Editing Alabama (section)

=== 20th century ===
[[File:Birmingham Alabama skyline 1915.jpg|thumb|The developing skyline of Birmingham, 1915]]

The new 1901 constitution of Alabama included provisions for [[voter registration]] that effectively [[Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era|disenfranchised]] large portions of the population, including nearly all African Americans and Native Americans, and tens of thousands of poor European Americans, through making voter registration difficult, requiring a [[Poll taxes in the United States|poll tax]] and [[literacy test]].<ref>Morgan Kousser. ''The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South'', New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974</ref> The 1901 constitution required racial segregation of public schools. By 1903 only 2,980 African Americans were registered in Alabama, although at least 74,000 were [[Literacy|literate]]. This compared to more than 181,000 African Americans eligible to vote in 1900. The numbers dropped even more in later decades.<ref name="epzzsd"/> The state legislature passed additional racial segregation laws related to public facilities into the 1950s: jails were segregated in 1911; hospitals in 1915; toilets, hotels, and restaurants in 1928; and bus stop waiting rooms in 1945.<ref name="jimcrowala"/>

While the planter class had persuaded poor whites to vote for this legislative effort to suppress black voting, the new restrictions resulted in their disenfranchisement as well, due mostly to the imposition of a cumulative poll tax.<ref name="epzzsd"/> By 1941, whites constituted a slight majority of those disenfranchised by these laws: 600,000 whites vs. 520,000 African Americans.<ref name="epzzsd">Glenn Feldman. ''The Disfranchisement Myth: Poor Whites and Suffrage Restriction in Alabama''. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004, p. 136.</ref> Nearly all blacks had lost the ability to vote. Despite numerous legal challenges which succeeded in overturning certain provisions, the state legislature would create new ones to maintain disenfranchisement. The exclusion of blacks from the political system persisted until after passage of federal civil rights legislation in 1965 to enforce their constitutional rights as citizens.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1248 |title=Segregation (Jim Crow) |website=Encyclopedia of Alabama |access-date=May 26, 2018 |archive-date=May 30, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180530141129/http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1248 |url-status=live}}</ref>

The rural-dominated Alabama legislature consistently underfunded schools and services for the disenfranchised African Americans, but it did not relieve them of paying taxes.<ref name="SSpaces">{{cite journal |url= http://southernspaces.org/2004/black-belt |title= The Black Belt |access-date= September 23, 2006 |date= April 19, 2004 |journal= Southern Spaces |publisher= Emory University |doi= 10.18737/M70K6P |last1= Tullos |first1= Allen |doi-access= free |archive-date= January 11, 2011 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110111023122/http://southernspaces.org/2004/black-belt |url-status= live}}</ref> Partially as a response to chronic underfunding of education for African Americans in the South, the [[Rosenwald Fund]] began funding the construction of what came to be known as [[Rosenwald School]]s. In Alabama, these schools were designed, and the construction partially financed with Rosenwald funds, which paid one-third of the construction costs. The fund required the local community and state to raise matching funds to pay the rest. Black residents effectively taxed themselves twice, by raising additional monies to supply matching funds for such schools, which were built in many rural areas. They often donated land and labor as well.<ref name="rosenwaldal">{{cite web |title=The Rosenwald School Building Fund and Associated Buildings MPS |website=National Register Information System |url=https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/64500011_text |access-date=October 3, 2012 |archive-date=June 7, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220607152915/https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/64500011_text |url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:Mount Sinai School Autauga County July 2011 1.jpg|thumb|The former [[Mount Sinai School]] in rural Autauga County, completed in 1919. It was one of the 387 [[Rosenwald Schools]] built in the state.]]

