County in Alabama, United States

Dallas County is a county located in the central part of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2020 census, its population was 38,462. The county seat is Selma. Its name is in honor of United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander J. Dallas, who served from 1814 to 1816.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jefferson County, Alabama</span> County in Alabama, United States

Jefferson County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Alabama, located in the central portion of the state. As of the 2020 census, its population was 674,721. Its county seat is Birmingham. Its rapid growth as an industrial city in the 20th century, based on heavy manufacturing in steel and iron, established its dominance. Jefferson County is the central county of the Birmingham-Hoover, AL Metropolitan Statistical Area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lowndes County, Alabama</span> County in Alabama, United States

Lowndes County is in the central part of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 10,311. Its county seat is Hayneville. The county is named in honor of William Lowndes, a member of the United States Congress from South Carolina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monroe County, Alabama</span> County in Alabama, United States

Monroe County is a county located in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2020 census, the population was 19,772. Its county seat is Monroeville. Its name is in honor of James Monroe, fifth President of the United States. It is a dry county, in which the sale of alcoholic beverages is restricted or prohibited, but Frisco City and Monroeville are wet cities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sumter County, Alabama</span> County in Alabama, United States

Sumter County is a county located in the west central portion of Alabama. At the 2020 census, the population was 12,345. Its county seat is Livingston. Its name is in honor of General Thomas Sumter of South Carolina. The University of West Alabama is in Livingston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilcox County, Alabama</span> County in Alabama, United States

Wilcox County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2020 census, the population was 10,600. Its county seat is Camden.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Selma, Alabama</span> City in Dallas County, Alabama, United States

Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, in the Black Belt region of south central Alabama and extending to the west. Located on the banks of the Alabama River, the city has a population of 17,971 as of the 2020 census. About 80% of the population is African-American.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colony, Alabama</span> Town in Alabama, United States

Colony is a town in Cullman County, Alabama, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 268, down from 385 in 2000. Colony is a historically African-American town. In its early days it was a haven for African Americans in the Deep South. It incorporated in 1981.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brighton, Alabama</span> City in Alabama, United States

Brighton is a city near Birmingham, Alabama, United States and located just east of Hueytown. At the 2020 census, the population was 2,337. It is part of the Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Statistical Area, which in 2010 had a population of about 1,128,047, approximately one-quarter of Alabama's population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haleyville, Alabama</span> City in Alabama, United States

Haleyville is a city in Winston and Marion counties in the U.S. state of Alabama. It incorporated on February 28, 1889. Most of the city is located in Winston County, with a small portion of the western limits entering Marion County. Haleyville was originally named "Davis Cross Roads", having been established at the crossroads of Byler Road and the Illinois Central Railroad. At the 2020 census the population was 4,361, up from 4,173 at the 2010 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marion, Alabama</span> City in Alabama, United States

Marion is a city in and the county seat of Perry County, Alabama, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city is 3,686, up 4.8% over 2000. First known as Muckle Ridge, the city was renamed for a hero of the American Revolution, Francis Marion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emelle, Alabama</span> Town in Alabama, United States

Emelle is a town in Sumter County, Alabama, United States. It was named after the daughters of the man who donated the land for the town. The town was started in the 19th century but not incorporated until 1981. The daughters of the man who donated were named Emma Dial and Ella Dial, so he combined the two names to create Emelle. Emelle was famous for its great cotton. The first mayor of Emelle was James Dailey. He served two terms. The current mayor is Roy Willingham Sr. The population was 32 at the 2020 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Talladega, Alabama</span> City in Alabama, United States

Talladega is the county seat of Talladega County, Alabama, United States. It was incorporated in 1835. At the 2020 census, the population was 15,861. Talladega is approximately 50 miles (80 km) east of one of the state’s largest cities, Birmingham.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Belt (region of Alabama)</span> Region of Alabama originally named for black topsoil

The Black Belt is a region of the U.S. state of Alabama. The term originally referred to the region's rich, black soil, much of it in the soil order Vertisols. The term took on an additional meaning in the 19th century, when the region was developed for cotton plantation agriculture, in which the workers were enslaved African Americans. After the American Civil War, many freedmen stayed in the area as sharecroppers and tenant farmers, continuing to comprise a majority of the population in many of these counties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alabama in the American Civil War</span>

Alabama was central to the Civil War, with the secession convention at Montgomery, the birthplace of the Confederacy, inviting other slaveholding states to form a southern republic, during January–March 1861, and to develop new state constitutions. The 1861 Alabaman constitution granted citizenship to current U.S. residents, but prohibited import duties (tariffs) on foreign goods, limited a standing military, and as a final issue, opposed emancipation by any nation, but urged protection of African-American slaves with trials by jury, and reserved the power to regulate or prohibit the African slave trade. The secession convention invited all slaveholding states to secede, but only 7 Cotton States of the Lower South formed the Confederacy with Alabama, while the majority of slave states were in the Union. Congress had voted to protect the institution of slavery by passing the Corwin Amendment on March 4, 1861, but it was never ratified.

