Appalachian Alabama and the Modern Civil Rights Movement

In his work documenting the modern Civil Rights Movement in Alabama, scholar and author Frye Gaillard has called the state “the Cradle of Freedom.” Indeed, during the 1950s and early 1960s, demonstrations and events in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma sparked protests across the country, shined a spotlight on white supremacist violence, and fostered the passage of landmark civil rights legislation. Further, the state birthed integral movement leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, and Rosa Parks. Although scholarship has rightfully examined the significance of the freedom struggle in these locales, obscured are other cities in Alabama and their local movements. Missing from the narrative of the movement in the state is Gadsden, approximately one hour north of Birmingham. The industrial town, one of the largest cities in the state in the 1950s, sits in the Coosa River Valley, in the foothills of the Cumberland Plateau. In the early 1960s, the town drew organizers from three major civil rights organizations and witnessed some of the most violent demonstrations of the period. This presentation excavates the civil rights movement in Gadsden, Alabama connecting it to currents around the state and across the nation. In the process, it demonstrates the integral role of the Appalachian South in the broader struggle for black liberation.