List of people from Selma, Alabama

The people listed below were all born in, residents of, or otherwise closely associated with Selma, Alabama:

Activism

• Patricia Swift Blalock – librarian and civil rights activist
• Joanne Bland – civil rights movement activist
• J.L. Chestnut – author, attorney, and a figure in the U.S. civil rights movement
• Annie Lee Cooper – long-time civil rights activist who was active in the 1965 Selma voting rights movement
• Willis Nathaniel Huggins – historian and social activist
• Frederick D. Reese – voting rights movement leader
• Amelia Boynton Robinson – voting rights movement leader and long-time civic activist in Selma

Art

• Mary Morgan Keipp – noted figure in the art photography movement of the early 20th century
• Clara Weaver Parrish – artist
• Alison Elizabeth Taylor – artist

Athletics

• Zinn Beck – former MLB infielder; managed the first Selma Cloverleafs from 1928 to 1930, winning the Southeastern League pennant in 1930
• Curtis Berry – former professional basketball player
• David Beverly – former Auburn University and NFL player
• Charles Davis – member of the Azerbaijan national basketball team
• Cid Edwards – former NFL player
• Mia Hamm – former professional soccer player
• Candy Harris – former MLB player for the Houston Astros
• Gunnar Henderson – MLB player for the Baltimore Orioles
• Michael Johnson – professional football player, NFL, Cincinnati Bengals
• James Ralph "Shug" Jordan – former head football coach of Auburn University
• Terry Leach – former professional baseball player MLB, baseball field at Bloch Park named for him
• Larry Marks – professional boxer
• William Clarence Matthews – former baseball player, lawyer, first head football coach for Tuskegee University and civil rights activist
• Pat McHugh – former professional football player for the Philadelphia Eagles
• Ben Obomanu – professional football player, NFL, New York Jets
• L. Vann Pettaway – men's basketball head coach of Alabama A&M from 1986 to 2011
• Ken Pettway – player of gridiron football
• Hosken Powell – former Major League Baseball right fielder
• Cal Ramsey – former NBA player
• Ed Steele – former professional baseball outfielder

Business

• Olan Mills Sr. – photographer and founder of Olan Mills
• Richard Scrushy – founder of HealthSouth
• Craig Vetter – motorcycle designer
• Lulu White – brothel madam and procuress

Education

• Bogart Leashore – social worker, sociologist, dean of Hunter College school of social work (1991–2003)
• Minnie Bruce Pratt – educator, activist, and essayist
• Frank Warner – folk song collector and former YMCA executive

Fashion

• Eunice W. Johnson – founder and director of the Ebony Fashion Fair

Government

• David Abner – former member of the Texas Legislature
• Ann Bedsole – member of both houses of the Alabama State Legislature 1979–1995 from Mobile, born in 1930 in Selma
• Jo Bonner – U.S. representative from 2003 to 2013
• Janice Bowling – member of the Tennessee Senate
• Jim Clark – Selma sheriff during the 1965 voting rights campaign
• George Henry Craig, former U.S. Congressman for the 4th District of Alabama
• William Benjamin Craig – U.S. representative from 1907 to 1911
• Suzan DelBene – U.S. representative for Washington's 1st congressional district
• Jeremiah Haralson – U.S. representative from 1875 to 1877
• Sam Hobbs – U.S. representative from 1935 to 1951
• Truman McGill Hobbs – United States federal judge
• Michael W. Jackson – district attorney
• Thomas S. Kenan – U.S. representative from 1805 to 1811
• William Rufus King – vice president of the United States, U.S. senator, minister to France
• William Lehman – U.S. representative from 1973 to 1993
• John Tyler Morgan – U.S. senator from 1877 to 1907, major general, CSA
• James Perkins, Jr. – first African American mayor of Selma
• Edmund Pettus – U.S. senator from 1897 to 1907, brigadier general, CSA
• Gaston A. Robbins, former U.S. Congressman for the 4th District of Alabama
• Jeff Sessions – United States senator
• Terri Sewell – 2010 Democratic representative for Alabama's 7th congressional district
• Charles M. Shelley, officer in the Confederate military and former U.S. Congressman for the 4th District of Alabama
• Benjamin S. Turner – first African American elected to U.S. Congress from Alabama (1871– Republican)
• Hattie Hooker Wilkins – first woman elected to the Alabama Legislature

Literature

• Katharine Hopkins Chapman (1870/72/73-1930) – author and historian
• Sarah Johnson Cocke – writer and civic leader
• W. C. Morrow – writer
• William O. Walker – former editor of the Call and Post
• Sheyann Webb – writer
• Kathryn Tucker Windham – storyteller, author, photographer, and journalist

Military

• Howard W. Gilmore – World War II submarine commander who posthumously received the Medal of Honor
• William J. Hardee – lieutenant general, CSA, author of Hardee's Military Tactics used by both Union and Confederate troops
• Catesby ap Roger Jones – naval commander, captain of the ironclad ship CSS Virginia in its battle with the USS Monitor during the first conflict between iron warships in world history
• John Melvin – first American naval officer to die in World War I

Music

• Randall Atcheson – concert pianist
• Kenny Brown – blues slide guitarist
• Mattie Moss Clark – former gospel music singer, The Clark Sisters
• Jimmy Gresham – soul musician
• Asher HaVon – winner of NBC's The Voice
• Johnny Moore – lead singer for The Drifters
• Bill Moss – gospel music singer
• Oscar Toney, Jr. – soul singer

Parapsychology

• Edgar Cayce – famed psychic

Religion

• Moses Anderson – Roman Catholic bishop
• T. J. Jemison – president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. from 1982 to 1994
• Lippman Mayer – rabbi
• Clarence Rufus J. Rivers – priest and composer of liturgical music
• Milton L. Wood – Bishop Suffragan in the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta from 1967 to 1974

Science

• Shwetak Patel – computer scientist and entrepreneur

Television and film

• Gregg Hale – film producer

References