AGENCY 027 - WEBCAM CHAT ALABAMA
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The State of Alabama (IPA: /?æl?'bæm?/), is located in the southern region of the United States of America. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland waterways. The state ranks 23rd in population with almost 4.6 million residents in 2006.[3] From the American Civil War until World War II, Alabama, like many Southern States, suffered economic hardship. In the years following the war, Alabama experienced significant recovery as the economy of the state transitioned from agriculture to diversified interests in heavy manufacturing, mineral extraction, education, and high technology. Today, the state is heavily invested in aerospace, education, health care, and banking, and various heavy industries including automobile manufacturing, mineral extraction, steel production and fabrication. Alabama is unofficially nicknamed the Yellowhammer State, which is also the name of the state bird. Alabama is also known as the "Heart of Dixie". The state tree is the Longleaf Pine. The capital of Alabama is Montgomery, and the largest city is Birmingham.
Although the origin of Alabama was evident, the meaning of the tribe's name was not always clear. An article without a byline appearing in the Jacksonville Republican on July 27, 1842 originated the idea that the meaning was "Here We Rest."[6] This notion was popularized in the 1850s through the writings of Alexander Beaufort Meek.[6] Experts in the Muskogean languages have been unable to find any evidence that would support this translation.[4][6] It is now generally accepted that the word comes from the Choctaw words alba (meaning "plants" or "weeds") and amo (meaning "to cut", "to trim", or "to gather").[6][5][10] This results in translations such as "clearers of the thicket"[5] or even "herb gatherers"[10][11] which may refer to clearing of land for the purpose of planting crops[7] or to collection of medicinal plants by medicine men.[11]
Alabama generally ranges in elevation from sea level,[2] down at Mobile Bay, to over 1,800 feet (550 m) in the Appalachian Mountains in the northeast. The highest point is Mount Cheaha[13] (see map), at a height of nearly 2,405 ft (733 m). States bordering Alabama include Tennessee to the north; Georgia to the east; Florida to the south; and Mississippi to the west. Alabama has coastline at the Gulf of Mexico, in the extreme southern edge of the state.[13] National Parks in Alabama include Horseshoe Bend National Military Park near Alexander City; Little River Canyon National Preserve near Fort Payne; Russell Cave National Monument in Bridgeport; Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site in Tuskegee; and Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site near Tuskegee.[14] Alabama also contains the Natchez Trace Parkway, the Selma To Montgomery National Historic Trail, and the Trail Of Tears National Historic Trail. Suburban Baldwin County, along the Gulf Coast, is the largest county in the state in both land area and water area.[15] A 5-mile (8 km)-wide meteorite impact crater is located in Elmore County, just north of Montgomery. This is the Wetumpka crater, which is the site of "Alabama's greatest natural disaster".[16] A 1,000-foot (300 m)-wide meteorite hit the area about 80 million years ago.[17] The hills just east of downtown Wetumpka showcase the eroded remains of the impact crater that was blasted into the bedrock, with the area labeled the Wetumpka crater or astrobleme ("star-wound") because of the concentric rings of fractures and zones of shattered rock that can be found beneath the surface.[18] In 2002, Christian Koeberl with the Institute of Geochemistry University of Vienna published evidence and established the site as an internationally recognized impact crater.[19]
Summers in Alabama are among the hottest in the United States, with high temperatures averaging over 90 °F (32 °C) throughout the summer in the entire state. Alabama is also prone to tropical storms and even hurricanes. Areas of the state far away from the Gulf are not immune to the effects of the storms, which often dump tremendous amounts of rain as they move inland and weaken. Winters are generally mild in Alabama, as they are throughout most of the southeastern United States, with average January low temperatures around 40 °F (4 °C) in Mobile and around 32 °F (0 °C) in Birmingham. Snow is a rare event in much of Alabama. Areas of the state north of Montgomery may receive a dusting of snow a few times every winter, with an occasional moderately heavy snowfall every few years. In the southern Gulf coast, snowfall is less frequent, sometimes going several years without any snowfall. Monthly normal high and low temperatures for various Alabama cities[24]
The French founded the first European settlement in the state with the establishment of Mobile in 1702.[27] Southern Alabama was French from 1702 to 1763, part of British West Florida from 1763 to 1780, and part of Spanish West Florida from 1780 to 1814. Northern and central Alabama was part of British Georgia from 1763 to 1783 and part of the American Mississippi territory thereafter. Its statehood was delayed by the lack of a coastline; rectified when Andrew Jackson captured Spanish Mobile in 1814.[28] Alabama was the twenty-second state admitted to the Union, in 1819. The economy of the central "Black Belt" featured large cotton plantations whose owners built their wealth on the labor of enslaved African Americans. It was named for the dark, fertile soil.[29] Elsewhere poor whites were subsistence farmers. According to the 1860 census, enslaved African Americans comprised 45% of the state's population of 964,201. There were only 2,690 free persons of color. Alabama seceded from the Union in 1861 to join the Confederate States of America. Following the Civil War Alabama was readmitted to the Union in 1868. While not many battles were fought in the state, Alabama contributed about 120,000 soldiers to the Civil War. All the slaves were freed by 1865.