Research Summary

Alabama is one of the southern and eastern states.  The state capitol is Montgomery.  Some of the other cities are Birmingham, Mobile, Gadsden, Dothan, Huntsville, and many more.  Alabama borders are Mississippi to the west, Georgia to the east, Tennessee to the north, and Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south.   Alabama has three nicknames: "The Cotton State," "Heart of the Dixie," and "The Yellowhammer State."

History
On December 14, 1819 Alabama became part of the United States of America.  Alabama played key roles in the Civil War, Great Depression, and the Civil Rights Movement. Alabama was named the capitol of the Confederacy in 1861.  Montgomery was selected as the last of four state capitals. Montgomery became the official state capital in 1849.  The first people to inhabit Alabama were Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Creek Indians.

The Land
 Forests cover two-thirds of Alabama.  Alabama forests provide flooring, housing, and paper.  Alabama’s wildlife consists of bears, bobcats, gray and red foxes, and poisonous snakes such as rattlesnakes, water mossicans, and coral snakes.  There are also deer, rabbits, squirrels, and wild turkey.  The state’s conservation program called “Forever Wild ” helps preserve and manage plentiful wildlife.  Alabama’s mild climate encourages abundant plant life.  There are more than 125 different kinds of plants and trees in the state including pine, oaks, hickories, sweet gum, black walnut, and pecan.

 Alabama’s rivers stretch over 1, 600 miles with over 1,438 navigational waterways.   The rivers cover 71% of Alabama. Alabama’s fishing industry consists of clams, crabs, mussels, buffalo fish, shrimp, and oysters.  The major rivers like the Mobile River and the Tennessee River give the state hydroelectric power along with cooling the state’s nuclear plants.

Geography
Alabama’s land covers 52,423 square miles of land.  From north to south Alabama covers 391 miles and from west to east it covers 210 miles. Alabama borders Mississippi to the west, Georgia to the east, Tennessee to the north, and Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south.  The tidal shore of Alabama extends 601 miles.  The sandy white beaches of Alabama stretch 53 miles. North of Alabama is the Appalachian Mountains and south is the Gulf of Mexico.  The climate in Alabama never gets very cold. In the winter it only reaches 40 to 50 degrees. The waters along the Gulf reach around 60 degrees and the average temperature in Alabama is 80 degrees.

Music
Alabama’s traditional music consists of Jazz and Blues.  During the time when there were slaves they would often sing chants while they worked in the fields. Later in the years the chants were called blues, because they were often about sadness and despair.  William Christopher Handy used these chants in his orchestra.

Population
The 2000 United States census reported that Alabama had 4,447,100 people.  Alabama’s population increased 10 percent over the 1990 census.  According to the 2000 census Alabama ranks 23rd in population among the 50 states. About 70 percent of the people who live in Alabama live in metropolitan areas.


Agriculture
Alabama’s agriculture consists of cotton, soybeans, peanuts, pecans, and sweet potatoes.  Dairy and poultry are also included as well.  Abundant timber provides paper and wood products such as houses and wood floors.  Alabama uses water for farming, boating, fishing, and creating electricity.  Water cools their five nuclear power plants the water is also used for hydroelectricity.

