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00:00Sweet Home, Alabama, a land of quiet lakes and fields of cotton. It's easy to be fooled
00:11by this southern state's timeless rhythms. But without Alabama, the history of America
00:18could have taken a very different turn. It was here, on an Alabama bus, that the young
00:24seamstress took a brave stand and helped pave the way to great civil rights victories.
00:32And it was here where NASA scientists invented the rocket that first propelled humans to
00:38the moon. It's a state that's known great transformation. In Alabama, raging tornadoes
00:45devastate entire towns, and humans regenerate the land with fire.
00:55Aerial Alabama explores the mysteries of a prehistoric settlement, soars across a magic
01:01city of industry known for its god of fire and forge, and discovers how a new designer
01:09steel plant is launching America into the future. From a small fishing port that's made
01:17Hollywood history, to a coastal powerhouse that's the birthplace of Mardi Gras in America,
01:23and one of baseball's greatest legends, Hammerin' Hank, it's all right here in Home, Sweet Home,
01:34Alabama.
01:46Each fall, thousands of acres of Alabama farmland look as if they've been dusted in snow.
02:17This is Alabama cotton. Farmers plant more than half a million acres of it every year,
02:25and then pray for a good fall harvest. Nothing has played a bigger role in this state's
02:32history than its king cotton. Once, this bounty was picked by hand by enslaved Africans.
02:40Today, a single harvester does that work with remarkable speed. The raw cotton is gathered
02:47so it can be compressed into giant bales. Each one contains enough cotton for more than
02:53200 pairs of jeans. Bales from across northern Alabama make their way here, to a facility
03:00outside the town of Cortland. Before cotton can be put to use, it has to be separated
03:07from its seeds. That painstaking job was also done by hand, until Eli Whitney patented
03:14the cotton gin in 1794. The first gins were hand-cranked. Today, they're small factories
03:22that run on the grid. Outside, cotton seeds are piled high. They'll be used for replanting
03:32and to make cooking oil. The cotton gin revolutionized cotton production in the late 18th century,
03:39and Alabama's farmers still rely on it today to turn their white fields into gold.
03:46Every year, farmers here grow more than 100,000 tons of cotton. In days of old, steamships
03:54and barges carried the bounty down the state's vast network of rivers. There are more navigable
04:00waterways in Alabama than in any other state. It was one of these that inspired the southern
04:06band, Alabama, to write their first number one hit, Tennessee River. The song's lyrics
04:14are a celebration of Alabama's rich blend of water, trees, and hills.
04:21I was born across the river, in the mountains where I call home. Lord, times were good there.
04:28Don't know why I ever roamed.
04:37The story of how Alabama became a state can be found, like much else here, on Abandoned River.
04:48A stream of mist lingers in the morning sun, a few hundred feet above the Tallapoosa River.
04:56Well hidden in the trees below is the site of a gripping tale. A tale of how the U.S.
05:02government came to own 23 million acres of land, much of which became the state of Alabama.
05:09These lakes and trees were once the land of the Creek and the Cherokee. But in the early
05:1519th century, war broke out between factions of the Creek. War that became a threat to
05:21the U.S. government and European American settlers in the south, more and more of whom
05:26were moving onto Creek land. So in 1814, General Andrew Jackson and his army of the Tennessee
05:33journeyed south to deal with the Creek threat.
05:40This bend in the Tallapoosa River would become the site of their famous and bloody siege.
05:46On March 27th, 1,000 Redstick warriors, members of the Creek tribe, hunkered down behind a
05:52barricade here at Horseshoe Bend, ready to defend their land against Jackson and his
05:572,700 Tennessee soldiers. On Jackson's side were also hundreds of Creek and Cherokee allies.
06:06Jackson's men fired cannon at the barricade, but it held. So his Creek troops were forced
06:13to retreat. So his Creek allies swam the river, stole canoes, and used them to ferry
06:19members of the Tennessee militia onto the bend.
06:23The Creek settlement was set ablaze. Here, at the toe of the peninsula, hundreds of women
06:30and children had gathered to seek protection. Jackson's men took close to 250 of them hostage,
06:37and then the slaughter began. Nearly 600 Creek warriors were killed. Hundreds more were shot
06:47or drowned as they tried to escape across the river. Less than 50 of Jackson's men died
06:53in the siege, and nearly half of those were Native American allies.
07:00One of Jackson's young militia fighters later wrote,
07:03There was nothing to be seen but volumes of dense smoke rising heavily over the corpses
07:08of painted warriors and the burning ruins of their fortification.
