Alabama and the Presidency

Alabama has a long history of presidential connections. Learn more about them in “Alabama and the Presidency,” on view now on the third floor of the Main Library, 915 Monroe St.

The exhibit was organized by the Center for the Study of Southern Political Culture at Calhoun Community College and the HMCPL Archives. Funding was provided by Dr. Parker Griffith, former U.S. congressman and Alabama state senator.

The exhibit features all the people from Alabama who have run for president as well as others with presidential connections. It ranges from William Russell Smith, a vice presidential candidate nominated by a splinter group of Virginia Democrats in 1836, to Gov. George C. Wallace, who ran for president in 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1976.

Also included are James G. Birney, a former Huntsville mayor who was the presidential candidate of the Liberty Party in 1840 and 1844, and Booker T. Washington, who served as a patronage official for three Republican presidents, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft, in 1896, 1900, 1904, and 1908.