Alabama Heritage Magazine - Becoming Alabama

Becoming Alabama
Creek War • Civil War • Civil Rights

Editor's Note

You might be wondering why “Creek War” and “Civil War” are capitalized in Alabama Heritage, and “civil rights movement” is not. Let us assure you that capitalization is not a measure of importance, in this case. We follow the guidelines of the Chicago Manual of Style, which mandates this rule for what we think are authentically good reasons. It can take a great deal of time and debate for historians to come to consensus on how to define an event or movement—when it began, when it ended, and especially what to call it. Our current commemoration of the civil rights movement focuses on the organized efforts of African Americans to gain civil equality in the early 1960s, but the African American struggle for civil liberties began far earlier. Add to that the struggles of women, children, homosexuals, immigrants, and the disabled to win civil equality, and the concept of a civil rights movement grows ever broader. So, odd as it may sound, we will use the lower-case “civil rights movement” to honor the scope and complexity of a vast historical phenomenon—one that is still unfolding.

Back to Becoming Alabama