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`Welcome to Shoals Black History`

Featured Item

Teaching certificate for Hattie Watts from 1918

This item is a second grade teaching certificate for Hattie Watts, issued by the Department of Education from the State of Alabama, in 1918.

Featured Collection

Sports and Recreation

Negro Teen Agers to Elect Officers FT Fri May 21 1950 p 2.jpg

This collection contains items connected to recreational activities and sports as they relate to African American life in the Shoals.

Featured Exhibit

Work in the Shoals

This exhibit features photographs of people at work in the Shoals.

Recently Added Items

False Reports of a July 17, 1897 Lynching of Rev. NL Edmondson of St. Paul AME Church, Florence.

Negro Preacher Lynched Pittsburgh Free Press FH Sun Jul 18 1897 p 1.jpg

A series of national newspaper articles reporting on the supposed July 17, 1897 lynching of Rev. NL Edmondson of Florence, Alabama in the wake of the…

Jurors Lists

List of Jurors LN Wed Mar 2 1881 p 3.jpg

A series of late 19th and early 20th century Lauderdale County newspaper jurors lists on which African-Americans served.

Blacks were routinely…

Sylvester Wilson Killed While Resisting Arrest

East Flor Night Cop Kills Thief FT Fri Sept 12 1919 p 1 (2).jpg

A Florence Times and Florence Herald article reporting the 3:30 am Thursday morning, September 11, 1919 shooting death of African-American resident of…