William Rufus De Vane King (b.North Carolina, 1786–1853) served as a US senator from Alabama and as minister to France before being elected US vice president in 1852 on the Democratic ticket with Franklin Pierce; he died six weeks after taking the oath of office. Three Alabamians who served as associate justices of the US Supreme Court were John McKinley (b.Virginia, 1780–1852), John A. Campbell (b.Georgia, 1811–89), and Hugo L. Black (1886–1971). Campbell resigned from the court in 1861, later becoming assistant secretary of war for the Confederacy; Black, a US senator from 1927 to 1937, served one of the longest terms (1937–71) in the history of the court and is regarded as one of its most eminent justices.
Among the most colorful figures in antebellum Alabama was William Lowndes Yancey (b.Georgia, 1814–63), a fiery orator who was a militant proponent of slavery, states' rights, and eventually secession. During the early 20th century, a number of Alabamians became influential in national politics. Among them were US senators John Hollis Bankhead (1842–1920) and John Hollis Bankhead, Jr. (1872–1946); the latter's brother, William B. Bankhead (1874–1940), who became speaker of the US House of Representatives in 1936; and US Senator Oscar W. Underwood (b.Kentucky, 1862–1929), a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1912 and 1924. Other prominent US senators from Alabama have included (Joseph) Lister Hill (1894–1984) and John Sparkman (1899–1985), who was the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 1952. Alabama's most widely known political figure is George Corley Wallace (1919–98), who served as governor in 1963–67 and 1971–79, and was elected to a fourth term in 1982. Wallace, an outspoken opponent of racial desegregation in the 1960s, was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1964; four years later, as the presidential nominee of the American Independent Party, he carried five states. While campaigning in Maryland's Democratic presidential primary on 15 May 1972, Wallace was shot and paralyzed from the waist down by a would-be assassin. In 1976, Wallace made his fourth and final unsuccessful bid for the presidency.
Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. (b.Georgia, 1929–68), winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, first came to national prominence as leader of the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955; he also led demonstrations at Birmingham in 1963 and at Selma in 1965. His widow, Coretta Scott King (b.1927) is a native Alabamian. Federal judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr. (1918–99), has made several landmark rulings in civil rights cases.
Helen Keller (1880–1968), deaf and blind as the result of a childhood illness, was the first such multihandicapped person to earn a college degree; she later became a world-famous author and lecturer. Another world figure, black educator Booker T. Washington (b.Virginia, 1856–1915), built Alabama's Tuskegee Institute from a school where young blacks were taught building, farming, cooking, brickmaking, dressmaking, and other trades into an internationally known agricultural research center. Tuskegee's most famous faculty member was George Washington Carver (b.Missouri, 1864–1943), who discovered some 300 different peanut products, 118 new ways to use sweet potatoes, and numerous other crop varieties and applications. Among Alabama's leaders in medicine was Dr. William Crawford Gorgas (1854–1920), head of sanitation in Panama during the construction of the Panama Canal; he later served as US surgeon general. Brought to the US after World War II (1939–45), the internationally known scientist Wernher von Braun (b.Germany, 1912–77) came to Alabama in 1950 to direct the US missile program.
Two Alabama writers, (Nelle) Harper Lee (b.1926) and Edward Osborne Wilson (b.1929), have won Pulitzer Prizes. Famous musicians from Alabama include blues composer and performer W(illiam) C(hristopher) Handy (1873–1958), singer Nat "King" Cole (1917–65), and singer-songwriter Hank Williams (1923–53). Alabama's most widely known actress was Tallulah Bankhead (1903–68), the daughter of William B. Bankhead.
Among Alabama's sports figures are track and field star Jesse Owens (James Cleveland Owens, 1913–80), winner of four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin; boxer Joe Louis (Joseph Louis Barrow, 1914–81), world heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949; and baseball stars Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige (1906?–82), Willie Mays (b.1931), and (Louis) Henry Aaron (b.1934), all-time US home-run leader.