[30] After the period of Reconstruction, the state was still chiefly rural and tied to cotton. Planters resisted working with free labor and sought to re-establish controls over African Americans. They used Jim Crow laws and segregation to reduce rights of African Americans and restore their own dominance. By the turn of the century, whites effectively disfranchised African Americans. Whites underfunded schools and services for African Americans, but did not relieve them of the need to pay taxes.[29] Continued racial discrimination, agricultural depression, and the failure of the cotton crops due to boll weevil infestation led tens of thousands of African Americans to seek out opportunities in northern cities. They left Alabama in the early 20th century as part of the Great Migration to industrial jobs and better futures in northern industrial cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia and New York. What had been rapid population growth in Alabama (see table) dropped by half from 1910-1920, reflecting the migration of African Americans out of the state. At the same time as the migration of the Black population from the Alabama Black Belt to the northern industrial United States, the city of Birmingham experienced such rapid growth that it was nicknamed "The Magic City." By the 1920s, Birmingham was the 19th largest city in the U.S and held more than 30% of the population of the state. In order to retain political power, the Black Belt-controlled legislature refused to reapportion House and Senate seats based on population after 1901. Jefferson County, the home of Birmingham, was contributing more than one-third of all tax revenue to the state. It received only 1/67th of the tax money, as taxes were distributed equally to each county regardless of population. In addition, the state legislature gerrymandered the few Birmingham legislative seats to ensure election by persons living outside of Birmingham. In 1965, under the Voting Rights Act, federal courts forced Alabama to properly redistrict by population both the state legislature House and Senate. They thus enforced a major section the Alabama Constitution for the first time since 1901.[citation needed] Because of the long disfranchisement of African Americans, the state continued as one-party Democratic for decades. It produced a number of national leaders. World War II brought prosperity.[29] Cotton faded in importance as the state developed a manufacturing and service base. In the 1960s under Governor George Wallace, many whites in the state opposed integration efforts. By the moral crusade of the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans achieved a restoration of voting and other civil rights through the passage of the national Civil Rights Laws of 1964 and 1965. De jure segregation ended in the states as Jim Crow laws were invalidated or repealed.[31] After 1972, the state's voting pattern shifted to the Republican Party in presidential elections (as occurred in neighboring southern states). Since 1990 the state has voted increasingly Republican in state elections.[32]
The state had 108,000 foreign-born (2.4% of the state population), of which an estimated 22.2% were illegal immigrants (24,000). The center of population of Alabama is located in Chilton County, outside of the town of Jemison, an area known as Jemison Division.[34]
Demographics of Alabama (csv) The largest reported ancestry groups in Alabama: American (17.0%), English (7.8%), Irish (7.7%), German (5.7%), and Scots-Irish (2.0%). 'American' does not include those reported as Native American.
Alabama's agricultural outputs include poultry and eggs, cattle, plant nursery items, peanuts, cotton, grains such as corn and sorghum, vegetables, milk, soybeans, and peaches. Although known as "The Cotton State", Alabama ranks between eight and ten in national cotton production, according to various reports,[40][41] with Texas, Georgia and Mississippi comprising the top three. Alabama's industrial outputs include iron and steel products (including cast-iron and steel pipe); paper, lumber, and wood products; mining (mostly coal); plastic products; cars and trucks; and apparel. Also, Alabama produces aerospace and electronic products, mostly in the Huntsville area, which is home of the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center and the US Army Missile Command, headquartered at Redstone Arsenal. Alabama is also home to the largest industrial growth corridor in the nation, including the surrounding states of Tennessee, Mississippi, Florida, and Georgia. Most of this growth is due to Alabama's rapidly expanding automotive manufacturing industry which in Alabama alone since its birth in 1993 (and has spread to other states), has generated over 67,800 new jobs. Alabama currently ranks 2nd in the nation behind Detroit in automobile output, but with recent expansions at sites in Alabama, the state by the first of 2009 will surpass Detroit, and become the largest builder of automobiles in North America. In May 2007, a site north of Mobile was selected by German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp for a $3.7 billion steel production plant, with the promise of 2,700 permanent jobs.[42] The city of Mobile, Alabama's only saltwater port, is a busy seaport on the Gulf of Mexico, and with inland waterway access to the Midwest via the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. Alabama levies a 2, 4, or 5% personal income tax, depending upon the amount earned and filing status. The state's general sales tax rate is 4%.[43] The collection rate could be substantially higher, depending upon additional city and county sales taxes. The corporate income tax rate is currently 6.5%. The overall federal, state, and local tax burden in Alabama ranks the state as the second least tax-burdened state in the country.[44] Alabama as recently as 2003 had an annual budget deficit as high as $670 million, yet is one of only a few handful of states to turn around into large surpluses with its current state's budget surplus at nearly $1.2 billion for 2007, and estimated over $2.1 billion for 2008.
