Originally home to many native tribes, present-day Alabama was a Spanish territory beginning in the sixteenth century until the French acquired it in the early eighteenth century. The British won the territory in 1763 until losing it in the American Revolutionary War. Spain held Mobile as part of Spanish West Florida until 1813. In December 1819, Alabama was recognized as a state. During the antebellum period, Alabama was a major producer of cotton, and widely used African Americanslave labor. In 1861, the state seceded from the United States to become part of the Confederate States of America, with Montgomery acting as its first capital, and rejoined the Union in 1868. Following the American Civil War, Alabama would suffer decades of economic hardship, in part due to agriculture and a few cash crops being the main driver of the state's economy. Similar to other former slave states, Alabamian legislators employed Jim Crow laws from the late 19th century up until the 1960s. High-profile events such as the Selma to Montgomery march made the state a major focal point of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. (Full article...)
The Car of Tomorrow debuted at a superspeedway, but it was heavily criticized for its lack of visibility, and drivers raised fears of becoming airborne if hit. Michael Waltrip won the pole position by posting the fastest lap in qualifying but was passed by Blaney by the end of the first lap. The race lead changed 42 times, with Denny Hamlin leading the most laps out of anybody else (40). Johnson took the lead after driving on the outside lane on lap 183. Johnson led as the final lap began, but Gordon went to the outside of the track, and was bump-drafted by Tony Stewart, allowing him to claim his fifth victory of the season, his sixth at Talladega Superspeedway, the 80th of his career, and he took over from Dale Earnhardt as the driver with the most restrictor plate wins, twelve. (Full article...)
Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 – November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, and orator. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the primary leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary Black elite.
Born into slavery on April 5, 1856, in Hale's Ford, Virginia, Washington was freed when U.S. troops reached the area during the Civil War. As a young man, Booker T. Washington worked his way through Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute and attended college at Wayland Seminary. In 1881, he was named as the first leader of the new Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, an institute for black higher education. He expanded the college, enlisting students in construction of buildings. Work at the college was considered fundamental to students' larger education. He attained national prominence for his Atlanta Address of 1895, which attracted the attention of politicians and the public. Washington played a dominant role in black politics, winning wide support in the black community of the South and among more liberal whites. Washington wrote an autobiography, Up from Slavery, in 1901, which became a major text. In that year, he dined with Theodore Roosevelt at the White House, which was the first time a black person publicly met the president on equal terms. After an illness, he died in Tuskegee, Alabama on November 14, 1915. (Full article...)
... that Oakwood Cemetery contains the graves of Confederate soldiers and officers, English, Canadian, and French World War II pilots, and Hank Williams?
... that in 1890 Cornelius N. Dorsette, often referred to as the first African-American physician in Alabama, founded Hale Infirmary, a hospital for Black patients and staff in Montgomery?
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