African Americans in Alabama facts for kids

African Americans in Alabama are people living in Alabama who have African American heritage. Their story in Alabama spans many important times. It includes the period of slavery, the Civil War, and when slavery ended (emancipation). It also covers the time after the war called the Reconstruction era. Later, they faced challenges like the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow Laws. But they also led the powerful Civil Rights Movement. Their history continues to grow even today.

African American Businesses and Money

Early Black-Owned Businesses

In 1890, the first bank in Alabama owned and run by black people was started. It was called The Penny Savings Bank. William R. Pettiford founded this important bank.

Black Businesses Today

In 1997, black people in Alabama owned 19,077 businesses. These businesses earned about $1 billion and employed 13,232 people. Black-owned businesses made up 6.7% of all non-farm businesses in Alabama. This put Alabama ninth in the United States for the number of black businesses.

Income Differences

In 2013, the average yearly income for families in Alabama was $42,849. White families in Alabama earned about $49,465. Black families in Alabama earned about $29,210. This shows a difference in income between groups.

Entertainment and Sports

The Lyric Theatre

In 1914, the Lyric Theatre opened in Birmingham, Alabama. It was one of the first places in the American South where both black and white people could watch the same shows. However, black people had to sit in a separate section.

Baseball History

During the time of Negro league baseball, a team called the Birmingham Black Barons was formed in 1920. This team was an important part of sports history for African Americans.

Population Changes Over Time

African American family in Alabama

Arrival of African Americans

Black slaves first arrived in what is now Alabama in the late 1700s and early 1800s. This was when the area was part of the Mississippi Territory. In 1800, there were 517 black people in the Alabama part of the territory. Most were slaves (494), and a few were free black people (23).

Population Growth

By 1810, the black population had grown to 2,624. Most of these were slaves (2,565), with 59 free black people. In 1817, the Alabama Territory was created. Alabama became a state in 1819. By 1820, the black population had increased a lot, reaching 42,450.

End of Slave Importation

In 1808, the United States officially banned bringing new slaves into the country. However, some slave ships still secretly brought people to America. The last known slave ship, the Clotilda, brought slaves to Alabama in 1860. The last three known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade, Cudjoe Lewis, Redoshi, and Matilda McCrear, were all brought to Alabama on this ship.

African Americans in Politics

Early Elected Officials

After the Civil War, African Americans began to hold important political positions. In 1870, Benjamin S. Turner was elected as Alabama's first black member of the United States House of Representatives. He had been born into slavery.

In the same year, Jeremiah Haralson, also born into slavery, became the first black member of the Alabama House of Representatives. Benjamin F. Royal was elected as the first black member of the Alabama Senate in 1868.

Modern Era Officials

It took many years for African Americans to be elected to these roles again. In 1970, Fred Gray and Thomas Reed were the first black people elected to the Alabama House of Representatives since the Reconstruction era ended. In 1992, Sundra Escott-Russell became the first black woman elected to the Alabama Senate.

Judges and Mayors

Oscar Adams started the first black law firm in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1947. He later became the first black Justice on the Supreme Court of Alabama. U. W. Clemon, who helped the Civil Rights Movement by fighting unfair work rules, became the first black federal judge in Alabama in 1980.

African Americans also became mayors of cities. Andrew Hayden was the first black person to defeat a white mayor in Uniontown, Alabama. Richard Arrington Jr. became Birmingham's first black mayor in 1979. More recently, Steven Reed was elected as Montgomery, Alabama's first black mayor in 2019.

End of Slavery in Alabama

On December 2, 1865, the Alabama Legislature approved the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution. This amendment officially ended slavery across the United States.

Voting Rights and Challenges

In 1901, Alabama created a new state constitution. The goal of this new constitution was to limit the voting power of black citizens. It added rules like a poll tax (a fee to vote), a literacy test (a reading test), and property requirements. These rules made it very hard for black people to vote. Because of this, black voter registration dropped from over 180,000 in 1900 to less than 3,000 by 1903.

Progress in Voter Registration

After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, things began to change. The percentage of black registered voters in Alabama rose from 13.7% in 1960 to 61.3% by 1969. This was a huge step forward. The highest percentage of black voter registration between 1960 and 2004 was 74.3% in 1998.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 also helped protect voting rights. From 1969 to 2008, the United States Department of Justice stopped over one hundred voting policy changes in Alabama that could have harmed voters.

In 2019, officials announced that most eligible Alabamians, including black people, were registered to vote. This shows how far voting rights have come in the state.

Images for kids

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  African American family in Alabama