Who I Interviewed And What I Learned I interviewed Kari Fredickson on January 5, 2006 by e-mail.  I chose Kari because she is a professor of southern Alabama history.  Kari works at the University of Alabama in the Department of History.  She is an associate professor of history.  Her specialty is U.S. history since the Civil War, the history of the South, and U.S. political history. Kari has lived in Alabama since 1999. I asked Kari why she decided to become a professor in the south. She answered: “Given my interest in the history of the South, it is a great place to be. Actually, the academic job market is very competitive. Unlike other professions, you have to be willing to move to where the jobs are. My first job was at the University of Central Florida in Orland, FL. I met my husband while on a research trip in Alabama. He is an English professor at Auburn University.  For the first year of our marriage, he lived in Montgomery, Alabama, and I lived in Orlando, and we would fly back and forth.  It was very tiring!” “Yes, indeed. I am originally from Wisconsin, so I enjoy the warm weather. I also enjoy the pace of life, which is much slower than many other places in the country.  People are very friendly, and it is commonplace to enter into conversations with complete strangers.  Everyone uses “ma’am” and “sir,” which makes life seem much more civil.  I enjoy living in a smaller community (approx. 80,000), and I frequently see my students and colleagues around town. I also enjoy being in a college town. We love sports and enjoy the festive atmosphere that surrounds the campus during football season.” She told me about Alabama’s role in the Civil Rights Movement. Alabama was on the front lines of the civil rights movement. The Montgomery Bus Boycott is frequently cited as the first major action of the modern movement, and of course, Martin Luther King Jr. was pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, which is in the shadow of the Alabama State House in Montgomery.   In 1961, student activists with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee staged what were known as the Freedom Rides, in which black and white students rode on buses from Washington, DC to New Orleans. Their goal was to challenge the rule of segregation in the southern states (the Supreme Court had ruled that segregated interstate travel was unconstitutional). The Freedom Riders met their greatest challenges in Alabama. In Anniston, AL, one of the buses was burned; fortunately, no one was killed. The other bus traveled on to Birmingham, where thugs beat the passengers.  Finally, the riders made it down to Montgomery, but they were trapped inside a church while a mob set cars on fire outside the church. Finally, the governor called in the National Guard to restore order.  Eventually, the Kennedy administration became more active in assuring integrated interstate travel (which was the goal of the Freedom Riders).   In 1963, a series of violent confrontations between civil rights activists and police officers in Birmingham prompted the Kennedy administration to once again get involved.  Eventually, the events in Birmingham prompted Kennedy to propose the Civil Rights Bill of 1963. This eventually became the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and was signed by President Johnson. It outlawed segregation in public accommodations (restaurants, hotels, parks, theaters, etc.)  In 1965, civil rights activists staged a voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery. Actually, they staged three such marches. The first ended in a violent confrontation between peaceful marchers and Alabama state troopers. This was caught on film and broadcast to the nation. Thousands of people came to Alabama to participate in the subsequent marches. Eventually, the marchers (some 25,000 of them) reached Montgomery.  The drama surrounding the march and the attacks prompted president Johnson to sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed certain barriers to voting that had been in place since the late 19th century.  So, you could say that events in Alabama in the early to mid 1960s prompted the passage of the century’s two most important pieces of civil rights legislation.  “I’m a little stronger on post-Civil War history than the 19th century, but I’d say Andrew Jackson, William Lowndes Yancey (pro-secessionist); Booker T. Washington; George Wallace, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King; Werner Von Braun (German rocket scientist who came to Huntsville in 1950s and helped create the NASA rocket program there); Alabama was not the site of any extensive battles, so the physical damage was minimal. Of course, the freeing of the slaves was the biggest change. Most freedmen remained close to where they had grown up.  Whites were not happy about these new citizens, and worked for the next 100 years trying to deny blacks their civil rights. Still some regional defensiveness and hostility toward “Yankees,” although this is changing with the influx of migrants from other parts of the country.   What has changed the most about Alabama in recent years? Alabama has a small but growing Hispanic population.  Also, the arrival of Mercedes Benz and Hyundai to west Alabama has aided the economy. Poor funding for public education. Alabama needs to attract industries that pay more than the minimum wage. Alabama also needs to protect the environment, which has the greatest biodiversity of any U.S. state.  “This state is resistant to change, as its history shows. We need to rewrite our constitution, which would allow for greater funding of education and for local control over local issues. I have little hope that this is going to happen soon, but I hope it will happen in my lifetime.”

Bibliography “Alabama” 11/17/05(http.www.worldbookonline.com) Alabama Department of Archives and History “Alabama” 11/17/05 (http://www.Archives.state.al.us/) Culture Grams: Alabama New York, NY. Proquest information and learning company Davis, Lucile. “Alabama” Danbury, Connecticut: Children’s Press 1999 Feeney, Kathy.   "Alabama the Yellowhammer State" Chicago: Illinois Capstone press 2000 Feeney, Kathy."Alabama" Blacksburg: Virginia Children’s Press 2002 Fredrickson, Kari. E-mail Interview January 5, 2006 Kummer, Patricia K. "Alabama" Mankuta: Minnesota Capstone Press 1998 pg. all Williams Barnard D. “Alabama” World Book Encyclopedia 2003

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