Alabama's Reputation as a
bastion of the Old South is not unwarranted. There are splendid plantations to be found in
and around Mobile, Montgomery, Selma and Monroeville. Until recently, most Alabamians
lived on the land and in small towns rather than in cities. And Alabamians routinely greet
visitors with the courtesy and friendliness that are the hallmards of old-fashioned
Southern hospitality. But cotton is no longer king; steel and cast-iron have taken its
place in the state economy. And while there are plenty of historic sites in the state,
many visitors make a beeline to NASA's research fcility, the Space and Rocket Center in
Huntsville. (The Center runs a great Space Camp for kids).
Selma's Brown Chapel
The first inhabitants of Alabama were Cherokee, Creed, Choctaw and Chickasaw
Indians. There was no European settlement in the state until 1702, when the French built a
fort at Mobile. Here, in 1704, America's first Mardi Gras was celebrated. After the
American Revolution, settlers began to move into Indian territory. The tribes lost the
ensuing war to defend their homelands, and by 1837 all the Native American inhabitants of
Alabama had been forcibly removed to Oklahoma.
Abraham Mordechai set uo the first cotton gin in Alabama in 1802, and soon
the state was covered with cotton plantations worked by blacks slaves. Even after the
Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the old order passed legislation that kept almost
all blacks from voting and promoted a segregated society.
Nonetheless, it was in Alabama that Booker T. Wahington founded Tuskegee
Institute in 1881 (Georges Washington Carver was a member of the faculty). And it was in
Alabama that the civil rights movement was born when a black seamstress named Rosa Parks
defied the law and refused to give up her sear on a Montgomery bus to a white patron.
Parks was arrested, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., led a successful boycott of the city
bus system. To commemorate those times, Maya Lin designet the Civil Rights Memorial for
Montgomery.
