Founded in 1867, Alabama State University is a historically black university located in Montgomery. The school’s professors and students played a major role in the city’s famous bus boycott. In [more]

Joe Cain is regarded as the founder of Mobile’s modern-day Mardi Gras celebration. Before the Civil War, Mobile Mardi Gras was celebrated in conjunction with festivities to ring in the [more]

Like the more famous outlaw Jesse James, Lamar County native Reuben Houston Burrow, better known as Rube Burrow, headed a gang of train robbers that included his younger brother Jim [more]

Tuscaloosa native Julia Tutwiler was an educator, prison reformer, writer and outspoken proponent of education for women. She was closely involved with the founding of institutions that became the University [more]

Madame Octavia Walton Le Vert was a 19th century socialite and writer known as the “Pride of Mobile”. She hosted lavish parties at her home for Mobile society, political figures [more]

Benjamin Turner was an entrepreneur, business executive, civic leader, and legislator. Born into slavery, Turner became the first African American Representative from Alabama elected to the U.S. Congress. He founded [more]

General Joseph Wheeler served as the commander of cavalry for the Confederate Army of Tennessee during the Civil War, then went on to a career as a member of Congress [more]

James Alexander Bryan, better known as Brother Bryan, was a well-loved pastor of Third Presbyterian Church in Birmingham. He was an outspoken supporter of racial reconciliation. He is best remembered [more]

David Moniac was born near Pinchona Creek in present-day Montgomery County. He was of mixed Creek Indian and white ancestry and a grand-nephew of Creek leader Alexander McGillivray. He was [more]

In 1873, just two years after its founding, Birmingham, was beset by a cholera epidemic that killed 128 people. The disease spread quickly through the city’s water supply. As the [more]