07:15After the siege at Horseshoe Bend, Jackson was promoted to Major General of the U.S. Army.
07:21In August 1814, he ordered the remaining Creek chiefs to assemble and forced them to give
07:27up 23 million acres of their land. That treaty was signed at Fort Jackson, close to a site
07:33that remains sacred to the Creek today. On this morning, the remains of the original
07:39fort lie hidden beneath the mist. When it was first built, it may have looked much like
07:45this one, the reconstructed Fort Toulouse, which stands just a few hundred feet away.
07:52Before the ink on the Treaty of Fort Jackson had even dried,
07:56cotton fever was spreading across the region. Thousands of new settlers poured in from neighboring
08:03states, hoping to get a piece of America's new fertile land.
08:09In a letter to a friend, one North Carolina resident wrote,
08:13The Alabama fever rages here with great violence and has carried off vast numbers of our citizens.
08:19Some of our oldest and most wealthy men are offering their possessions for sale
08:24and are desirous of removing to the new country.
08:29That new country was the state of Alabama.
08:33In 1819, just five years after the Treaty of Fort Jackson was signed, Alabama was given U.S. statehood.
08:41That same year, this city, Montgomery, was established on the banks of the Alabama River.
08:47Today, it's the second most populated city in the state and is home to the Alabama Statehouse.
08:54But Montgomery only became the capital in 1846, 27 years after Alabama was born.
09:02The state's first capital couldn't be more different today.
09:07It's known as one of Alabama's most haunted towns.
09:11To find it requires a trip south, down the Alabama River.
09:17Even from the air, it can be easy to miss the former capital, called Cahaba.
09:23That's because this is almost all that's left of it.
09:28The old town square and a few old houses hidden in the trees.
09:35This was once a bustling port, a hub of Alabama's booming cotton trade.
09:41But frequent floodwaters in Cahaba ultimately caused Alabama's legislature to seek higher ground for its capital city.
09:50In 1826, the Alabama capital was moved to Tuscaloosa, a Choctaw Indian name that means Black Warrior.
09:59It was on a bend in the Black Warrior River that the city was founded in 1819.
10:06Floods brought down Alabama's first capital city, and its second has also been no stranger to natural disaster.
10:15On one April afternoon in 2011, the wind here began to howl.
10:22And then, a giant tornado headed right for downtown.
10:27The devastation is easy to spot from the air.
10:32This railway bridge was torn off its foundations.
10:37Before April 27th, the Hurricane Creek Bridge was the oldest and tallest hand-riveted railroad trestle in the South.
10:45After the tornado ripped it to shreds, people a mile away found railroad ties in their yards, and railroad spikes driven into their property like giant nails.
10:57As the twister raced through the city, the Graceland apartment complex took a direct hit.
11:05In the debris, rescue workers here found the Purple Heart Medal of a World War II vet.
11:12Former residents salvage what they can.
11:17The University of Alabama lies right next to the tornado's path.
11:22The twister spared the main campus, but tore right through a block of apartments nearby that housed students.
11:30A dirt lot is all that remains today.
11:35By the time the twister raced out of Tuscaloosa, much of the city was completely flattened.
11:42Forty-three people here died, including six University of Alabama students.
11:48After the storm, the university closed its doors for the rest of the school year.
11:55When many picture giant twisters tearing across the land, they think Tornado Alley, which stretches north from Oklahoma into Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa.
12:08But now, researchers are discovering that an even more dangerous area of tornado activity crosses right through the South.
12:16From northern Louisiana east to Alabama, they call this tornado belt Dixie Alley.
12:26In Dixie Alley, the most powerful tornadoes tend to touch down for longer.
12:31And because Alabama and other southern states are more densely populated than the Great Plains, tornado damage here is even greater.
12:40Damage like that in the Alabama town with the unusual name of Phil Campbell.
12:46It was hit by the same deadly cluster of tornadoes that struck Tuscaloosa.
12:51That April, houses here were ripped off their foundations and turned to rubble.
12:56Twenty-six people died.
12:59But then, something even stranger happened here, thanks to the town's unusual name.
13:03A writer in Brooklyn, New York, with the same name as the town, Phil Campbell, learned about the tornado and decided to try and help the community.
13:13Using Facebook, he reached out to Phil Campbell's around the world, hoping they too would help to rebuild the town that also bears their name.
13:23Soon, Phil Campbell's from Wisconsin to Scotland rallied to the call.
13:28Some even journeyed all the way here to help with the cleanup.
