Alabama

Post-Civil War Industrial Development

In the decades following the Civil War, cotton remained Alabama's chief crop. However, in 1915, the boll weevil destroyed cotton crops across the state. Fearing for their livelihoods, farmers turned to other crops and to livestock. Many African Americans living in Alabama in the early 20th century moved north, in what came to be called the Great Migration (c.1915-30), seeking employment in urban centers. Workers who remained in the state moved into industry; factories developed, and the manufacture of steel became a leading business.

Epicenter of the Civil Rights Movement

In December 1955, Alabama was at the center of the American Civil Rights Movement after Rosa Parks (1913-2005), a black seamstress who was active in the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), famously refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger. This act became the catalyst for the yearlong Montgomery Bus Boycott, during which African Americans in the city refused to ride public buses. The boycott is regarded as the first large-scale demonstration challenging segregation in the U.S. One of the organizers of the boycott, a young pastor named Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-68), emerged from the action as a national civil rights leader while also solidifying his commitment to nonviolent resistance. In December 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Montgomery to integrate its bus system.

Following the boycott, tension between blacks and whites continued, resulting in numerous demonstrations and acts of violence throughout Alabama. On September 15, 1963, members of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group, set off a bomb in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, killing four young girls. The bombing sparked outrage across America and generated support for the civil rights cause, helping to bring about passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed segregation in schools, public places and places of employment.
 
Another set of pivotal civil rights events that put Alabama in the spotlight were the March 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery marches launched in support of voting rights for blacks (since the Civil War, many African Americans throughout the South had been deterred from voting through both legal measures, such as literacy tests and poll taxes, and through illicit measures, such as intimidation and violence). The initial group of marchers, numbering in the hundreds, were met by Alabama state troopers, who attacked them with nightsticks and tear gas. The violence was captured on live national TV and incensed many Americans. Two more marches, with thousands of demonstrators and leaders such as Martin Luther King, followed. President Lyndon Johnson (1908-73) pledged his support to the marchers and called for the passage of a new voting rights bill; in August of that year, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, which banned discriminatory voting practices used to disenfranchise blacks.

Alabama Today

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, jobs in the service, automotive production, aerospace and biotechnology industries contributed to Alabama's economy.  Agriculture continued to play a role as well, and farms produced poultry, eggs, livestock, timber, peanuts, soybeans and cotton, among other products. However, agriculture no longer dominated the state the way it did in earlier times. According to the Encyclopedia of Alabama, the state's farmers planted 4 million acres of cotton in 1914, while in the early 21st century they allocated a total of just 1.3 million acres to all agricultural crops. Alabama had 116,000 farms in 1960, a number that shrunk to 43,500 by 2005.

Tourism also helps Alabama's economy and includes such attractions as the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, the Talladega Superspeedway racetrack, the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery and the home where Helen Keller (1880-1968), the deaf and blind author and activist, was born, in Tuscumbia. In addition to Parks and Keller, Alabamians take pride in such native sons and daughters as Harper Lee (1926-), author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "To Kill a Mockingbird"; Condoleeza Rice (1954-), the first female African-American U.S. Secretary of State; country singer and songwriter Hank Williams (1923-53); and baseball greats Hank Aaron (1934-) and Willie Mays (1931-).