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Greene County was established on December 13, 1819. It was named for Revolutionary War General Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island.
The Greene County Courthouse in Eutaw was burned by arson in 1868, in a year with considerable election-associated violence throughout the South. On March 31, 1870, there were at least two insurgent attacks in Greene County. James Martin, a prominent black Republican, was shot and wounded by unidentified gunmen near his home in Union, Alabama. When a physician tried to remove the bullet to help him, the gunmen interrupted and took Martin away. He was "disappeared", believed dead.
That same night, Republican County Solicitor, Alexander Boyd, a white native of South Carolina and Alabama resident, was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in his hotel in Eutaw. The prevailing theory by historians for the burning of the courthouse is that the records of some 1,800 suits by freedmen against planters were about to be prosecuted; the fire destroyed the documents. The deaths of Martin and Boyd were typical of the KKK, who attacked Republican officeholders and freedmen sympathizers, in addition to freedmen, especially politicians.
Although Governor William Hugh Smith sent a special agent, John Minnis, to explore these deaths, he said he was unable to identify Boyd's killers. (Minnis later served as US Attorney and prosecuted Klansmen under the Enforcement Acts.) He suggested that the killers had come from Mississippi. A grand jury was called on Boyd's death, but no one was prosecuted. No grand jury was called for Martin's disappearance and presumed death.
In the fall of 1870, two more black Republicans were killed in violence before the election. At a Republican rally on October 25, 1870 attracting 2,000 blacks in Eutaw, white Klansmen attacked the crowd in the courthouse square, leaving at least four blacks dead and 54 wounded. After this, most blacks stayed away from the polls or voted Democratic; the Democratic gubernatorial candidate carried Greene County.
On July 30, 1969, Greene County made history when it became "the first in the South since reconstruction with both the commission and the school board dominated by Negroes." Barred from the ballot in the November 1968 general election, the new "National Democratic Party of Alabama" filed suit in federal court and a special election was ordered. In the new vote, African-American candidates won four of the five seats on the Greene County Commission, and two additional seats on the five-member Greene County School Board, and the Montgomery Advertiser would note the next day that "the election gave blacks control of both major governing bodies— a first in Alabama." The date of the vote would later be described as "a watershed for black political empowerment in Alabama,", leading to black candidates finally winning the right to govern counties where white residents were the minority.
Adjacent Counties
Cities, Towns & Communities
- Boligee
- Clinton
- Crawford Fork
- Eutaw (County Seat)
- Forkland
- Jena
- Knoxville
- Mantua
- Mount Hebron
- Pleasant Ridge
- Tishabee
- Union
- West Greene
Links
National Register of Historic Places
Early Settlers of Greene County
Alabama Genealogy & History Network
Greene County Historical Society