13:31That cleanup continues.
13:34The Phil Campbell Church of God is being rebuilt, from the ground up.
13:39Back in Tuscaloosa, the University of Alabama reopened in the fall of 2011.
13:45Life here is slowly returning to normal.
13:49Inside its Bryant-Denny football stadium, the field is getting prepped for tomorrow's big game with a new coat of crimson.
13:56It was here where college football's legendary coach, Paul Bear Bryant, led the Crimson Tide to more than 232 victories and six national titles.
14:07NFL Hall of Famers quarterback Joe Namath and wide receiver Don Hudson both played for the Crimson Tide.
14:14As did actor Tom Hanks, at least on screen, in his 1997 film, The Crimson Tide.
14:21As did actor Tom Hanks, at least on screen, in his 1994 role as Forrest Gump.
14:30Tomorrow, tens of thousands of crimson-covered fans will fill these seats to cheer UA in its ritual battle against the University of Tennessee.
14:40An annual game that's known simply as the Third Saturday in October.
14:44This eagerly awaited matchup is why some hardcore Alabama football fans are said to live by two golden rules.
14:52They never get married and try not to die on the third Saturday in October, because they know that there's a good chance that the preacher won't show.
15:04But on fall Saturdays in this corner of Alabama, college football isn't the only spectacle in town.
15:11Just outside of Tuscaloosa, a team of professional burn men is about to turn 300 acres of Alabama forest into a raging inferno.
15:22Just as people have been doing on this land for hundreds of years.
15:26Flying low over Alabama can provide a front row seat to a fiery spectacle that few will ever see up close.
15:34Hundreds of acres of forest land turned into a giant, smoky inferno, on purpose.
15:42North of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the pioneers of the American football scene are preparing for the game.
15:48North of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the pine trees on this 300 acre tract were recently harvested.
15:54Now, a team of specialists is preparing to clear it for replanting with fire.
16:00It's what's called a controlled burn.
16:03Once the flames are lit, the challenge will be to control them.
16:08Shifting winds could cause neighboring lots to catch on fire.
16:11A tiny Bell 47 lifts off from the burn site.
16:15The same model used in the TV show M.A.S.H.
16:18This lightweight helicopter, first flown in 1945, has wooden blades and is armed with a tank of gelled fuel, like napalm, called Flash 21.
16:30This pilot has been lighting controlled burns across the south for more than 20 years.
16:35To get the fire started, he opens a valve so the fuel can flow.
16:40As it drips, it's ignited and then falls in a fiery stream over the burn area.
16:47Burn pilots have to work with surgeon-like precision, lighting up the fringes of the tract without burning down the neighbor's trees or sparking a wildfire.
16:57A mistake that could cost tens of thousands of dollars.
17:02Once the fire's burning at the edges, the pilot scans the perimeter, checking for flames that might be jumping across the property line.
17:10If they do, the ground team will use bulldozers and ATVs to try to get things back under control.
17:17It takes only 15 to 20 minutes to clear the burn.
17:20So far, no flames have jumped this fire line.
17:25It's time to light up the rest.
17:28Flying at just 150 feet, he begins to crisscross the burn area, dripping fire in rows.
17:37Flames like these can create dangerous conditions for burn pilots.
17:41Especially when there's no door to keep out smoke.
17:45It takes experience and skill to weave in and out of the fire's hot updrafts.
17:53This looks more like a scene from the film Apocalypse Now than what many might expect to find on a fall day in Alabama.
18:01Burn men know that smoke can be even more dangerous than the fire itself.
18:06And that they can be liable for accidents or health problems caused by the fire.
18:16This burn will likely continue for another two hours, until the fire is completely extinguished.
18:22This burn will likely continue for another two hours, before its cinders finally die.
18:38Long before any helicopters buzzed over this state, Native Americans also used fire to turn forests into fields and clear the land for construction.
18:48Long before any helicopters buzzed over this state, Native Americans also used fire to turn forests into fields and clear the land for better hunting.
18:54But life for Alabama's Native people wasn't just one of survival in the forest.
19:00In fact, centuries before any Europeans set eyes on Alabama's soil, this land was home to one of the largest prehistoric settlements in North America.
19:12It's a site that's known today as Moundville.
19:15It lies on the banks of the winding Black Warrior River in the western half of the state.
19:21This ancient settlement once covered more than 300 acres.
19:26Until the late 15th century, it was home to a large population known as the Mississippian Mound Builders, likely ancestors of today's Cherokee and Creek.
