CELEBRATE & EDUCATE: Alabama Black History Stories

This is Maria Fearing. Born into slavery in Sumter County in 1838, she graduated
from @thetalladegacollege and became a teacher in #Anniston. In 1894, at age
56, she sold her house and traveled to the Belgian Congo where she served as
a missionary with @pcusa church. She saw firsthand the violent reign of King
Leopold II, used her savings to purchase freedom for slaves and rescued child
workers. Her home in Luebo eventually became a school. She was called Mama
wa Mputu — mother from far away. She testified against soldiers who took a girl
from her home, something she could not have done in America. She was forced
to retire in 1915 because she was 78. She returned to Alabama, taught school
and raised money for mission work. She died in 1937 at age 99. (Alabama Vintage)

This is Minnie Lee Relf,14, and her sister, Mary Alice, 12, after the two were surgically sterilized without their knowledge or consent in Montgomery in Their mother, who was illiterate, said she did not know what she was agreeing to when signed a consent form with an X. The incident prompted a federal lawsuit and US Senate hearing. (Alabama Vintage)

This is brother and sister Aldrich and Ada Datcher in the 1920s. They were members of a family that has run a farm that has been in their family since the 1870s and to have grown into the largest Black-owned farm in Shelby County. Ada spent many years as a midwife and died in Harpersville in 1993 at age 98. He died in Vincent in 1986 at age 85. This photow as donated to the state archives as part of the family’s effort to preserve their history. (Alabama Vintage)