Editing Hale County, Alabama (section)

==History==
[[File:Safe House Museum.jpg|thumb|The [[Safe House Black History Museum|Safe House Museum]] in Greensboro; in 1968 its owner sheltered Rev. [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] from [[Ku Klux Klan]] members in the area]]
Hale County was established following the end of the [[American Civil War]], on January 30, 1867. Located in the west-central section of the state, it was created from portions of Greene, Marengo, Perry, and Tuscaloosa counties. The vast majority of the territory came from Greene County. The first American settlers in this area had been southerners migrating from Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Carolinas.<ref name="adahhale">{{Cite web |title=Alabama Counties: Hale County |work=Alabama Department of Archives and History |publisher=State of Alabama |url=http://www.archives.state.al.us/counties/hale.html |access-date=September 1, 2011 |archive-date=October 25, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111025022339/http://www.archives.state.al.us/counties/hale.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="eoahale">{{Cite encyclopedia|title=Hale County |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Alabama |publisher=Auburn University |url=http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1330 |access-date=September 1, 2011 }}</ref>

Hale County is connected to three major twentieth-century artists: [[Walker Evans]] photographed the area in 1936 while he collaborated with [[James Agee]] on the 1941 book ''Let Us Now Praise Famous Men''. Starting in the 1960s, artist [[William Christenberry]], born in Tuscaloosa, photographed various structures in Hale County as part of his multi-media artistic investigations. More recently, Hale County has become the home of the nationally recognized [[Auburn University]] [[Rural Studio]], an architectural outreach program founded by architect and artist [[Samuel Mockbee]] and D. K. Ruth.<ref name="eoahale"/>  It is also the birthplace of [[Eugene Sawyer]], the second [[African American]] mayor of [[Chicago]].<ref>{{citation|title=Former Mayor Eugene Sawyer Dies|newspaper=Chicago Tribune|date=January 20, 2008|url=http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-080120swayer-obit-story,0,2893144.story?coll=chi_breaking|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080123115844/http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-080120swayer-obit-story,0,2893144.story?coll=chi_breaking|archive-date=January 23, 2008}}</ref> In 2019 the film ''[[Hale County This Morning, This Evening]]''  by artist [[RaMell Ross]] was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, poetically addressing the region's shift in demographics and the power of intra-community authorship.

Since the American Civil War, whites have controlled much of the economic and political power in Hale County, enforced early by violence and later by the decades of disenfranchisement of black voters and statewide imposition of [[Jim Crow]]. In the first half of the 20th century, many African Americans left the county in two waves of migration to cities and northern and western industrial centers. Beginning in the late 1960s, they recovered the ability to vote.

In 1997, after a highly contested mayoral election, the city of [[Greensboro, Alabama|Greensboro]] elected its first black mayor, John E. Owens Jr. Claude Hamilton, the first African-American chief of police, was appointed in 2000. In 2006, black and white county residents joined in electing the first black county sheriff, Kenneth W. Ellis, who was formerly the [[Moundville, Alabama|Moundville]] police chief.<ref>{{cite web|title=SHERIFF KENNETH W. ELLIS|url=http://www.halecoso.com/Sheriff.html|website=Hale County Sheriff's Office|access-date=January 24, 2017}}</ref>

Hale County has suffered economic decline, particularly in the southern more rural end of the county. Many manufacturing plants closed during late 20th century restructuring, and population and businesses declined with the loss of jobs, especially in and around Greensboro (the county seat). The northern portion of the county, however, has enjoyed population and industrial growth due to its proximity to Tuscaloosa County. The latter has been a growing center of industry and new businesses, anchored by the [[University of Alabama]] and its large student body and resources.