19:37Earthen mounds covered the site. On top were probably houses and temples.
19:42The Native people who settled here grew corn and traded with other tribes, and navigated throughout the state on Alabama's waterways.
19:52After it was mostly abandoned in the 15th century, Moundville was often used as a burial ground.
19:59Archaeologists have only begun to excavate this vast site, but already they've discovered skeletons, fire pits, and axes made from copper,
20:08likely ceremonial objects owned by the tribe's elites.
20:13In the air over Alabama, it's easy to stumble upon rich evidence of the state's ancient past.
20:20But it's also possible to discover the bones of a more recent industrial age.
20:26A steel crane pokes its head above trees close to the Black Warrior River.
20:31This giant excavator is called Mr. He-Man II, named for Haman Drummond, founder of the Drummond Coal Company, which is still one of the largest surface mining companies in America.
20:45For years, this walking dragline excavator crawled across this landscape, shoveling up thousands of tons of coal.
20:52When the mine closed, it cost too much to move Mr. He-Man II, so its engines were shut down, and it's been parked here ever since.
21:07There are many abandoned strip mine excavators across northern Alabama, standing like the skeletons of ancient creatures that died where they fell.
21:19But while the strip mines around these cranes are closed, coal in Alabama is still big business.
21:27The Black Warrior River winds its way south.
21:32From the air, it looks like a remote paradise.
21:36A cormorant scans the waters for a morning meal.
21:39But under the fish and the river itself, men and machines are busy at work, digging out one of the state's largest and most valuable deposits of coal.
21:50It's part of an area known as the Black Warrior Coal Field.
21:55There are more than 90 active mines here, including this one, the largest in Alabama.
22:00The reason there are no monster excavators here is because this company practices long-wall mining in tunnels deep underground and under the river itself.
22:11Millions of tons of coal are extracted from Alabama's mines each year.
22:16And it was coal from this region that fueled the rise of the Black Warrior Coal Field.
22:22Millions of tons of coal are extracted from Alabama's mines each year.
22:27And it was coal from this region that fueled the rise of one of America's great industrial cities, just a few miles away.
22:36This is Birmingham, Alabama, a great city of iron and steel, often called the Pittsburgh of the South.
22:45Others know Birmingham as the birthplace of country singer Emmylou Harris and the original Charlie's Angels actress Kate Jackson.
22:55Standing high over the city is a towering cast-iron statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and forge.
23:04At his waist, the tools he uses to shape metals.
23:08In his right hand, a spear, one of his finished products.
23:13This statue was made to display at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, as a great symbol of Birmingham.
23:21A city whose population and economy grew so rapidly in the late 19th century that it was known as Magic City.
23:30Birmingham was incorporated in 1871 by entrepreneurs who had been eyeing the valuable mineral deposits that surrounded the town.
23:39Everything needed to make iron lay within just 30 miles, including rich veins of coal, iron ore, and limestone.
23:50In 1881, a local entrepreneur, a railroad man named Colonel James Withers Sloss, convinced investors to back his plans to manufacture iron in Birmingham.
24:01Today, his Sloss Furnaces are still standing and have been made into a museum that documents Birmingham's rich industrial past.
24:12For nearly a century, the Sloss Furnaces were the mainstay of Birmingham's economy, turning out hundreds of tons of high-quality iron every week.
24:22After Sloss sold his company in 1886, it went on to become one of the largest iron manufacturers in the world.
24:29All thanks to the rich resources and workers of Alabama.
24:35Birmingham's Sloss Furnaces may be quiet today, but here, outside the town of Calvert, a giant new steel plant has just been fired up and promises to keep the state's industrial legacy burning bright.
24:50It's so big and so modern, it looks more like a high-end shopping mall than a steel plant.
24:56This is the new Thyssenkrupp Steel Mill.
25:01Opened in 2010, this German-run facility cost nearly $5 billion to build, the largest commercial investment ever in Alabama history.
25:11All the steel processed here arrives from the company's plant in Brazil as giant slabs.
25:16Then, it's heated to more than 2,000 degrees, and then pressed into coils of thin steel.
25:23Overhead cranes pick up and shuttle these coils with remarkable speed.
25:28Each one weighs as much as two African elephants.
25:33Inside the plant's towering green structures, the steel is coated with erosion-resistant zinc, the final step before it's ready to be sold.
25:41But even more remarkable is the facility itself.
25:45It was German color designer Friedrich Ernst von Garnier who gave the plant its unique look.