Anthony Dickinson Sayre was an Alabama lawyer and politician who notably served as a state legislator in the Alabama House of Representatives (1890-1893), as the President of the Alabama State Senate (1896-97), and later as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama (1909-1931). Influential in Alabama politics for nearly half-a-century, Sayre is widely regarded by historians as the legal architect who laid the foundation for the state's discriminatory Jim Crow laws.

References

  1. ↑ "Alabama". blackdemographics.com.
  2. ↑ "Black Population Up in Alabama, People Reported as Both Black, White More than Doubles, Census Indicates".
  3. ↑ "Religious Landscape Study".
  4. ↑ ALABAMA: 2020 Census (Selection: Race by ethnicity, Black or African American alone)
  5. ↑ "Slavery".
  6. 1 2 "A Timeline of Birmingham's Black History". Birmingham Times. February 6, 2020. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved August 6, 2020.
  7. ↑ "African American-Owned Business in Alabama Generate $1 Billion in Revenues". The Culverhouse College of Business. August 7, 2019. Archived from the original on August 9, 2020. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  8. ↑ "Poverty in Alabama". Encyclopedia of Alabama . Archived from the original on August 9, 2020. Retrieved August 6, 2020.
  9. ↑ "In Alabama, major income gaps between races, genders". Montgomery Advertiser. September 25, 2014. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved August 6, 2020.
  10. ↑ "The Birmingham Black Barons". Negro Southern League Museum. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved August 6, 2020.
  11. 1 2 3 "Alabama's population: 1800 to the modern era". AL.com. December 28, 2019. Archived from the original on August 5, 2020. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  12. ↑ "What was Alabama like in 1817, when it became a territory?". AL.com. May 18, 2019. Archived from the original on August 5, 2020. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  13. ↑ "The 'Clotilda,' the Last Known Slave Ship to Arrive in the U.S., Is Found". Smithsonian . May 22, 2019. Archived from the original on August 5, 2020. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  14. ↑ "Alabama woman now thought be last African slave to live in US". AL.com. April 3, 2019. Archived from the original on August 5, 2020. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  15. ↑ "'Remarkable' woman discovered as last known survivor of transatlantic slave trade". CNN . March 26, 2020. Archived from the original on August 5, 2020. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  16. ↑ "Representative Benjamin Turner of Alabama". United States House of Representatives . Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved August 6, 2020.
  17. ↑ "HARALSON, Jeremiah". United States House of Representatives . Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved August 6, 2020.
  18. ↑ "Alabama man only Congressman ever killed by wild animals". AL.com. March 29, 2019. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved August 6, 2020.
  19. 1 2 "Alabama Senate". Encyclopedia of Alabama . Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved August 6, 2020.
  20. ↑ "On this day in Alabama history: First black legislators elected since Reconstruction". Alabama NewsCenter. November 3, 2018. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved August 6, 2020.
  21. 1 2 "African American Experience in Birmingham". Birmingham Public Library. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020.
  22. ↑ "Blacks fare well at Alabama polls, except in statewide races". Birmingham Post-Herald . February 10, 1988. p. B1. Archived from the original on August 19, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ↑ "Andrew Hayden". The Selma Times-Journal. September 15, 1972. p. 1. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved August 6, 2020– via Newspapers.com.
  24. ↑ "Montgomery, Ala., elects its first African American mayor after 200 years". The Washington Post . October 9, 2019. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved August 6, 2020.
  25. ↑ "Reconstruction Constitutions". Encyclopedia of Alabama . April 7, 2020. Archived from the original on August 5, 2020. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  26. 1 2 3 "Alive and Well: Voter Suppression and Election Mismanagement in Alabama". Southern Poverty Law Center . February 10, 2020. Archived from the original on August 5, 2020. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  27. ↑ Wayne, Stephen (2008). Parties and Elections in America: The Electoral Process Fifth Edition. Rowman & Littlefield.
  28. ↑ "Alabama's 3.5 Million Registered Voters Continues to Shatter State Records". Secretary of State of Alabama . July 25, 2019. Archived from the original on August 5, 2020. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  29. ↑ "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Phillips Memorial Auditorium". National Park Service . Retrieved September 28, 2023. With accompanying pictures
  30. 1 2 "Historic Resource Study of African American Schools in the South, 1865–1900: Burrell Academy and Clark School" (PDF). National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. pp. 202–212. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 28, 2023.
  31. ↑ Hartshorn, W. N.; Penniman, George W., eds. (1910). An Era of Progress and Promise: 1863–1910. Boston, MA: Priscilla Pub. Co. p. 151. OCLC   5343815.
  32. ↑ Ellis, R.H. (1984). "The Calhoun School, Miss Charlotte Thorn's "Lighthouse on the Hill" in Lowndes County, Alabama". The Alabama Review.
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