Beginning in 1913, the first 80 Rosenwald Schools were built in Alabama for African American children. A total of 387 schools, seven teachers' houses, and several vocational buildings were completed by 1937 in the state. Several of the [[The Rosenwald School Building Fund and Associated Buildings Multiple Property Submission|surviving school buildings]] in the state are now listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].<ref name="rosenwaldal"/>

Continued racial discrimination and [[lynching]]s, agricultural depression, and the failure of the cotton crops due to [[boll weevil]] infestation led tens of thousands of African Americans from rural Alabama and other states to seek opportunities in northern and midwestern cities during the early decades of the 20th century as part of the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]] out of the South.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hine |first1=Darlene |last2=Hine |first2=William |last3=Harrold |first3=Stanley |title=African Americans: A Concise History |date=2012 |publisher=Pearson Education, Inc. |location=Boston |isbn=9780205806270 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/africanamericans0000hine_i0f5/page/388 388–389] |edition=4th |url=https://archive.org/details/africanamericans0000hine_i0f5/page/388}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Migration |title=Great Migration {{!}} African-American history |work=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=May 26, 2018 |archive-date=May 27, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180527024942/https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Migration |url-status=live}}</ref> Reflecting this emigration, the population growth rate in Alabama (see "historical populations" table below) dropped by nearly half from 1910 to 1920.<ref name="census data">{{cite web|author=Resident Population Data |url=http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/apportionment-pop-text.php |title=Resident Population Data—2010 Census |publisher=2010.census.gov |access-date=January 31, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110519131122/http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/apportionment-pop-text.php |archive-date=May 19, 2011 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

At the same time, many rural people migrated to the city of Birmingham to work in new industrial jobs. Birmingham experienced such rapid growth it was called the "Magic City".<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1421 |title=Birmingham {{!}} Encyclopedia of Alabama |website=Encyclopedia of Alabama |access-date=May 26, 2018 |archive-date=September 8, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180908221815/http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1421 |url-status=live}}</ref> By 1920, Birmingham was the 36th-largest city in the United States.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab15.txt |title=Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places: 1920 |website=United States Census Bureau|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080814041159/http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab15.txt|archive-date=August 14, 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref> Heavy industry and mining were the basis of its economy. Its residents were under-represented for decades in the state legislature, which refused to redistrict after each decennial census according to population changes, as it was required by the state constitution. This did not change until the late 1960s following a lawsuit and court order.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_bq9L27c4fwC&q=birmingham+alabama+underrepresented+in+the+state+legislature&pg=PA149 |title=Defending Constitutional Rights |last=Johnson |first=Frank Minis |date=2001 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=9780820322858 |access-date=November 8, 2020 |archive-date=December 31, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211231203237/https://books.google.com/books?id=_bq9L27c4fwC&q=birmingham+alabama+underrepresented+in+the+state+legislature&pg=PA149 |url-status=live}}</ref>
{{blockquote|Beginning in the 1940s, when the courts started taking the first steps to recognize the voting rights of black voters, the Alabama legislature took several counter-steps designed to disfranchise black voters. The legislature passed, and the voters ratified [as these were mostly white voters], a state constitutional amendment that gave local registrars greater latitude to disqualify voter registration applicants. Black citizens in Mobile successfully challenged this amendment as a violation of the [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth Amendment]]. The legislature also changed the boundaries of [[Tuskegee, Alabama|Tuskegee]] to a 28-sided figure designed to fence out blacks from the city limits. The Supreme Court unanimously held that this racial "[[gerrymandering]]" violated the Constitution. In 1961,{{spaces}}... the Alabama legislature also intentionally diluted the effect of the black vote by instituting numbered place requirements for local elections.<ref name="vra">James Blacksher, Edward Still, Nick Quinton, Cullen Brown and Royal Dumas. [http://www.protectcivilrights.org/pdf/voting/AlabamaVRA.pdf ''Voting Rights in Alabama (1982–2006)''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200924102059/http://www.protectcivilrights.org/pdf/voting/AlabamaVRA.pdf |date=September 24, 2020}}, Renew the VRA.org, July 2006, from discussion in Peyton McCrary, Jerome A. Gray, Edward Still, and Huey L. Perry, "Alabama" in ''Quiet Revolution in the South'', pp. 38–52, Chandler Davidson and Bernard Grofman, eds. 1994.</ref>}}

Industrial development related to the demands of World War II brought a level of prosperity to the state not seen since before the civil war.<ref name="SSpaces"/> Rural workers poured into the largest cities in the state for better jobs and a higher standard of living. One example of this massive influx of workers occurred in Mobile. Between 1940 and 1943, more than 89,000 people moved into the city to work for war-related industries.<ref name="thomason2">{{cite book |last1=Thomason |first1=Michael |title=Mobile : the new history of Alabama's first city |date=2001 |publisher=University of Alabama Press |location=Tuscaloosa |isbn=0-8173-1065-7 |pages=213–217}}</ref> Cotton and other [[cash crop]]s faded in importance as the state developed a manufacturing and service base.