25:51Rather than being a hulking eyesore on Alabama's coastal plain, von Garnier wanted the plant to harmonize with the landscape, and to be welcoming to its workers.
26:03Color, he insisted, was the key.
26:05There's a good reason this German company chose Alabama for the site of a new steel mill.
26:10The state is home to the only Mercedes-Benz plant in the U.S., which lies just outside the city of Tuscaloosa.
26:17A billion dollars' worth of Mercedes-Benz cars leave this facility every year, and each one is built with high-quality steel.
26:24And Alabama's workers aren't just making German cars.
26:28Just outside Montgomery, 2,500 work here on the assembly lines inside this Hyundai plant.
26:35More than 7,000 new cars are built here every week.
26:41And Alabama's steel mill is the largest in the U.S.
26:45Alabama's auto manufacturing sector, together with its thriving steel industry, has earned the state the nickname the Detroit of the South.
26:54The ThyssenKrupp mill was built here because ships carrying steel slabs could reach the mill easily from Alabama's port city of Mobile.
27:04Just 31 miles to the south.
27:08More than a century before Alabama became a state, it was part of French territory, and Mobile was the capital of Louisiana.
27:17That's why the city's downtown was home to the first Mardi Gras, the first American-made Mardi Gras.
27:23After cotton fever raged across Alabama, almost all of the state's cotton passed through Mobile, before sailing off to mills around the world.
27:34One British visitor in 1858 wrote,
27:37After cotton fever raged across Alabama, almost all of the state's cotton passed through Mobile, before sailing off to mills around the world.
27:48One British visitor in 1858 wrote,
28:07Famous right fielder Hank Aaron grew up just outside the city, picking cotton as a child,
28:15before he headed off to play with the Indianapolis Clowns at the age of just 18, and went on to become one of baseball's greatest legends.
28:26These days, Mobile's modern port bustles, not with cotton, but coal.
28:32This is the largest import coal terminal in the U.S.
28:36The McDuffie Terminal can process more than 15 million tons of coal a year.
28:41But the vast majority of it is not from Alabama, and not even from the United States.
28:47Coal from around the world is unloaded at McDuffie, and is then sent on trains and other ships to power and steel plants across the country.
28:56This giant scooper, called a bucket wheel excavator, loads coal onto conveyor belts with amazing speed.
29:04This port can fill up a bulk carrier with 25 tons of coal every minute.
29:10All the cargo that arrives here must first travel through Mobile Bay.
29:16To protect this vital shipping route, the state of Alabama built Fort Morgan.
29:20Soon after Alabama became a state, the area was later the scene of one of the most famous phrases of the Civil War.
29:29Confederate troops used the fort to defend Alabama from Union ships.
29:34On August 5, 1864, during the Battle of Mobile Bay, they fired on a Union fleet as it passed the island.
29:42One of the ships took a direct hit.
29:44But the Union admiral, David Farragut, commanded the fleet to continue on.
29:48Issuing his now famous order, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
29:59It was the last major naval battle of the Civil War, and finally gave the federal government full control of all ports on the Gulf of Mexico.
30:08Five years before this victory, on an autumn night in 1859, a ship named the Clotelda rounded the bend of this fort on its way to the port of Mobile.
30:20The U.S. had banned the international slave trade 50 years earlier.
30:25But in the cargo hold of the Clotelda that night were slaves.
30:29From the West African countries of the Middle East, to the Caribbean, to the Caribbean.
30:33The captains of the Clotelda that night were slaves.
30:36From the West African country of Benin.
30:39Under the cover of night, and fearing arrest, the captain transferred his illegal cargo onto smaller boats.
30:46And ferried the African men and women to plantations upriver.
30:51They couldn't be sold as slaves, but were put to work, and only freed after the Civil War.
30:56Unable to afford passage home, they started their own community, here just north of Mobile.
31:02The first town in the country founded by African Americans.
31:06It's been called Africatown ever since.
31:09Right up until the 1950s, some residents here spoke the African languages of their ancestors.
31:15Today, many who live here are descendants of the men and women who originally arrived on the Clotelda.
31:21The end of the Civil War brought freedom to Alabama's slaves,
31:25but that didn't mean they were treated equally to whites under the law.
31:29And it was here in Alabama where some of America's toughest civil rights battles were fought, and won.
31:43There may be no act of courage in America's civil rights history,
31:46more powerful than that of the 42-year-old seamstress named Rosa Parks.
31:52On the evening of December 1st, 1955, the African American woman boarded a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to take her home after work.
32:03She got on at a bus stop that was then located here at Court Square.
