Busts Unveiled at Alabama’s Statuary Hall – November 8, 2021 – Alabama News Network
Busts Unveiled at Alabama’s Statuary Hall – November 8, 2021 – Alabama News Network
Busts Unveiled at Alabama’s Statuary Hall – November 8, 2021 – Alabama News Network
Busts Unveiled at Alabama’s Statuary Hall – November 8, 2021 – Alabama News Network
Busts Unveiled at Alabama’s Statuary Hall – November 8, 2021 – Alabama News Network
Busts Unveiled at Alabama’s Statuary Hall – November 8, 2021 – Alabama News Network
Two pioneers for voting rights are the first women represented in Statuary Hall of notable Alabamians at the Alabama Department of Archives and History.
The bronze bust likenesses of Amelia Boynton Robinson, a civil rights pioneer from Selma, and Pattie Ruffner Jacobs, the state’s leading suffrage activist of the early 20th century, were unveiled Monday.
Gov. Kay Ivey said the two trailblazers worked to bring about real and lasting change both in Alabama and in the nation.
The statues are located in the south lobby on the first floor of the state archives and are passed by visitors, researchers and hundreds of students on field trips each year.
Birmingham’s Pattie Ruffner Jacobs was once the state’s leading suffrage activist. She was the founder of the Alabama Equal Suffrage Association and a board member for Susan B. Anthony’s National American Woman Suffrage Association.
Beginning in the 1930s, Selma’s Amelia Boynton Robinson was a tireless champion for civil and voting rights, a passion that extended throughout her long and consequential life. On Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, Robinson was among the marchers beaten and gassed by law enforcement officers while attempting to march in peaceful protest from Selma to Montgomery. Five months later, she attended the White House ceremony where President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the landmark Voting Rights Act into law.
The new works of art were sculpted by Alabama artist Clydetta Fulmer and cast at the Fairhope Foundry.
These two women will now join six men with similarly distinguish legacies of service to the state. They represent the first new additions to Statuary Hall since 1990 and 1991, when Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver were honored.
(Copyright 2021 The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.)
