Recent Videos and Activities for 20th Century
A.G. Gaston
Birmingham entrepreneur and businessman A. G. Gaston was one of the most successful African American business owners in Alabama. Gaston overcame humble beginnings and racial discrimination to build a $40 [more]
May 25, 2018
Fred Shuttlesworth
Fred Shuttlesworth was one of the pioneering figures of the civil rights era and the central leader of the movement in Birmingham. As pastor of Bethel Baptist Church and founder [more]
April 13, 2018
Hattie Hooker Wilkins
Selma native Hattie Hooker Wilkins was the first woman elected to the Alabama State Legislature. She joined the 1923 Alabama House of Representatives as a Democrat, expressing the belief that [more]
April 13, 2018
USS Alabama
The USS Alabama is a World War II-era battleship that first served in the Atlantic theater but was better known for helping to take Japanese-held islands in the Pacific between [more]
April 3, 2018
Amelia Boynton Robinson
Amelia Boynton Robinson was a leading civil rights activist who played a key role in the efforts that led to passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and was the [more]
February 20, 2018
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks is one of the most enduring symbols of the American civil rights era of the mid-twentieth century. She was active in the Montgomery chapter of the National Association [more]
February 9, 2018
First 911 Call
At 2 pm on February 16, 1968, the very first 9-1-1 call was made in Haleyville, Alabama. The call was made by state Representative Rankin Fite from Haleyville mayor James [more]
February 9, 2018
Montgomery State Capitol
In January 1846, the Alabama legislature moved the state capitol from Tuscaloosa to the more centrally located city of Montgomery. The capitol building, completed in 1851, still serves as the [more]
January 18, 2018
Lurleen Wallace
Lurleen Wallace became the first female governor of Alabama in 1967. Laws at the time prevented her husband Governor George Wallace from seeking a second term, so Mrs. Wallace ran [more]
January 18, 2018
Wright Brothers Flying School
In the spring of 1910, just seven years after their successful flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, aviation pioneers Wilbur and Orville Wright opened the nation’s first civilian flying school [more]
October 10, 2017