Capitol Park: Tuscaloosa Civil Rights History Trail
ID: AL1884000001
Name(s) of People Lynched: Not Specified
Number of People Lynched: 10
Race: Not specified
Gender: Not Specified
Lynching Date(s): 1884-00-00
Year Marker Erected: 2019
Erected by: Tuscaloosa Civil Rights History Task Force
City: Tuscaloosa
County: Tuscaloosa
State: Alabama
Marker Text: As you look at the ruins of the former Alabama State Capitol, it may be difficult to realize that the building stood at the center of debates over freedom and liberty. Until the end of the Civil War, Alabama and Tuscaloosa were centers of slavery. After the war, the state helped make segregation the law of the land in the South while Tuscaloosa itself became rigidly divided by race. The Tuscaloosa Civil Rights History Trail begins here and seeks to recall events and individuals sometimes hidden, but never forgotten, in the quest for equality.
Tuscaloosa was the seat of Alabama State government from 1826 to 1846. The Alabama legislature, meeting in Tuscaloosa, passed the Slave Code of 1833 consisting of forty-two regulations to further restrict the mobility and limited freedoms of enslaved people and persons of color. This more stringent code, like those used widely in other southern states, reflected white views of blacks as undeserving of basic human rights and strictly regulated assembly, travel, education, employment, and marriage. They were aimed at curbing the rising number of runaways, preventing rebellions, and maximizing profits for the owners of enslaved people.
After the Civil War and the formal end of slavery, the promise of racial equality was never fully realized. While the era of Reconstruction brought unprecedented freedoms to blacks, including the right to vote and enjoy due process under the law, it was short lived. A rash of new laws put in place by the state legislature in the late 1800s restricted the liberties of blacks in new ways. And what could not be legislated was often accomplished through violence and terror. The Ku Klux Klan and similar groups began to use physical assault and lynching as a way to subjugate blacks, control their labor, and prevent them from voting and moving freely. Blacks remained second-class citizens until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Tuscaloosa was the seat of Alabama State government from 1826 to 1846. The Alabama legislature, meeting in Tuscaloosa, passed the Slave Code of 1833 consisting of forty-two regulations to further restrict the mobility and limited freedoms of enslaved people and persons of color. This more stringent code, like those used widely in other southern states, reflected white views of blacks as undeserving of basic human rights and strictly regulated assembly, travel, education, employment, and marriage. They were aimed at curbing the rising number of runaways, preventing rebellions, and maximizing profits for the owners of enslaved people.
After the Civil War and the formal end of slavery, the promise of racial equality was never fully realized. While the era of Reconstruction brought unprecedented freedoms to blacks, including the right to vote and enjoy due process under the law, it was short lived. A rash of new laws put in place by the state legislature in the late 1800s restricted the liberties of blacks in new ways. And what could not be legislated was often accomplished through violence and terror. The Ku Klux Klan and similar groups began to use physical assault and lynching as a way to subjugate blacks, control their labor, and prevent them from voting and moving freely. Blacks remained second-class citizens until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Timeline: 1819 – The Alabama Constitution confers citizenship only to white males over twenty-one years old. The Constitution declares enslaved people to be property and “…oblige[s] the owner to treat them with humanity, provide food and clothing, and abstain from all injury.
1826 – The Alabama State Capitol is moved to Tuscaloosa.
1830 – The Indian Removal Act is signed by President Andrew Jackson, who sought to force southeastern Native American tribes to relocate west of Mississippi.
1833 – The Alabama legislature, meeting in Tuscaloosa, passes forty-two slave codes to further restrict the mobility and limited freedoms of enslaved people. One code stated that “Any person attempting to teach a slave or free person of color to spell, read or write, will be fined $250-$500.”
1837 – Chief Yoholo Micco, also known as Chief Eufaula, visits the Alabama Legislature and delivers a farewell address as he leads his people on a forced march out of the state toward the Oklahoma territory. On this “Trail of Tears,” he dies en route.
1860 – Tuscaloosa County Census is published. The city has 12,971 whites, 84 freed people of color, and 10,145 enslaved people.
1884 – The first of at least ten recorded lynchings in Tuscaloosa occur. (Equal Justice Initiative, see marker in front of Old Jail)
1901 – John Knox, president of the 1901 Alabama Constitutional Convention, states that their main goal is “to establish white supremacy in this State…within the limits of the Federal Constitution.” One hundred fifty-five delegates elected from across the state join him. All are white. Yet the 1900 Alabama State Census reveals a population of 1,001,152 whites and 827,307 blacks.
Sources: https://www.hmdb.org