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`Welcome to Shoals Black History`

Featured Item

Photographs from the time a Greyhound bus got stuck in the Burrell Slater parking lot

These are photographs of a Greyhound bus carrying tourists that got stuck in the Burrell Slater parking lot. The tourists were visiting the W.C. Handy…

Featured Collection

Sports and Recreation

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

The Killing of Robert "Bob" Vaughn by Cad Brown at Oakland and Brown's Subsequent Trial and Sentencing

A Horrible Murder FH Wed Dec 11 1889 p 3.jpg

A series of Florence newspaper articles reporting the December 1889 killing by white resident of Oakland Robert "Bob" Vaughn by African-American Cad…

Lauderdale County Sheriff JL Potts Escorts a Patient to the Mt. Vernon Insane Asylum for Negroes near Mobile

Sheriff JL Potts Escorts Patient to Asylum FH Fri April 9 1937 p 4.jpg

A Friday, April 9, 1937 Florence Report that Lauderdale County Sheriff JL Potts had just returned from escorting an unnamed patient to the Mt. Vernon…

"Taken to the Asylum"

Taken to the Asylum FH Thu Jun 9 1892 p 3.jpg

A Thursday, June 9, 1892 Florence Herald report that local black resident Sim Casey was escorted to the Bryce Insane Asylum at Tuscaloosa the day…