Tuskegee ( ) is a city in Macon County, Alabama, United States. The population was 9,395 at the 2020 census, and was estimated to be 8,765 in 2023.
The city was the subject of a civil rights case, Gomillion v. Lightfoot (1960), in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that the state legislature had violated the Fifteenth Amendment in 1957 by gerrymandering city boundaries as a 28-sided figure that excluded nearly all black voters and residents, and none of the white voters or residents. The Native American town of Tasquique was located on the Chattahoochee River just south of present-day Columbus, Georgia.
History
The Creek people long occupied this area, including a settlement known as Taskigi Town. After Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 in furtherance of U.S. President Andrew Jackson's goals, most of the Creek bands were removed from their homelands in the Southeast to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. Pioneer white planters and other migrants moved into the area, mostly from eastern Southern states. The planters brought or purchased enslaved African Americans to clear woods and develop cotton plantations. Invention of the cotton gin had made short-staple cotton profitable to process, and it became the chief commodity crop of the Deep South through the 19th century.
General Thomas Simpson Woodward, a Creek War veteran under Jackson, laid out the city in 1833. It became the county seat in the same year, and it was incorporated on February 13, 1843.
Late 19th century
In 1881, the young Booker T. Washington was hired to develop the Tuskegee Normal School for Colored Teachers on the grounds of a former plantation. It was founded to train teachers for the segregated school system and freedmen for self-sufficiency. Washington established a work-study program by which students practiced skills and trades. Over the decades, the programs were expanded. This was later named the Tuskegee Institute. Graduate courses were added and it became Tuskegee University.
Washington was known for his emphasis on education and self-improvement. The institute became known for stressing a practical education with work experience by students, to prepare them for the agricultural and mechanical work available in the small towns and rural areas to which most would return. Teaching was a highly respected calling, as education was a major goal among the freedmen and their children. Washington believed that African Americans would achieve acceptance by Southern whites when they had raised themselves.
Washington led the school for decades, building a wide national network of white industrialist donors among some of the major philanthropists of the era, including George Eastman. At the same time, Washington secretly provided funding for its legal defense of some highly visible civil rights cases, including supporting challenges to Southern states' discriminatory constitutions and practices that disenfranchised African Americans. Washington worked with Julius Rosenwald and architects at the college to develop models for rural schools, to be used with Rosenwald's matching funds to build more schools for black children in the South.
Early 20th century
Beginning in 1932, the school was the site of the now-infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study (1932–1972), started to test treatments of the disease. 600 African-American men became involved, being offered free medical care by the U.S. government for their participation, while being unwittingly tested for syphilis. With funding cut by the Great Depression, staff cut back on medication to treat the disease and studied the effects of untreated syphilis on patients and their sexual partners. Those in the study who had syphilis were not told, nor were they informed that treatment was available for their disease, even after antibiotics had been developed.
One of the most famous teachers at Tuskegee was George Washington Carver, whose name is synonymous with innovative research into Southern farming methods and the development of hundreds of commercial products derived from regional crops, including peanuts and sweet potatoes.
During World War II, Tuskegee and Tuskegee Institute were also home to the famed Tuskegee Airmen. This was the first squadron of African-American pilots trained in the U.S. Military for service in that war.
Tuskegee University in the 21st century is a center of excellence for African-American education. The heart of the university has been designated as a National Historic District and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
The Tuskegee Veterans Administration Medical Center was opened in 1923, authorized by Congress. A total of 27 buildings were constructed on the 464-acre campus, which provided housing and a hospital to serve the needs of more than 300,000 African-American veterans in the South from World War I.
In the 1930s, a group of black men from the Tuskegee Men's Club began efforts to get more black voters registered. Beginning in 1941, the group reorganized under the name the Tuskegee Civic Association (TCA). With the group's consistent effort to register more voters, the area's statistics of registered black voters continued to increase. The group and potential voters were often met with obstacles that prevented them from being successful. The surrounding black community showed support and wanted to recognize black leaders in the community. The work of the TCA also had a huge emphasis on educating their communities on various civic duties. Though the existing support for the TCA was not often vocalized, many black community members wanted to challenge the political system that was present in Macon County. The group shed a light on the disparities in the numbers of black people applying for voter registration and those who were successful, even going as far as talking to the United States Commission on Civil Rights.
Voting rights challenge
Following passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, activists made progress in registering black voters in the city. African Americans in Tuskegee and other Alabama cities had been largely disenfranchised after passage of a new state constitution in 1901, which included requirements that were discriminatory in practice, including a poll tax and literacy tests.
In 1957, a total of 1000 voters were registered, with the 400 registered black voters nearly equaling the number of white voters. But in the city, African Americans outnumbered whites on a four-to-one basis; among them were many highly educated, professional African Americans working at the Tuskegee Institute and the Veterans Administration hospital. That year, without debate and against the protests of many African Americans, the state legislature redrew the boundaries of the city, enacting Local Law 140, which created an irregular, 28-sided city boundary that left only ten black voters within the newly defined city, and excluded 420 black voters. Those excluded included the entire professional staff of the Institute and the hospital. No white voters were excluded by the change.
The law was intended to guarantee that minority whites could retain control of the city even if more blacks succeeded in the arduous process of registering to vote. Some 3,000 African-American residents protested passage of the law at a church in Tuskegee; they also began an economic boycott of white businesses in the city. The court ruled that the gerrymandering of city boundaries was racially motivated and violated the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which states that "states were not insulated from federal judicial review when they jeopardized federally protected rights." Wallace subsequently ordered public schools closed across the state and deployed state troopers on September 3, 1963, to block the opening of Tuskegee High School. The school was integrated on September 10, 1963, after President John F. Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard and 13 Black students were among only 165 students to begin the school year, against a total enrollment of about 550.
Lucius Amerson made history in 1966 by becoming the first Black sheriff to be elected in the state of Alabama, and the American South, since Reconstruction. He was sworn in as Macon County Sheriff in January 1967. Amerson served four terms as Sheriff until 1987.
Johnny Ford was elected the first black mayor of the city in 1972, and served six consecutive terms in office. Lucenia Williams Dunn was elected the first black woman mayor in 2000.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which, is land and (1.56%) is water.
| date=March 16, 2023