| John T. Morgan Academy | |
|---|---|
| Address | |
 | |
2901 West Dallas Ave 36701 United States | |
| Coordinates | 32°23′24″N87°04′43″W / 32.3898673°N 87.078585°W |
| Information | |
| Established | June 1965 |
| CEEB code | 012433 |
| Campus size | 20 acres (8.1 ha) |
| Nickname | Senators |
| Website | www |
John T. Morgan Academy, commonly known as Morgan Academy, is a school in Selma, Alabama, USA, originally founded in 1965 as a segregation academy.
The school is named for John Tyler Morgan, a Confederate general and Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan who, as a U.S. Senator, advanced several bills to legalize lynching of African-Americans. [1] It was founded in 1965, shortly after the Selma to Montgomery marches. The first classes in 1965 were held in the John Tyler Morgan House until a new campus was built in 1967.
After 41 years, the school admitted its first black student in 2008. [2] [3] [4]
Bryan Oliver became the headmaster in 2021. [5]
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.
Edmund Winston Pettus was a lawyer and politician who represented Alabama in the United States Senate from 1897 to 1907. He served as a senior officer of the Confederate States Army, commanding infantry in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. After the war, he was Grand Dragon, or supreme leader of the Ku Klux Klan, that terrorized and often killed African-Americans.
John Robert Lewis was an American politician and civil rights activist who served in the United States House of Representatives for Georgia's 5th congressional district from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, was the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1963 to 1966, and was one of the "Big Six" leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington. Fulfilling many key roles in the civil rights movement and its actions to end legalized racial segregation in the United States, in 1965 Lewis led the first of three Selma to Montgomery marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge where, in an incident which became known as Bloody Sunday, state troopers and police attacked Lewis and the other marchers.
The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the desire of African-American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote, in defiance of segregationist repression; they were part of a broader voting rights movement underway in Selma and throughout the American South. By highlighting racial injustice, they contributed to passage that year of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark federal achievement of the civil rights movement.
Amelia Isadora Platts Boynton Robinson was an American activist who was a leader of the American Civil Rights Movement in Selma, Alabama, and a key figure in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches.
John Tyler Morgan was an American politician who was a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War and later was elected for six terms as the U.S. Senator (1877–1907) from the state of Alabama. A prominent slaveholder before the Civil War, he became the second Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama during the Reconstruction era. Morgan and fellow Klan member Edmund W. Pettus became the ringleaders of white supremacy in Alabama and did more than anyone else in the state to overthrow Reconstruction efforts in the wake of the Civil War. When President Ulysses S. Grant dispatched U.S. Attorney General Amos Akerman to prosecute the Klan under the Enforcement Acts, Morgan was arrested and jailed.
James Joseph Reeb was an American Unitarian Universalist minister, pastor, and activist during the civil rights movement in Washington, D.C., and Boston, Massachusetts. While participating in the Selma to Montgomery marches actions in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, he was murdered by white segregationists and white supremacists, dying of head injuries in the hospital two days after being severely beaten. Three men were tried for Reeb's murder but were acquitted by an all-white jury. His murder remains officially unsolved.
Sheyann Webb-Christburg is a civil rights activist known as Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Smallest Freedom Fighter" and co-author of the book Selma, Lord, Selma. As an eight-year-old, Webb took part in the first attempt at the Selma to Montgomery march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965, known as Bloody Sunday.
James "Spider" Martin was an American photographer known for his work documenting the American Civil Rights Movement in 1965, specifically Bloody Sunday and other incidents from the Selma to Montgomery marches.
J. L. Chestnut Jr. was an author, attorney, and a figure in the Civil Rights Movement. He was the first African-American attorney in Selma, Alabama, and the author of the 1991 autobiographical book, Black in Selma: The Uncommon Life of J.L. Chestnut, Jr., which chronicles the history of the Selma Voting Rights Movement, including the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches and Bloody Sunday.
Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church is a church at 410 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Selma, Alabama, United States. This church was a starting point for the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 and, as the meeting place and offices of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) during the Selma Movement, played a major role in the events that led to the adoption of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The nation's reaction to Selma's "Bloody Sunday" march is widely credited with making the passage of the Voting Rights Act politically viable in the United States Congress.
The Edmund Pettus Bridge carries U.S. Route 80 Business across the Alabama River in Selma, Alabama. Built in 1940, it is named after Edmund Pettus, a former Confederate brigadier general, U.S. senator, and state-level leader of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. The bridge is a steel through arch bridge with a central span of 250 feet (76 m). Nine large concrete arches support the bridge and roadway on the east side.
The John Tyler Morgan House is a historic Greek Revival-style house in Selma, Alabama, United States. It was built by Thomas R. Wetmore in 1859 and sold to John Tyler Morgan in 1865. Morgan was an attorney and former Confederate general. Beginning in 1876, he was elected as a Democratic U.S. senator from Alabama for six terms. He used this house as his primary residence for many of those years.
JoAnne Bland is the co-founder and former director of the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma, Alabama. Bland was a highly active participant in the Civil Rights Movement from her earliest days, and was the youngest person to have been jailed during any civil rights demonstration during that period. Bland grew up in segregated Selma, Alabama, where she was not allowed to enter certain stores and was only allowed to go in the library and movie theater on days labeled "colored." As a result of growing up in segregation Bland lost her mother, who died in a "white" hospital waiting for a transfusion of "black blood." Her grandmother encouraged Bland and her sister to march and become a freedom fighter to fight for their freedom, even though her father disapproved due to his fear for their lives. Her father's objections did not stop Bland, who became active in the movement when she was eight years old. When she was eight years old, she attended a meeting with the Dallas County Voters League with her grandmother.
Richie Jean Sherrod Jackson, was an American author, teacher, and civil rights activist.
Paul Goodwin Garnes is an American film and television producer. He is best known for his work on the 2014 film Selma, which was nominated for the 2015 Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Original Song and won a 2015 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.
Tuscaloosa Academy (TA) is a private school in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It has been described as a segregation academy.
Frederick Douglas Reese was an American civil rights activist, educator and minister from Selma, Alabama. Known as a member of Selma's "Courageous Eight", Reese was the president of the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL) when it invited the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King Jr. to Selma to amplify the city's local voting rights campaign. This campaign eventually gave birth to the Selma to Montgomery marches, which later led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.
On March 7, 2015, President of the United States Barack Obama delivered a speech at Edmund Pettus Bridge to mark the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery marches on the subject of race relations within the United States. Among the estimated 40,000 present were former President George W. Bush, former First Lady Laura Bush, and Amelia Boynton Robinson, John Lewis, Diane Nash, Bernard Lafayette, and many other 'foot soldiers' who had taken part in the march in 1965.
Robert "Bob" Mants, Jr. was an American civil rights activist, serving as a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Mants moved to Lowndes County, working for civil rights for the remainder of his life. Lowndes County contained the majority of the distance covered by the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march, and was then notorious for its racist violence.
