Tag Archives: deep south

Flashback to Emphasis ’68: Roy Wilkins

Forty five years ago this week, The University of Alabama began its second annual symposium on contemporary issues. Known as Emphasis, it ran from 1967-1971, with varying degrees of success. This week, we revisit some of its more memorable speeches and … Continue reading

James Hood

On any given weekday, you will see a variety of students from different ethnicities, religions and socioeconomic classes wandering the quad, dorms, and halls. As an institution, we have come to reflect and embrace these differences, but the University of … Continue reading

ETDs 2012: History, Culture, and Art

More scholarship from graduate students at UA. These questions all represent research published in dissertations and theses during 2012. * Anthropology: Can we learn anything about the 20th c. Great Migration of African Americans by looking at cemeteries? This image … Continue reading

A Day in the Life: November 28

On this date, through the years… * 1860. Alabama. Hugh Davis laments the political tumult of his day, which in hindsight we recognize as the prelude to Civil War. Davis writes: “Revolution. Fire. Precipitation. Slaughter. How rapidly, how fearfully the … Continue reading

Fred Shuttlesworth

On May 3, 1963, peaceful demonstrators, many of them teenagers, are beaten back in downtown Birmingham by fire hoses and police dogs.  The extreme tactics, ordered by police commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor brought international attention to Project C, the name … Continue reading

The Woodward Iron Company

This post features photographs from the Woodward Family Collection and displays plant operations and different industrial scenes from the 19th century. The Woodward Iron Company was founded by two brothers, Joseph and William Woodward on December 31, 1881. William served … Continue reading

Doodles

Earlier this week we featured one of our newly online collections, the John Horry Dent Papers. In this collection you can find something kind of fun we sometimes come across in Special Collections… doodles! I have included images of some … Continue reading

1867 Alabama Constitutional Convention

This week we are looking at an item in our digital collection that highlights African-American history, in honor of Black History Month. This item is a speech by Elisha Wolsey Peck, chairman of the Alabama Constitutional Convention of 1867. The … Continue reading

The Battle of Lookout Mountain

This Thursday, November 24, is not only Thanksgiving Day, but also marks the 148th anniversary of the Battle of Lookout Mountain, a major turning point in the Civil War. The defeat of General Braxton Bragg’s Confederate Army of Tennessee at … Continue reading

Letter from Westly Townsend, An Empancipated Slave

A few months ago, we blogged about a project funded by the NHPRC to digitize the Septimus D. Cabaniss Papers. This is a really fascinating collection, containing the personal and business papers of a Civil War era attorney from Huntsville, … Continue reading