Learn More → State by State
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.
280Documented
5In custody
155Released
3Awaiting trial
Eras of repression in Alabama
Where Alabama’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.
1930s 176
1960s 36
1970s 26
2020s 11
1950s 11
1980s 4
Recent dashboard entries from Alabama
The newest published events and reporting located in Alabama, updated automatically from the live dashboard.
Protest
About 400 march silently to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in an 'All Roads Lead to the South' voting-rights action
Protest
Thousands attend protests in Selma and Montgomery for voting rights
Prosecution
The Justice Department indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on 11 federal fraud and money-laundering counts; the civil-rights group pleaded not guilty, called it a vindictive, politically motivated prosecution, and moved to dismiss the case
Prosecution
Fairhope "No Kings" costume protester Renea Gamble acquitted on all charges
Arrest
Woman in an inflatable costume arrested at the Fairhope No Kings protest
Protest
About 5,000 rally at Railroad Park for a Birmingham No Kings protest
Protest
A No Kings rally draws a crowd at the Houston County Courthouse in Dothan
Protest
Jeana Gamble arrested in a costume at an Alabama "No Kings" protest; acquitted of all charges
Documented cases
280 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.
Joseph Gelders
Released
Joseph Sidney Gelders was a physicist, labor organizer, and civil-rights activist associated with the Southern...
Charles Gomillion
Released
Charles Goode Gomillion was a Tuskegee Institute professor and president of the Tuskegee Civic Association. In...
Eugene Hambrick
Released
Eugene Hambrick was one of five young Black men detained in the 1936 Huntsville, Alabama investigation into th...
Johnny ‘Imani’ Harris
Released
Johnny ‘Imani’ Harris was a desegregation activist who in 1970 was the first black person to move into an all-...
Audrey Faye Hendricks
Released
Audrey Faye Hendricks was nine years old when she was arrested in Birmingham on May 2, 1963, the first day of...
Tommy Lee Hines
Released
Tommy Lee Hines was a Black man with a severe intellectual disability living in Decatur, Alabama, when police...
Asbury Howard
Released
Asbury Howard was an international vice-president of the Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers Union and president of t...
Freeman A. Hrabowski III
Released
Freeman A. Hrabowski III participated in the Birmingham Children's Crusade in May 1963. As a child protester h...
Higinio Ochoa III
Released
Higinio Ochoa III (AKA w0rmer) is a hacker as part of the collective CabinCr3w (part of Anonymous). He was arr...
Clyde Johnson
Kelley reports Communist organizer Clyde Johnson held incommunicado and beaten by Birmingham police in 1934.
Oscar Gamba Johnson
Released
One of the Atmore-Holman Brothers (IFA), sentenced to 50 years in the framed prosecution over the 1974 Atmore-...
Ira Jolley
Released
Ira Jolley was one of five young Black men detained in the 1936 Huntsville, Alabama investigation into the kil...
Charles Joseph Jones
Released
Charles Joseph Jones — his name also appears as Joseph Charles Jones — was a founding SNCC activist arrested a...
James Jones
Released
James Jones, also known as Sekou Lumpen, was a former Inmates for Action member and a leader of the People’s C...
Martin Luther King Jr.
Released
Martin Luther King Jr. was a prominent civil rights leader who developed nonviolent civil disobedience techniq...
Sekou Kambui
Released
Sekou Kambui was a Civil Rights activist with the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC), Congress for R...
Janice Wesley Kelsey
Released
Janice Wesley Kelsey joined the Birmingham Children's Crusade as an Ullman High School student. Arrested on Ma...
Mathew Kennedy
Released
Mathew Kennedy was a pensioned World War I veteran who drove in the Montgomery Improvement Association car poo...
Robert Edwin King
Released
The Rev. R. Edwin King, a white theological student, was jailed in Montgomery, Alabama in 1960 for attempting...
Mamie King-Chalmers
Released
Mamie King-Chalmers was a civil-rights organizer who organized neighbors to join Birmingham's 1963 civil right...
Bernard Lafayette
Released
Bernard Lafayette Jr. was a co-founder of SNCC, a Nashville Student Movement organizer trained by James Lawson...
Richard Lake
Released
Founder/leader of the Atmore-Holman prison group Inmates For Action (known as 'Mafundi'), held in solitary con...
Gloria Larry
Released
Gloria Larry came from California and joined the Fort Deposit protests. She was among the six named released d...
Alton Lawrence
Released
Alton Lawrence was a Mine-Mill executive board member from Bessemer, Alabama. He pleaded no contest in October...
Institutions in Alabama
Prisons, jails, and detention centers in Alabama that appear in the census’s case files.
Birmingham City JailBirmingham, Alabama
20 cases
Kilby PrisonMontgomery, Alabama
11 cases
Atmore State PrisonAtmore, Alabama
8 cases
Holman PrisonAtmore, Alabama
7 cases
Montgomery City JailMontgomery, Alabama
4 cases
Jefferson County Jail (Birmingham, Alabama)Birmingham, Alabama
4 cases
Montgomery County JailMontgomery, Alabama
3 cases
Etowah County JailGadsden, Alabama
1 case