Despite massive population changes in the state from 1901 to 1961, the rural-dominated legislature refused to reapportion House and Senate seats based on population, as required by the state constitution to follow the results of decennial censuses. They held on to old representation to maintain political and economic power in agricultural areas. One result was that [[Jefferson County, Alabama|Jefferson County]], containing Birmingham's industrial and economic powerhouse, contributed more than one-third of all tax revenue to the state, but did not receive a proportional amount in services. Urban interests were consistently underrepresented in the legislature. A 1960 study noted that because of rural domination, "a minority of about 25% of the total state population is in majority control of the Alabama legislature."<ref name=":0" /><ref name="pjhwpa">{{cite web |url=http://elections.gmu.edu/Redistricting/AL.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071017192719/http://elections.gmu.edu/Redistricting/AL.htm |archive-date=October 17, 2007 |title=George Mason University, United States Election Project: Alabama Redistricting Summary.|access-date=October 24, 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

In the United States Supreme Court cases of ''[[Baker v. Carr]]'' (1962) and ''[[Reynolds v. Sims]]'' (1964), the court ruled that the principle of "[[one man, one vote]]" needed to be the basis of both houses of state legislatures, and that their districts had to be based on population rather than geographic counties.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-2023 |title=Reynolds v. Sims |website=Encyclopedia of Alabama |access-date=May 26, 2018 |archive-date=May 27, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180527201725/http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-2023 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|date=1963|title=Baker V. Carr and Legislative Apportionments: A Problem of Standards|jstor=794657|journal=The Yale Law Journal|volume=72|issue=5|pages=968–1040|doi=10.2307/794657|s2cid=249552862 |url=https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/ylj/vol72/iss5/4|access-date=March 26, 2019|archive-date=March 26, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190326031411/https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/ylj/vol72/iss5/4/|url-status=live}}</ref>

African Americans continued to press in the 1950s and 1960s to end disenfranchisement and segregation in the state through the civil rights movement, including legal challenges. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' that public schools had to be [[Desegregation in the United States|desegregated]], but Alabama was slow to comply. During the 1960s, under Governor [[George Wallace]], Alabama resisted compliance with federal demands for desegregation.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I5JJCAAAQBAJ&q=alabama+brown+v.+board&pg=PT94 |title=Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Movement |last=Klarman |first=Michael J. |date=July 31, 2007 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780190294588 |access-date=November 8, 2020 |archive-date=February 20, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210220154843/https://books.google.com/books?id=I5JJCAAAQBAJ&q=alabama+brown+v.+board&pg=PT94 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/september_2_1963_gov._wallace_halts_integration/|title=September 2, 1963: Gov. Wallace halts integration|work=ABA Journal|access-date=May 26, 2018|author=Mark Curriden|archive-date=May 27, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180527023651/http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/september_2_1963_gov._wallace_halts_integration/|url-status=live}}</ref> The civil rights movement had notable events in Alabama, including the [[Montgomery bus boycott]] (1955–1956), [[Freedom Rides]] in 1961, and 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/s-121 |title=Civil Rights Movement in Alabama Feature |website=Encyclopedia of Alabama |access-date=May 26, 2018 |archive-date=May 27, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180527201747/http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/s-121 |url-status=live}}</ref> These contributed to Congressional passage and enactment of the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] and [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]] by the U.S. Congress.<ref name="cra64">{{cite web |url=http://finduslaw.com/civil_rights_act_of_1964_cra_title_vii_equal_employment_opportunities_42_us_code_chapter_21 |title=Civil Rights Act of 1964 |publisher=Finduslaw.com |access-date=October 24, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101021141154/http://finduslaw.com/civil_rights_act_of_1964_cra_title_vii_equal_employment_opportunities_42_us_code_chapter_21 |archive-date=October 21, 2010 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/alabama-birthplace-of-voting-rights-act-once-again-gutting-voting-rights/ |title=Alabama, Birthplace of the Voting Rights Act, Is Once Again Gutting Voting Rights |last=Berman |first=Ari |date=October 1, 2015 |work=The Nation |access-date=May 26, 2018 |issn=0027-8378 |archive-date=May 27, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180527023747/https://www.thenation.com/article/alabama-birthplace-of-voting-rights-act-once-again-gutting-voting-rights/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

