WWinton Malcolm Blount Jr., known as Red Blount, was the United States Postmaster General from January 22, 1969 to January 1, 1972. He founded and served as the Chief Executive Officer of the large construction company, Blount International, based in Montgomery, Alabama.
WLibba Bray is an American writer of young adult novels including the Gemma Doyle Trilogy, Going Bovine, and The Diviners.
WFrances Scott "Scottie" Fitzgerald was the only child of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald. She was a writer, a journalist, and a prominent member of the Democratic Party. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1992.
WZelda Fitzgerald was an American novelist, socialite, and painter.
WHarold Wayne Greenhaw was an American writer and journalist. The author of 22 books who chronicled changes in the American South from the civil rights movement to the rise of a competitive Republican Party, he is known for his works on the Ku Klux Klan and the exposition of the My Lai Massacre of 1968. Greenhaw wrote for various Alabamian newspapers and magazines, worked as the state's tourism director, and was considered "a strong voice for his native state".
WSara Powell Haardt was an American author and professor of English literature. Though she died at the age of 37 of meningitis, she produced a considerable body of work including newspaper reviews, articles, essays, a novel The Making of a Lady, several screenplays and over 50 short stories. She is central to John Barton Wolgamot's notorious book-length poem, "In Sara Mencken, Christ and Beethoven there were men and women" (1944), recorded by the composer Robert Ashley.
WMary Katharine Ham is an American journalist. She is a contributing editor for Townhall Magazine, a senior writer at The Federalist, and a CNN contributor.
WStacy Lyn Harris is an American cookbook author, blogger, television co-host, gardener, and public speaker. Harris has been recognized for espousing a modern approach to living off the land. Her books include Happy Healthy Family Tracking the Outdoors In, Stacy Lyn's Harvest Cookbook and the handbook, Preserving 101: Canning, Freezing & Drying. Southern Living magazine editors placed the Harvest Cookbook on one of their "Editor's Choice Cookbook of the Week" lists. In 2014, she was named as part of a "new breed of cooks" helping to reintroduce wild game cooking into the mainstream by Deer and Deer Hunting magazine, alongside other notable chefs Steven Rinella, Charlie Palmer, and Hank Shaw.
WCelia Craik Hibben (1888–1964), better known as Sheila Hibben, was an American food journalist. She served as The New Yorker's first food critic, working for the magazine for 20 years. She also authored several cookbooks.
WRobert Reynolds Jones Jr. was the second president and chancellor of Bob Jones University. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Jones was the son of Bob Jones Sr., the university's founder. He served as president from 1947 to 1971 and then as chancellor until his death.
WMartin Luther King Jr. was an American Christian minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi.
WJoseph Lewis was an American freethinker and atheist activist, publisher, and litigator. During the mid-twentieth century, he was one of America's most conspicuous public atheists, the other being Emanuel Haldeman-Julius. Born in Montgomery, Alabama to a Jewish family, he was forced by poverty to leave school at the age of nine to find employment. He read avidly, becoming self-educated. Lewis developed his ideas from reading, among others, Robert G. Ingersoll, whose published works made him aware of Thomas Paine. He was first impressed by the idea to become an atheist after having read a large volume of lectures of Ingersoll devoted to his idol Paine, which was brought to their house by his older brother. He later credited Paine's The Age of Reason with helping him leave theism.
WStu Maddux is American freelance writer, editor, and cinematographer. He is an award-winning movie producer and director of his own non-fiction independent films. He is best known for his work Gen Silent, a documentary about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender older people who hide their sexuality or gender change in order to survive in the long-term care system. He also wrote and produced the films Bob and Jack's 52-Year Adventure and Trip to Hell and Back. His work has been featured internationally on television including on Showtime, TLC, and the BBC.
WRoyce Lynn Money is an American academic administrator who served as president of Abilene Christian University) from 1991 to 2010, whereupon he became Chancellor. He was succeeded as president by Phil Schubert.
WBryan Stevenson is an American lawyer, social justice activist, founder/executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and a law professor at New York University School of Law. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, Stevenson has challenged bias against the poor and minorities in the criminal justice system, especially children. He has helped achieve United States Supreme Court decisions that prohibit sentencing children under 18 to death or to life imprisonment without parole. Stevenson has assisted in cases that have saved dozens of prisoners from the death penalty, advocated for the poor, and developed community-based reform litigation aimed at improving the administration of criminal justice.
WTeresa (Katz) Thorne was born April 17, 1954 in Montgomery, Alabama. Her father was a WWII veteran, a former engineer with the Department of the Navy, and an executive with a dry goods/clothing outlet. Her mother was the State Legislative Chairperson for the League of Women Voters and an active reformer of the Alabama State Legislature. Thorne's youth was spent in a climate of civil unrest, as Montgomery was a hotbed for the American Civil Rights Movement. She attended the University of Alabama and obtained a Masters in Social Work before being hired as the first Jewish female officer for the Birmingham Police Department in Alabama, eventually promoted to captain.