Alabama History in March
Excerpted from Alabama Department of Archives and History
March 2, 1901: Trustees of the Alabama Department of Archives and History meet in Gov. William J. Samford's office to organize the nation's first state archival agency.Charged with, among other responsibilities, "the care and custody ofofficial archives [and] the collection of materials bearing upon thehistory of the State," the department was housed in the capitol until1940. In that year it moved across Washington Avenue to the WarMemorial Building, which had been constructed for the Archives.
March 2, 1961: Alabama native Luther Leonidas Terrybegins serving as U.S. Surgeon General under President John F. Kennedy.Terry was born in Red Level in 1911 and graduated fromBirmingham-Southern College in 1931. As Surgeon General he issued alandmark report on smoking and health that raised awareness amongpolicymakers and the public about the dangers of smoking. Terry serveduntil October 1, 1965.
March 3, 1817: The Alabama Territoryis created when Congress passes the enabling act allowing the divisionof the Mississippi Territory and the admission of Mississippi into theunion as a state. Alabama would remain a territory for over two yearsbefore becoming the 22nd state in December 1819.
March 4, 1861: The first Confederate flag is raised over theAlabama Capitol at 3:30 PM by Letita Tyler, granddaughter of formerU.S. president John Tyler. The flag, which flew on a flagpole by thecapitol clock, was not the Confederate battle flag, but the "FirstNational Pattern," also known as the stars and bars.
March 7, 1965: Six-hundred demonstrators make the first of threeattempts to march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery to demandremoval of voting restrictions on black Americans. Attacked by stateand local law enforcement officers as they crossed Selma's EdmundPettus Bridge, the marchers fled back into the city. The dramatic scene was captured on camera and broadcast across the nation later that Sunday, causing a surge of support for the protestors.
March 9, 1964: In the Alabama case New York Times v. Sullivanthe U.S. Supreme Court hands down a landmark free speech decision. AMontgomery city commissioner, L. B. Sullivan, had sued the Times for running a factually inaccurate ad that criticized the city's handling of civil rights demonstrators. Citing the First Amendment the court ruled against Sullivan, thereby strengthening the right to freely criticize government.
March 10, 1890: Juliet Opie Hopkinsdies. Hopkins served as the Superintendent of Civil War Hospitalsestablished in Richmond by the State of Alabama during the Civil War.She became a Confederate heroine for her efforts and her portrait evenappeared on Alabama state bank notes during the Civil War years.
March 10, 1948: Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald--Montgomery belle,writer, artist, and (with her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald) icon of theJazz Age--dies in a hospital fire in Asheville, North Carolina.
March 11, 1861: The Confederate Congress, meeting in Montgomery,adopts a permanent constitution for the Confederate States of Americato replace the provisional constitution adopted the previous month. Theseceded states then ratified the essentially conservative document,which was based largely on the United States Constitution.
March 14, 1780: After only a day of resistance the British commander at Fort Charlotte surrenders Mobileto Spain. The city remained under Spanish control until the War of 1812when the United States took it over, adding it to the MississippiTerritory.
March 15, 1929: Elba residents are forced to take refuge onhousetops as they await rescue from rapidly rising flood waters. Rainsbeginning in late February resulted in flooding that affected most ofthe state and left 15,000 south Alabamians homeless. Although the Floodof 1929 hit Elba the hardest, several other towns, including Geneva andBrewton, were covered in as much as fifteen feet of water.
March 17, 1825: Benjamin Sterling Turneris born a slave in North Carolina. In 1830 he was brought to DallasCounty, Alabama. After freedom Turner began a mercantile business andwas elected Dallas County tax collector in 1867. In 1871 Turner was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the state’s first African-American congressman.
March 17, 1863: John Pelham,a 24-year-old Confederate hero from Calhoun County, is mortally woundedon the battlefield at Kelley's Ford, Virginia. He died the next day andhis body lay in state in the capitol at Richmond before being taken toAlabama for burial. Pelham's skill and daring as an artillery commanderdistinguished him from the outset of the Civil War and earned him thenickname "the gallant Pelham" from Robert E. Lee.
March 17, 1970: The Alabama Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville is dedicated, with Wernher von Braun calling it "a graphic display of man's entering into the cosmic age." Now known as the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, visitors tour the museum, which includes rockets and spacecraft, and participate in activities like Space Camp.
March 20, 1872: Because of financial problems, the Methodistchurch transfers the grounds, buildings, and legal control of EastAlabama Male College in Auburn to the State of Alabama. The institutionis rechartered as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama,the first land-grant college in the South to be established separatefrom the state university. The school became Alabama PolytechnicInstitute in 1899 and Auburn University in 1960.
March 21, 1932: Over 250 Alabamians die in tornadoes that sweepthe state. More than 1,500 others were injured and damage was estimatedat $5 million. The western and north-central parts of the state,especially the towns of Northport, Cullman, and Columbiana, werehardest hit.
March 21, 1965: Rev. Martin Luther King leads 3,200 marchers from Selma toward Montgomeryin support of civil rights for black Americans, after two earliermarches had ended at the Edmund Pettus Bridge--the first in violenceand the second in prayer. Four days later, outside the Alabama statecapitol, King told 25,000 demonstrators that "we are on the move now .. . and no wave of racism can stop us." On August 6, 1965, PresidentLyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law.
March 24, 1832: In Washington, D.C., representatives of the Creek Indians sign a treatyceding "to the United States all their land, East of the Mississippi,"which included large portions of east Alabama. Known as the Treaty ofCusseta, it was negotiated in the wake of the Indian Removal Act of1830. Approximately 20,000 Creeks were removed to the Oklahoma IndianTerritory by 1840, although some remained, including the ancestors ofthe Poarch Band of Creeks, who are concentrated near Atmore, Alabama.
March 24, 1853: William Rufus Kingof Selma is inaugurated as Vice President of the United States nearHavana, Cuba. Elected the previous fall on the Democratic ticket withFranklin Pierce, King had been in the warm Cuban climate since Januaryin an attempt to recover his failing health. When it became apparentthat he would be unable to travel to Washington for the inauguration,Congress passed a special act to allow him to take the oath of officein Cuba. When his health did not improve, King returned to Alabama,where he died April 18, 1853, never formally serving as Vice President.
March 25, 1931: Nine black youths, soon to be known as the Scottsboro Boys,are arrested in Paint Rock and jailed in Scottsboro, the Jackson Countyseat. Charged with raping two white women on a freight train fromChattanooga, the sheriff had to protect them from mob violence thatnight. Within a month, eight of the nine were sentenced to death. Basedon questionable evidence, the convictions by an all-white jurygenerated international outrage.
March 26, 1910: Orville Wright pilots the first plane in Alabama, causing the Montgomery Advertiser to report “a strange new bird soared over the cotton fields west of Montgomery.” The Wright brotherscame to Montgomery to set up a pilots’ training school. Several pilotswere trained, but the brothers left the area by the end of May.Replacement parts for broken machinery were difficult to locate in thearea and the flyers' efforts were frustrated by numerous spectatorsduring their stay.
March 27, 1814: In the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, Andrew Jacksonleads a force of Americans, Creeks, and Cherokees against Red StickCreeks. Attacking the Red Stick stronghold of Tohopeka on the banks ofthe Tallapoosa River, Jackson's men killed more than 900 people. Thevictory soon led to the end of the Creek War and the cession of 23 million acres of Creek territory to the United States.