BLACKS SELLING COTTON IN MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA
An historic photograph, 12" x 9 3/4" overall, depicts a square in Montgomery, Alabama filled with black farmers with their mule-driven wagons carrying large bales of cotton. The photo, ca. 1890, is captioned: "COTTON MARKET MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA" and the process of selling cotton is explained on the verso. It also notes: "...almost all the people in the picture are negroes. Alabama has a very large negro population. The few white men seen in the picture...are probably the buyers...". Very good. Of course, following the Civil War and Reconstruction, many blacks were able to establish farms on land that had been confiscated or purchased by them outright. A scant fifty years later, the Rev. Martin Luther King would establish his proactive ministry in the same city.