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Alabama
Political repression plays out state by state — shaped by local institutions, prosecutors, and movements for defense. These are the documented political prisoners and cases the census holds for Alabama.
130Documented
2In custody
109Released
Eras of repression in Alabama
Where Alabama’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.
1930s 45
1960s 32
1970s 27
1950s 11
2020s 3
1910s 3
Documented cases
130 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.
J
Jesse Tuba Clancy
One of the Atmore-Holman Brothers (IFA), convicted in the framed prosecution over the 1974 Atmore-Holman priso...
J
Jesse James Clanzy
Released
Jesse James Clanzy was one of the eleven Atmore-Holman Brothers — Alabama prisoners and active members of Inma...
M
Minion Clifton
Released
Minion Clifton was a Black sharecropper backed by the Share Croppers' Union, framed on an arson charge at Dade...
J
Jonathan Myrick Daniels
Released
Jonathan Myrick Daniels was an Episcopal seminarian and civil rights worker. After six days in jail, he was ki...
G
Glenn Diamond
Mobile, Alabama activist (also known as Casmarah Mani), a former member of the prison group Inmates For Action...
G
George Chagina Dobbins
Black inmate activist and IFA member killed in custody amid the repression following the Jan. 18, 1974 Atmore-...
T
Tommy Dotson
One of the Atmore-Holman Brothers; The Black Panther Vol. 19 no.10,11 (1979) reports he faced electrocution on...
W
Will Drake
Released
Will Drake was a Black sharecropper jailed after the July 1931 attack on the Share Croppers' Union at Camp Hil...
E
Ervin Edwards
Released
Ervin Edwards (spelled "Erwin" in The Black Panther) was a Black man in Mobile, Alabama, prosecuted for the de...
E
Edward Ellis
Released
Edward Ellis was one of the eleven Atmore-Holman Brothers — Alabama prisoners and active members of Inmates fo...
E
Elroy Embry
Released
Elroy Embry was a Black student jailed with the white theological student R. Edwin King in Montgomery, Alabama...
T
T. L. Fisher
Released
The Rev. T. L. Fisher was a Birmingham movement minister and one of the eight petitioners in Walker v. City of...
B
Brian Fleming
Released
Brian Joseph Fleming was a U.S.-based Irish republican activist figure associated with Fianna Éireann networks...
L
Laurent Frantz
Released
Laurent Frantz was a Birmingham, Alabama attorney for the Communist Party who was illegally arrested and held...
C
Charles Gomillion
Released
Charles G. Gomillion was a Tuskegee Institute dean and president of the Tuskegee Civic Association, who in 195...
N
Nat Goodwin
Released
Nat Goodwin was a Black worker arrested in Birmingham, Alabama in early 1934 and held incommunicado for coming...
J
James Gray
Released
James Gray was a Black sharecropper jailed after the July 1931 attack on the Share Croppers' Union at Camp Hil...
T
Thomas Gray
Released
Thomas Gray was a Black sharecropper jailed after the July 1931 attack on the Share Croppers' Union at Camp Hi...
W
Willie Joe Hart
Released
Willie Joe Hart was a seventeen-year-old Black volunteer organizer for the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packi...
J
J. W. Hayes
Released
The Rev. J. W. Hayes was a Birmingham movement minister and one of the eight petitioners in Walker v. City of...
L
Lincoln Heard
Named among the Atmore prisoners falsely indicted alongside Johnny Imani Harris in the killing of a guard duri...
T
Tommy Lee Hines
Released
Tommy Lee Hines was a 25-year-old Black man with a severe intellectual disability — an IQ of about 39, describ...
T
Taft Holmes
Released
Taft Holmes was a Black sharecropper jailed after the July 1931 attack on the Share Croppers' Union at Camp Hi...
A
Asbury Howard
Released
Asbury Howard was an international vice-president of the Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers Union and president of t...
Institutions in Alabama
Prisons, jails, and detention centers in Alabama that appear in the census’s case files.
Birmingham City JailBirmingham, Alabama
19 cases
Kilby PrisonMontgomery, Alabama
11 cases
Holman PrisonAtmore, Alabama
9 cases
Atmore State PrisonAtmore, Alabama
7 cases
Montgomery City JailMontgomery, Alabama
4 cases
Montgomery County JailMontgomery, Alabama
3 cases
FCI TalladegaTalladega, Alabama
2 cases
Etowah County JailGadsden, Alabama
1 case