Marion, Alabama

Marion Old Marion City Hall, assembled in 1832.

Old Marion City Hall, assembled in 1832.

Location of Marion Marion is a town/city in, and the governmental center of county of, Perry County, Alabama, United States. As of the 2010 census, the populace of the town/city is 3,686, up 4.8% over 2000.

First known as Muckle Ridge, the town/city was retitled after a hero of the American Revolution, Francis Marion.

Marion is the 152th most crowded city in the state of Alabama, of 573 cities.

The town/city was retitled with respect to Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox," hero of the American Revolutionary War, in 1822.

In 1829, it upgraded from a town to a city. From the very early days, Marion created considerable history for a small town on the frontier of Alabama.

The old City Hall (1832) is but one of many antebellum enhance buildings, churches, and homes in the town/city today.

General Sam Houston, while between terms as 1st and 3rd President of the Republic of Texas, married Margaret Lea of Marion in the town/city in 1840.

At the 1844 meeting of the Alabama Baptist State Convention in Marion, the "Alabama Resolutions" were passed.

Judson College was established in 1838 and Marion Military Institute after Howard College moved in 1887. Howard College, initially the locale of the current Marion Military Institute, was established in Marion in 1842, and moved to Birmingham in 1887, later becoming Samford University. A groundbreaking school for African Americans, the Lincoln Normal School, was established here in 1867. The associated Lincoln Normal University for Teachers moved to Montgomery and became Alabama State University.

In 1889, Marion Military Institute was chartered by the State of Alabama and today is the earliest military junior college in the nation.

In December 1857, Andrew Barry Moore (1807-1873) of Marion was propel the sixteenth Governor of Alabama (1857-1861).

After serving one term where he presided over Alabama's secession from the Union, he assisted in the war accomplishment, was imprisoned a short time after the war and in ill community returned to Marion where he died eight years later.

George Doherty Johnson (May 30, 1832 December 8, 1910) served as mayor of Marion in 1856, state legislator from 1857-58 and rose to the project of brigadier general in the Confederate States Army in the American Civil War.

Leading up to the Civil War Nicola Marschall (1829-1917), a German-American artist, is generally credited with designing both the first official Confederate flag and the grey Confederate army uniform while a teacher at the old Marion Female Seminary.

With the coming Civil War in 1861, Nicola Marschall was approached in February by Mary Clay Lockett, wife of prominent attorney Napoleon Lockett of Marion, and her daughter, Fannie Lockett Moore, daughter-in-law of Alabama Governor Andrew B.

Moore of Marion, to design a flag for the new Confederacy.

Marschall offered three designs, one of which became the "Stars and Bars," the first official flag of the Confederate States of America (C.S.A.), and which was first raised in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 4, 1861.

At the turn of the century in 1900, Perry County peaked in populace at 31,783 or three times the populace of the county in 2010 census.

In 1909, Marion became the county seat.

Was born in Marion in 1904 and died in Madera, California, following an auto accident in 1940.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Marion in 1927 and spent her childhood there.

A number of momentous affairs occurred in Marion relating to the Civil Rights Movement.

In 1958 Jimmy Wilson, a black man, was sentenced to death by a jury in Marion for stealing $1.95 from Estelle Barker. Wilson's case became an global cause celebre, veiled in newspapers around the world and inspiring over 1000 letters per day to the office of governor Jim Folsom.

Finally, after the Alabama Supreme Court upheld Wilson's conviction, at the urging of the Congress of Racial Equality, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles wrote to Folsom explaining the damage that the case was doing to the global reputation of the United States and Folsom quickly granted Wilson clemency. In 1964, Marion was a center of civil rights protests in Alabama.

During a Southern Christian Leadership Conference march on the evening of February 18, 1965, amid the height of the Selma Voting Rights Movement, Marion resident Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot and killed by Alabama State Trooper James Bonard Fowler.

. Jackson died on February 26 of an infection stemming from the wounds at close-by Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma. Martin Luther King preached a sermon at Jackson's funeral on March 3, and Jackson's death is recognized as the catalyst for SCLC Director of Direct Action, James Bevel, to call and organize the first Selma to Montgomery March on March 7. It was not until 2007, that Fowler was indicted for murder for his part in Jackson's death. In 2010, Fowler pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter. In 2009, Marion made nationwide news when a three-year-old family feud turned into a 150-person brawl outside the town's town/city hall, resulting in the arrest of eight citizens and the hospitalization of two. Jewett Hall at Judson College, part of the Judson College Historic District.

Marion has many historic structures, with most listed on historic registers directly or as contributing buildings.

The Chapel and Lovelace Hall at Marion Military Institute, First Congregational Church of Marion, the Henry House, Marion Female Seminary, Phillips Memorial Auditorium, President's House at Marion Institute, Siloam Baptist Church are all individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It has one National Historic Landmark, Kenworthy Hall. The town/city also has a several historic districts, including the Green Street Historic District, Judson College Historic District, Marion Courthouse Square Historic District, and West Marion Historic District.

Marion is positioned at 32 37 58 N 87 19 2 W (32.632838, -87.317284). Enumeration Bureau, the town/city has a total region of 10.7 square miles (28 km2), of which 10.6 square miles (27 km2) is territory and 0.1 square miles (0.26 km2) (0.94%) is water.

In the city, the populace was spread out with 27.5% under the age of 18, 15.7% from 18 to 24, 21.5% from 25 to 44, 18.7% from 45 to 64, and 16.6% who were 65 years of age or older.

Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy.

Fleming, John (6 March 2005), "The Death of Jimmie Lee Jackson", The Anniston Star, retrieved 2008-01-21 Davis, Townsend (1998), Weary Feet, Rested Souls: A Guided History of the Civil Rights Movement, New York: W.

"Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2015".

"Annual Estimates of the Resident Population: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2013".

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Marion, Alabama.

Marion Military Institute web site Municipalities and communities of Perry County, Alabama, United States County seat: Marion Cities in Alabama - County seats in Alabama - Cities in Perry County, Alabama - University suburbs in the United States - 1819 establishments in Alabama