Alabama History in June
Excerpted from Alabama Department of Archives and History
June 1, 1956: The NAACP isbarred from operating in Alabama. Montgomery County Circuit JudgeWalter B. Jones issued the order at the request of Attorney General John Patterson,who argued that the NAACP was not properly registered in the state.Jones also fined the organization $100,000 and ordered it to turn overits records and membership lists to the state. The ban lasted untilOctober 1964.
June 2, 1943: Aliceville's World War II prisoner-of-war campreceives its first contingent of captured German soldiers. By the endof the week, Aliceville housed 3,000 prisoners. Nearly 5,000 POWseventually would be imprisoned in the facility, the largest of four such camps in Alabama.
June 3, 1898: Richmond Pearson Hobson of Greensboro becomes a naval hero when he sinks his own ship, the Merrimac, during the Spanish-American War.Hobson, aided by a crew of seven, sank the collier in an attempt toblock the Spanish fleet in Cuba's Santiago harbor. For this act ofbravery, Hobson was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1933.
June 5, 1956: During a mass meeting at Birmingham's Sardis Baptist Church, Fred Shuttlesworthand other local black ministers establish the Alabama ChristianMovement for Human Rights (ACMHR). Founded in response to the State ofAlabama's recent ban on the NAACP, which lasted eight years, ACMHR was central to the civil rights movement in Birmingham.
June 9, 1943: The famed “Tuskegee Airmen”are involved in their first air battle with German fighter planes inthe skies over North Africa. These flyers from the 99th FighterSquadron were among those trained at Tuskegee Army Air Field, thecenter for pilot training of African Americans during World War II.
June 11, 1901: Gov. William J. Samford dies while in office and is succeeded by the president of the Alabama Senate, William D. Jelks. The Constitutional Convention, then in session, would recreate the office of Lieutenant Governor in the 1901 Constitution. Originally created in the 1868 constitution, the office of Lieutenant Governor had been dropped from the 1875 version.
June 11, 1963: Robert Muckel, a 29-year-old white high schoolteacher from Nebraska, unintentionally becomes the first student tosuccessfully integrate a public educational institution in Alabama.Shortly before Gov. George Wallace made his "stand in the schoolhouse door" at the University of Alabama, Muckel sat down for his first class at Alabama A&M College,an all-black institution. Attending a summer science institute, Muckeldid not realize when he applied that A&M was a segregated school.
June 11, 1963: Gov. George C. Wallace makes his infamous "stand in the schoolhouse door" to block the admittance of African Americans to the University of Alabama.Vivian Malone and James Hood both registered for classes quietly awayfrom the spotlight to become the first two black students tosuccessfully enroll at the university.
June 11, 1963: Dr. James Hardy,a native of Shelby County, Alabama, and chief of surgery at theUniversity of Mississippi Medical Center, performs the world's firsthuman lung transplant. The patient lived for three weeks before dyingof chronic kidney disease. The next year Hardy transplanted achimpanzee's heart into another patient, marking the first transplantof a heart into a human.
June 12, 1832: Alabama's first railroad, the Tuscumbia Railway,opens, running the two miles from Tuscumbia Landing at the TennesseeRiver to Tuscumbia. The railway was the first phase of a plannedrailroad to Decatur, forty-three miles to the east. That railroad wasneeded in order for river traffic to avoid the dangerous and oftenunnavigable Muscle Shoals of the Tennessee River.
June 12, 1933: Actor and singer Jim Nabors is born in Sylacauga.Nabors began acting while a student at the University of Alabama, andis best known for his Gomer Pyle character, who appeared on "The AndyGriffith Show" from 1960 to 1964, and later on his own series, "GomerPyle, USMC." Nabors has also appeared in several feature films, but hasconcentrated his later career in music.
June 18, 1916: The National Guard's 4th Alabama Infantryassembles in Montgomery in response to a call for troops from PresidentWoodrow Wilson. The 4th Alabama, under the command of William P.Screws, was one of four state units dispatched to the Mexican border toguard American interests while Gen. John Pershing attempted to captureMexican revolutionary and bandit Pancho Villa.
June 18, 1954: Albert Patterson, Democratic Party nominee for state attorney general, is assassinated in his hometown of Phenix City.State and local officials were implicated in the crime, but onlyRussell County Chief Deputy Albert Fuller was convicted. The murderdrew national attention because of Patterson's promise to rid PhenixCity, called the "wickedest city in America," of corruption andorganized crime. Adding to the drama, John Patterson was elected attorney general in his father's stead, and therefore had charge of the prosecutions in the case.
June 19, 1864: The CSS Alabama, captained by Mobile’s Raphael Semmes, is sunk at the end of a fierce naval engagement with the USS Kearsarge off the coast of Cherbourg, France. The Alabamahad docked there for maintenance and repairs after 22 months ofdestroying northern commerce on the high seas during the Civil War.
June 21, 1865: President Andrew Johnson appoints Lewis Parsonsprovisional governor. Parsons, the grandson of Great Awakening leaderJonathan Edwards, was born in New York and moved to Talladega in 1840.Although a Unionist, Parsons followed moderate policies as hereorganized Alabama's state government under Johnson's reconstructionplan. His term ended in December 1865.
June 22, 1937: Alabama native Joe Louisdefeats James J. Braddock at Chicago's Comiskey Park to become thefirst black heavyweight boxing champion since Jack Johnson in 1908.Born near Lafayette as Joseph Louis Barrow, the "Brown Bomber" held theworld heavyweight title until 1948.
June 24, 1896: Booker T. Washington, president of Tuskegee Institute,becomes the first African American to be awarded an honorary degree byHarvard University. Born into slavery in Virginia, Washington moved toAlabama in 1881 to open Tuskegee Normal School. He soon gained fame asan educational leader among black Americans, a fact which Harvardrecognized with a Master of Arts degree.
June 25, 1957: Macon County blacks kick off a boycott of white businesses at a mass meetingin Tuskegee attended by 3,000 people. The boycott was in response to aplan to protect white political power in Tuskegee by gerrymandering itscity limits so that all but a few African Americans would resideoutside the city. The boycott, which brought national attention toTuskegee, was sustained for four years and met many of the goals of itsoriginator, the Tuskegee Civic Association.
June 27, 1880: Helen Kelleris born in Tuscumbia. Having lost both sight and hearing by illness asa small child, Keller's life story and activism inspired new attitudestoward those with handicaps.
June 29, 1846: The 1st Alabama Infantry Regiment organizes inMobile to fight in the Mexican War. Alabamians volunteered in largenumbers to fight against Mexico when war came over the annexation ofTexas, but only this single regiment, a battalion, and severalindependent companies actually were received into federal service fromthe state. During its eleven months of service, the 1st Alabama lostonly one man in battle but 150 died from disease.
June 30, 1928: As mandated by the legislature, convict leasingends in Alabama. While many southern states leased convicts to privateindustry as laborers, Alabama's program, begun in 1846, lasted thelongest, and for much of that time the notorious system was a keyrevenue source for the state.