Legal segregation ended in the states in 1964, but Jim Crow customs often continued until specifically challenged in court.<ref name="USDOJ">{{cite web |url=http://www.usdoj.gov/kidspage/crt/voting.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070221054512/http://www.usdoj.gov/kidspage/crt/voting.htm |archive-date=February 21, 2007 |title=Voting Rights |access-date=September 23, 2006 |date=January 9, 2002 |website=Civil Rights: Law and History |publisher=U.S. Department of Justice |url-status=dead}}</ref> According to ''[[The New York Times]]'', by 2017, many of Alabama's African Americans were living in Alabama's cities such as Birmingham and Montgomery. Also, the Black Belt region across central Alabama "is home to largely poor counties that are predominantly African-American. These counties include Dallas, [[Lowndes County, Alabama|Lowndes]], [[Marengo County, Alabama|Marengo]] and [[Perry County, Alabama|Perry]]."<ref name="NYT_2017">{{cite news |title=Alabama Senate Race Between Roy Moore and Doug Jones Ends With More Controversy |first1=Jonathan |last1=Martin |first2=Alan |last2=Blinder |date=December 12, 2017}}</ref>

In 1972, for the first time since 1901, the legislature completed the congressional redistricting based on the decennial census. This benefited the urban areas that had developed, as well as all in the population who had been underrepresented for more than sixty years.<ref name="pjhwpa" /> Other changes were made to implement representative state house and senate districts.

Alabama has made some changes since the late 20th century and has used new types of voting to increase representation. In the 1980s, an omnibus redistricting case, ''[[Dillard v. Crenshaw County]]'', challenged the [[at-large]] voting for representative seats of 180 Alabama jurisdictions, including counties and school boards. At-large voting had diluted the votes of any minority in a county, as the majority tended to take all seats. Despite African Americans making up a significant minority in the state, they had been unable to elect any representatives in most of the at-large jurisdictions.<ref name="vra" />

As part of settlement of this case, five Alabama cities and counties, including [[Chilton County, Alabama|Chilton County]], adopted a system of [[proportional representation|cumulative voting]] for election of representatives in multi-seat jurisdictions. This has resulted in more proportional representation for voters. In another form of proportional representation, 23 jurisdictions use [[limited voting]], as in [[Conecuh County, Alabama|Conecuh County]]. In 1982, limited voting was first tested in Conecuh County. Together use of these systems has increased the number of African Americans and women being elected to local offices, resulting in governments that are more representative of their citizens.<ref name="cum">{{cite web |title=Cumulative Elections in Alabama (2004) |url=http://archive.fairvote.org/?page=516 |publisher=FairVote Archives |access-date=January 11, 2015 |archive-date=February 3, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150203203843/http://archive.fairvote.org/?page=516 |url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:MSFC Aerial 2017.jpg|thumb|George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, 2017]]
Beginning in the 1960s, the state's economy shifted away from its traditional lumber, steel, and textile industries because of increased foreign competition. Steel jobs, for instance, declined from 46,314 in 1950 to 14,185 in 2011.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bridges |first1=Edwin |title=Alabama: The Making of an American State |date=2016 |publisher=University of Alabama Press |location=Tuscaloosa, AL |page=224}}</ref> However, the state, particularly Huntsville, benefited from the opening of the [[Marshall Space Flight Center|George C. Marshall Space Flight Center]] in 1960, a major facility in the development of the Saturn rocket program and the space shuttle. Technology and manufacturing industries, such as automobile assembly, replaced some of the state's older industries in the late twentieth century, but the state's economy and growth lagged behind other states in the area, such as Georgia and Florida.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bridges |first1=Edwin |title=Alabama: The Making of an American State |date=2016 |publisher=University of Alabama Press |location=Tuscaloosa, AL |pages=224–229}}</ref>