Alabama

C

Government and Politics

Alabama is governed under a constitution adopted in 1901, as amended. The chief executive of Alabama is a governor, who is popularly elected to a four-year term and may not serve more than two consecutive terms. The same requirements apply to the lieutenant-governor, who succeeds the governor should the latter resign, die, or be removed from office. Additional members of Alabama’s executive department include the Secretary of State, Attorney-General, auditor, treasurer, and the commissioner of agriculture and industries.

Legislative authority is rested in a bicameral legislature, comprising a Senate and House of Representatives. The 35 members of the Senate and 105 members of the House are popularly elected to four-year terms. At a national level, Alabama elects two senators and seven representatives to the US Congress. The state has nine electoral votes in presidential elections (see electoral college).

In national, state, and local politics, Alabama was traditionally a stronghold of the Democratic Party; however, in the latter part of the 20th century, the Republicans began to gain support. In the presidential elections of 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 the majority of population voted Republican. The dominant political figure from the early 1960s until the late 1980s was George Corley Wallace; first elected governor as a staunch segregationist, he later won with black support. In the 2006 mid-term elections two Democrats and five Republicans were returned to represent the state. In 2004, incumbent Republican senator Richard Shelby defeated Democrat candidate Wayne Sowell to retain his seat in the Senate. Senator Jeff Sessions (Republican) also represents Alabama. Incumbent Bob Riley (Republican) beat Lucy Baxley (Democrat) to secure a second term as state governor in 2006.

IV

History

Earthen mounds and other archaeological evidence indicate that people have lived in Alabama for at least 9,000 years. The major Native American groups at the time of European settlement were the Chickasaw and Cherokee in the north and the Creek and Choctaw to the south.

The first-known Europeans to explore Alabama were Spaniards and probably included Alonso Piñeda in 1519 and Pánfilo de Narváez in 1528, but the first permanent European settlements were established by the French at Fort Louis (1702), Port Dauphin (1702), and Mobile (1711). British claims to the area were recognized in the 1763 Treaty of Paris, but the Spanish regained Mobile and the Gulf coast by the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The United States took possession of the entire area after the War of 1812.

A

Pre-Civil War

The Creek War (1813-1814), in which the “Red Stick” Creeks tried to resist white encroachment, ended with General Andrew Jackson’s victory at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. In 1817, Alabama became a territory, and was accepted into the Union as the 22nd state on December 14, 1819.

The pre-Civil War era was characterized by the continued development of plantation agriculture in the central and southern parts of the state, the removal of the Native Americans to the West, and the rising controversy over the nature and legitimacy of slavery and its extension into new territories. The election of President Abraham Lincoln led to the special state convention that voted to secede from the Union in January 1861. Montgomery became the first capital of the Confederacy, and Jefferson Davis was inaugurated president there in February. Military operations during the American Civil War consisted of several Union raids into the state and the victory of Admiral David Farragut in the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864.

B

After the Civil War

A new state constitution recognizing the abolition of slavery was adopted in December 1865. In March 1867, Alabama came under federal military control, and another constitution was adopted in November, affirming provisions of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. Blacks responded to emancipation by attempting to exercise their new freedom and improve their conditions, and a number of blacks were elected to public office during the Reconstruction era.

Conservative Democratic politics persisted throughout the last quarter of the 19th century, as did farm tenancy and poor agricultural conditions, despite the reform efforts of the People’s Party (Populists) in the 1890s. The growth of industry in northern Alabama became especially significant.

C

The 20th Century and Beyond

White supremacy was consolidated in the state constitution of 1901, which effectively prevented most blacks from voting. White political control resulted, among other things, in the casting of Alabama’s electoral votes in 1948 for the states’ rights candidate rather than for President Harry S. Truman, the regular Democratic Party nominee, and in resistance to the black civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Montgomery bus boycott by blacks in 1955 fuelled the beginnings of civil rights protest in May 1961. In spring 1963, a series of demonstrations in Birmingham led by Martin Luther King, Jr., were met with mass arrests by city police, but resulted in a settlement containing most black demands. The Selma to Montgomery march of 1965, also led by King, furthered the passage of the federal Voting Rights Act.

Alabama’s economic development in the 1960s and 1970s, paced by the statewide growth of higher education, was greater than at any other time in the 20th century. However, by the 1990s Alabama's economy had become sluggish despite investments by manufacturing firms to modernize facilities and equipment. A few industries, such as chemicals and fabricated metals, experienced steady growth because their products were in demand for export. Textile and clothing companies, however, were struggling, and many factories closed because of foreign competition and slack domestic demand. The state was successful in attracting a new Mercedes-Benz vehicle assembly plant near Birmingham, and several additional plants associated with the car industry have encouraged an industrial boom in the Birmingham area.

At the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century Alabama faced many of the problems that plague other areas, including widespread poverty, rising crime rates, and unemployment. The state also has an old (1901) and obsolete constitution, an inadequate tax structure, and problems in education and health care.

In August 2005 a severe hurricane, Hurricane Katrina, ripped across the southern United States causing widespread destruction throughout Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. The coastal port of Mobile was among Alabama’s worst affected areas, sustaining considerable damage from the high winds and subsequent floods.