July 4
This is Independence Day
1873: A cholera epidemic spread to the general population following an Independence Day celebration at Blount Springs.
1881: Tuskegee Institute opened.
1892: Businessman A. G. Gaston was born.
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This Day in Alabama History |
July 3
1920: William Crawford Gorgas, U.S. Surgeon General, 1915-1918, and world-renowned expert on tropical diseases, dies in London while en route to South Africa. Gorgas was born in Mobile in 1854 and served as the Chief Sanitation Officer in Havana, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War and during the building of the Panama Canal, 1904-1914. In those tropical climates Gorgas saved hundreds of lives by successfully eliminating mosquito breeding grounds and thereby controlling the spread of yellow fever.
1921: Scholar Roland Frye was born in Birmingham.
1927: Grover C. Hall, Sr., editor of the Montgomery Advertiser, publishes the cornerstone editorial in a series of pieces that won him the 1928 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. The editorials, directed against the Ku Klux Klan, called for Alabama politicians and citizens to take a stand against Klan violence. Hall especially reprimanded Gov. Bibb Graves, a Klan member, urging him to take measures to end the countless floggings of white and black men and women across the state.
Source: Alabama Department of Archives and History and Bhamwiki
July 2
1937: Actress Polly Holliday was born in Jasper.
1939: Singer Paul Williams was born in Birmingham.
Source: Bhamwiki
July 1
1915: Statewide prohibition goes into effect in Alabama, five years before nationwide prohibition. The sale and regulation of alcohol has often been a bitter issue in Alabama politics, and the 1915 ban was first vetoed by Gov. Charles Henderson, but the legislature overrode his veto.
1961: Track and field star Carl Lewis was born in Birmingham.
Sources: Alabama Department of Archives and History and Bhamwiki
June 30
1928: As mandated by the legislature, convict leasing ends in Alabama. While many southern states leased convicts to private industry as laborers, Alabama’s program, begun in 1846, lasted the longest, and for much of that time the notorious system was a key revenue source for the state.
June 29
1846: The 1st Alabama Infantry Regiment organizes in Mobile to fight in the Mexican War. Alabamians volunteered in large numbers to fight against Mexico when war came over the annexation of Texas, but only this single regiment, a battalion, and several independent companies actually were received into federal service from the state. During its eleven months of service, the 1st Alabama lost only one man in battle but 150 died from disease.
Source: Alabama Department of Archives and History
1958: Bethel Baptist Church was bombed for the second time. The church became notable for the leadership of its pastor, Fred Shuttlesworth during the Civil Rights Movement.
Source: Bhamwiki
June 28
2005: Richard Scrushy was acquitted of 36 counts of fraud and conspiracy.
Source: Bhamwiki
2007: Former governor Don Siegelman and ousted Healthsouth CEO Richard Scrushy are sentenced by U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller to lengthy prison terms for their convictions on bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud. Siegelman is sentenced to seven years, four months in prison, three years on probation, restitution of $181,325, a $50,000 fine and 500 hours of community service. The judge sentenced Scrushy, the founder of HealthSouth Corp., to six years, 10 months in prison, three years of probation, 500 hours of community service, a $150,000 fine and $267,000 in restitution.
June 27
1880: Helen Keller. activist and advocate is born in Tuscumbia.
1964: Basketball player, Chuck Person, is born in Brantley.
Source: Alabama Department of Archives and History
1980: U. W. Clemon was confirmed as the first African-American federal judge in Alabama.
Sources: Alabama Department of Archives and History, Bhamwiki
June 25
1957: Macon County blacks kick off a boycott of white businesses at a mass meeting in Tuskegee attended by 3,000 people. The boycott was in response to a plan to protect white political power in Tuskegee by gerrymandering its city limits so that all but a few African Americans would reside outside the city. The boycott, which brought national attention to Tuskegee, was sustained for four years and met many of the goals of its originator, the Tuskegee Civic Association.
June 24
1896: Booker T. Washington, president of Tuskegee Institute, becomes the first African American to be awarded an honorary degree by Harvard University. Born into slavery in Virginia, Washington moved to Alabama in 1881 to open Tuskegee Normal School. He soon gained fame as an educational leader among black Americans, a fact which Harvard recognized with a Master of Arts degree.
1938: Baseball player, Don Mincher, was born in Huntsville
June 22
1937: Alabama native Joe Louis defeats James J. Braddock at Chicago’s Comiskey Park to become the first black heavyweight boxing champion since Jack Johnson in 1908. Born near Lafayette as Joseph Louis Barrow, the “Brown Bomber” held the world heavyweight title until 1948.
June 21
1865: President Andrew Johnson appoints Lewis Parsons provisional governor. Parsons, the grandson of Great Awakening leader Jonathan Edwards, was born in New York and moved to Talladega in 1840. Although a Unionist, Parsons followed moderate policies as he reorganized Alabama’s state government under Johnson’s reconstruction plan. His term ended in December 1865.
June 20
1911: Gail Patrick, actress and television producer was born in Birmingham.
1949: Lionel Ritchie, musician, singer, record producer and former member of the Commodores is born in Tuskegee.
Source: Bhamwiki
June 19
1864: The CSS Alabama, captained by Mobile’s Raphael Semmes, is sunk at the end of a fierce naval engagement with the USS Kearsarge off the coast of Cherbourg, France. The Alabama had docked there for maintenance and repairs after 22 months of destroying northern commerce on the high seas during the Civil War.
1915: Actor Pat Buttram was born in Addison.
