Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County. Named for Continental Army Major General Richard Montgomery,it stands beside the Alabama River,on the coastal Plain of the Gulf of Mexico. The population was 200,603 at the 2020 census. It is now the third most populous city in the state,after Huntsville and Birmingham,and is the 128th most populous in the United States. The Montgomery Metropolitan Statistical Area's population in 2022 was 385,460;it is the fourth largest in the state and 142nd among United States metropolitan areas.
Fred David Gray is an American civil rights attorney,preacher,activist,and state legislator from Alabama. He handled many prominent civil rights cases,such as Browder v. Gayle,and was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in 1970,along with Thomas Reed,both from Tuskegee. They were the first black state legislators in Alabama in the 20th century. He served as the president of the National Bar Association in 1985,and in 2001 was elected as the first African-American President of the Alabama State Bar.
Bernard Kincaid is an American politician who is the former mayor of Birmingham,Alabama,elected in 1999. In 2007 he was defeated in a bid for re-election,winning only 8% of votes. He was succeeded by Larry Langford.
Roy Stewart Moore is an American politician,lawyer,and jurist who served as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama from 2001 to 2003 and again from 2013 to 2017,each time being removed from office for judicial misconduct by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary. He was the Republican Party nominee in the 2017 U.S. Senate special election in Alabama to fill the seat vacated by Jeff Sessions,but was accused by several women of sexually assaulting them while they were underage and lost to Democratic candidate Doug Jones. Moore ran for the same Senate seat again in 2020 and lost the Republican primary.
Perry Oliver Hooper Sr. was an American jurist who served as the 27th chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court from 1995 to 2001. He was the first Republican since Reconstruction to have been elected to his state's highest court.
The Alabama Republican Party is the state affiliate of the Republican Party in Alabama. It is the dominant political party in Alabama. The state party is governed by the Alabama Republican Executive Committee. The committee usually meets twice a year. As of the February 23,2019 meeting in Birmingham,the committee is composed of 463 members. Most of the committee's members are elected in district elections across Alabama. The district members are elected in the Republican Primary once every four years,with the most recent election for the committee having been on June 5,2018. The new committee takes office following the general election in November 2018. In addition,all 67 county GOP chairmen have automatic seats as voting members. The state chairman can appoint 10 members. Each county committee can appoint bonus members based on a formula that theoretically could add 312 seats,although that formula currently calls for only about 50 seats.
Johnny L. Ford is an American politician and mayor of Tuskegee,Alabama,and a former Alabama State Representative.
Todd Strange is an American politician and businessman who served as the 56th mayor of Montgomery,Alabama. Strange won a special election and took office on March 24,2009,after his predecessor,Democrat Bobby Bright,was elected to the United States House of Representatives. Although municipal elections in Montgomery are nonpartisan,Strange is a Republican.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Alabama since June 26,2015,in accordance with the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. Not all counties immediately complied with the ruling,copying behavior from the civil rights era when they had refused to perform interracial marriages. A year after the Supreme Court ruling,twelve counties would either issue licenses to no one or only to opposite-sex couples. By 2017,this number had dropped to only eight counties,with all eight refusing to issue licenses to anyone. In May 2019,the Alabama Legislature passed a bill replacing the option that counties issue marriage licenses and perform marriage ceremonies with the requirement of counties to record marriage certificates. Subsequently,all counties complied and announced on August 29,2019 that they would record marriage certificates for interracial and same-sex couples. Previously,Alabama had banned the licensing of same-sex marriages and the recognition of such marriages from other jurisdictions by executive order in 1996,by statute in 1998,and by constitutional amendment in June 2006.
Luther Johnson Strange III is an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States Senator from Alabama from 2017 to 2018. He was appointed to fill that position after it was vacated by Sen. Jeff Sessions upon Sessions's confirmation as U.S. Attorney General.
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.
John Harold Merrill is an American politician who served as the 53rd secretary of state of Alabama from 2015 to 2023. He served in the Alabama House of Representatives from 2010 to 2014. Merrill is a member of the Republican Party.
The 2015 Montgomery mayoral election took place on August 25,2015,to elect the Mayor of Montgomery,Alabama.
The 2018 Alabama gubernatorial election took place on November 6,2018,to elect the governor of Alabama. Incumbent Governor Kay Ivey (R),who took office on April 10,2017 upon the resignation of Robert Bentley (R) ran for election to a full term and won over Tuscaloosa mayor Walt Maddox. Ivey was sworn in for her first full term on January 14,2019. This was the first time since 1966 that a woman was elected Governor of Alabama.
The 2019 United States elections were held,in large part,on Tuesday,November 5,2019. This off-year election included gubernatorial elections in Kentucky,Louisiana,and Mississippi;regularly-scheduled state legislative elections in Louisiana,Mississippi,Virginia,and New Jersey;and special elections for seats in various state legislatures. Numerous citizen initiatives,mayoral races,and a variety of other local elections also occurred. Three special elections to the United States House of Representatives also took place in 2019 as a result of vacancies.
Will Ainsworth is an American politician serving as the 31st lieutenant governor of Alabama since 2019. He previously served in the Alabama House of Representatives from 2014 to 2018,representing its 27th district.
Joe Louis Reed Sr. is an American politician,activist and educator. He is the current Vice-Chair of Minority Affairs of the Alabama Democratic Party and,since 1979,chair of the Alabama Democratic Conference (ADC). He also served as president of the all-Black Alabama State Teachers Association prior to its merger with the all-White Alabama Education Association in 1969,and then served as associate executive secretary alongside Executive Secretary Paul Hubbert from 1969 until both leaders retired from the AEA in 2011.
The 2019 Montgomery mayoral election took place on August 28 and October 8,2019,to elect the Mayor of Montgomery,Alabama.
Wesley Harrison Allen is an American politician and former probate judge who is the incumbent Secretary of State of Alabama,serving since 2023. He was previously a member of the Alabama House of Representatives,representing the 89th district from 2018 to 2022,and was elected as Secretary of State in 2022.
