African Americans’ Success in Alabama Before Obama: 1988-2008

Abstract

The period between 1988-2008 represented an era of distinct contrasts for African Americans in Alabama. Although African Americans had considerable success following the Civil Rights Movement by1990, many of their children still attended all-black schools in poor racially isolated crime-ridden communities, and 38% of blacks lived in families with incomes below the poverty line, compared to an 18% state average. Politically, the period saw significant gains by African Americans. By the early 1990s the state had more than 700 black elected officials, one of the nation’s highest, which led to calls to create a district to elect an African American congressman. In 1992, such a district emerged, Alabama’s seventh as a result of a federal court-approved redistricting plan. Earl Hilliard, a state senator for Birmingham was elected to the seat becoming the first African American congressman since reconstruction. However, redrawing the seventh district proved costly to Democrats because it made two other congressional districts pro-Republican by taking away large chunks of black voters from the second and sixth districts. This paper examines the continuing challenges facing Alabama’s African American community at the close of the twentieth and start of the twenty-first centuries