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Integration & Present-day Alabama

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The U.S. Supreme Court in 1954 handed down a ruling which made racial segregation in public elementary and secondary schools unconstitutional. This decision lead to racial tension, civil unrest, and eventually civil rights protests. From 1955 to 1956 blacks boycotted public buses in Montgomery to protest segregation on buses. Then in 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. led the Freedom March from Montgomery to Selma.

In 1962, George C. Wallace (a Democrat governor) resisted the federally ordered integration of schools in Alabama. He was re-elected three times (1970, 1974, and 1982) with substantial African-American support the last time. He entered the race for U.S. president as the candidate of the American Independent party in 1968 and ran two times afterward as well (1972 and 1976).

Since that time the attention has shifted to economic issues in the state and efforts have been made to encourage diversification of manufacturing industries. One notable result of this effort was the building by Mercedes-Benz of the auto assembly plant in Vance, Alabama. The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, which connects the port of Mobile with industries developed in North Alabama and other places along the Tennessee River, opened in 1985. Several hurricanes have caused extensive damage in the state recently (Hurricane Opal in 1995, Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005).

Today the leading industries of Alabama are: paper, chemicals, rubber and plastics, apparel and textiles, primary metals, and automobile manufacturing. Birmingham is a major manufacturer of coal, iron, and steel and it is also noted for its world-renowned medical center. Alabama ranks high in the production of poultry, soybeans, milk, vegetables, livestock, wheat, cattle, cotton, peanuts, fruit, hogs, and corn.

Sources:
www.netstate.com
www.infoplease.com
www.constitutionalreform.org

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