Major airports in Alabama include Birmingham International Airport (BHM), Dothan Regional Airport (DHN), Huntsville International Airport (HSV), Mobile Regional Airport (MOB), Montgomery Regional Airport (MGM), Muscle Shoals - Northwest Alabama Regional Airport (MSL), Tuscaloosa Regional Airport (TCL), and Pryor Field Regional Airport (DCU). For rail transport, Amtrak schedules the Crescent, a daily passenger train, running from New York to New Orleans with stops at Anniston, Birmingham, and Tuscaloosa.
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Alabama is divided into three equal branches: The legislative branch is the Alabama Legislature, a bicameral assembly composed of the Alabama House of Representatives, with 105 members, and the Alabama Senate, with 35 members. The Legislature is responsible for writing, debating, passing, or defeating state legislation. The executive branch is responsible for the execution and oversight of laws. It is headed by the Governor of Alabama. Other members of executive branch include the cabinet, the Attorney General of Alabama, the Alabama Secretary of State, the Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries, the Alabama State Treasurer, and the Alabama State Auditor. The judicial branch is responsible for interpreting the Constitution and applying the law in state criminal and civil cases. The highest court is the Supreme Court of Alabama.
List of Alabama county seats
During Reconstruction following the American Civil War, Alabama was occupied by federal troops of the Third Military District under General John Pope. In 1874, the political coalition known as the Redeemers took control of the state government from the Republicans. After 1890, a coalition of whites passed laws to segregate and disenfranchise black residents. The state became part of the "Solid South", a one-party system in which the Democratic Party became essentially the only political party in every Southern state. For nearly 100 years, local and state elections in Alabama were decided in the Democratic Party primary, with generally only token Republican challengers running in the General Election. In the 1986 Democratic primary election, the then incumbent Lieutenant Governor lost the Democratic nomination for Governor. The state Democratic party invalidated the election and placed the Lieutenant Governor's name on the ballot as the Democratic candidate instead of the candidate chosen in the primary. The voters of the state revolted at what they perceived as disenfranchisement of their right to vote and elected the Republican challenger Guy Hunt as Governor. This was the first Republican Governor elected in Alabama since Reconstruction. Since then, Republicans have been increasingly elected to state offices until in 2006 Democrats were barely holding a majority in the state legislature. And since 1986, only one Democrat has managed to win the Governors office and he failed to win re-election. Today, the state is mainly Republican. Alabama state politics gained nationwide and international attention in the 1950s and 1960s during the American Civil Rights Movement, when it bureaucratically, and at times, violently resisted protests for electoral and social reform. The state's governor during the period, George Wallace, remains a notorious and controversial figure. However, in 2007, the Alabama Legislature passed, and the Governor signed, a resolution expressing "profound regret" over slavery and its lingering impact. The bill was signed in the Alabama State Capitol which served as the first Capital of the Confederate States of America.[47]
In the 1968 presidential election, Alabama supported native son and American Independent Party candidate George Wallace over both Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. In 1976, Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter from Georgia carried the state, the region, and the nation, but Democratic control of the region slipped thereafter. Since 1980, Alabama voters have increasingly voted for Republican candidates at the Federal level, especially in Presidential elections. By contrast, Democratic candidates are elected to many state-level offices and comprise a longstanding majority in the Alabama Legislature. In 2004, George W. Bush won Alabama's nine electoral votes by a margin of 25 percentage points with 62.5% of the vote. The only 11 counties that voted Democratic were Black Belt counties, where African Americans are in the majority. The state's two current U.S. senators are Jefferson B. Sessions III and Richard C. Shelby, both Republicans. In the U.S. House of Representatives, the state is represented by seven members, five of whom are Republicans: (Jo Bonner, Terry Everett, Mike D. Rogers, Robert Aderholt, and Spencer Bachus) and two are Democrats: (Bud Cramer and Artur Davis). Further information: U.S. presidential election, 2004, in Alabama Health and education [edit] Primary and secondary education Public school funding is appropriated through the Alabama Legislature through the Education Trust Fund. In FY 2006-2007, Alabama appropriated $3,775,163,578 for primary and secondary education. That represented an increase of $444,736,387 over the previous fiscal year.[48] In 2007, over 82 percent of schools made adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward student proficiency under the National No Child Left Behind law. In 2004, only 23 percent of schools met AYP.[49]
Accreditation of academic programs is through the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges as well as a variety of subject focused national and international accreditation agencies.[51]
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