32:08Parks sat down in the center of the bus.
32:10At the time, due to Jim Crow laws, legalized segregation was in full swing.
32:15And at the third stop, the bus driver ordered her to give up her seat to a white man.
32:21When Parks refused, she was quickly arrested.
32:25But her actions would inspire thousands more.
32:29African Americans across Montgomery rallied to her cause and launched a boycott of the bus.
32:34The man they chose to lead that boycott was a young minister named Martin Luther King Jr.
32:40His Dexter Avenue Baptist Church stood less than half a mile from the site where Parks had boarded the bus.
32:46The church became the epicenter of the Montgomery Bus Boycott,
32:51the first non-violent mass protest of the Civil Rights Movement.
32:55For more than a year, thousands of African Americans in and around Montgomery refused to ride on city buses.
33:01They got to and from work by organizing carpools instead.
33:05Some even walked, from as far as eight miles away.
33:10Since 75% of riders on the bus system at the time were African Americans,
33:15the bus drivers were forced to leave the city.
33:19The boycott also spawned a wide range of demonstrations and sit-ins across the South,
33:24all in protest of segregation.
33:27Finally, in December 1956, after an appeal,
33:31the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Alabama's bus segregation was unconscionable.
33:36The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Alabama's bus segregation was unconscionable.
33:41The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Alabama's bus segregation was unconscionable.
33:45The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Alabama's bus segregation was unconscionable.
33:50The boycott had been a success.
33:53In Alabama, blacks could now legally sit wherever they wanted on city buses.
33:59Today, the Rosa Parks Library and Museum in downtown Montgomery
34:04chronicles her life and the important role she played in the Civil Rights Movement.
34:10The year after the boycott ended,
34:12Parks, fearing she'd be the victim of racist attacks, moved to Michigan,
34:17where she lived until she died in 2005, at the age of 92.
34:24Despite the bus boycott's success,
34:27real change in Alabama, and across America, would take another full decade.
34:32In 1963, the state's new governor, George Wallace, stood here,
34:37on the Alabama State Capitol steps,
34:40and proudly declared in his inauguration speech,
34:43segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.
34:49But within two years of this speech,
34:52Alabama was rocked by one of the biggest civil rights events in American history,
34:56and one that would destroy Wallace's dreams.
35:02It started here, in the city of Selma,
35:04located on a curve in the Alabama River.
35:07In 1870, the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
35:12had given blacks in America the right to vote.
35:15But for nearly a century, Alabama and other states
35:19had policies in place to ensure that few blacks could actually register to cast their ballots.
35:24Here in Dallas County, only about 2% of blacks of voting age could actually vote.
35:30But that was all about to change.
35:33On March 7, 1965, more than 500 African Americans gathered here,
35:40in front of Selma's Brown Chapel AME Church,
35:43to protest Alabama's voting rights policies.
35:46They planned to march to Montgomery, the state capitol, 54 miles away.
35:52Leading that protest was Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
35:57King led the marchers through the streets of Selma,
35:59and then down Broad Street.
36:03But as they reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge,
36:06they were met by a wall of state and local police,
36:09who descended on the protesters,
36:11beating them with billy clubs, bullwhips,
36:14and rubber tubing covered with barbed wire.
36:17Arms and legs were broken, and skulls shattered,
36:21on a terrifying day that came to be known as Bloody Sunday.
36:25The event, broadcast on national news,
36:28captivated and horrified the nation.
36:31Thousands soon poured into Selma to lend their support to the marchers.
36:36Two weeks later, they all gathered here, in the front of the church.
36:40Once again, with King at the lead,
36:42they made their way down the streets of Selma,
36:45toward the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
36:47But this time, King was armed with a ruling from a federal judge
36:51that permitted the marchers to protest.
36:53The police could do nothing to stop them,
36:56as they crossed the bridge on their way to the capital.
37:02From Selma, King and the marchers headed east.
37:05They followed Route 80 on foot,
37:08walking for five days through chilling rain,
37:11and camping each night along the way.
37:13The route of this now famous march
37:16is known as the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail.
37:20It was on March 25, 1965,
37:23that the 25,000 marchers finally arrived in Montgomery.
37:28They gathered here, at the Alabama Statehouse,
37:31to hear Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his now famous speech,
37:35known as, How Long, Not Long.
37:39They told us we wouldn't get here, King declared.
37:42And there were those who said
37:44that we would get here only over a week.
37:46And there were those who said
37:48that we would get here only over their dead bodies.
37:51But all the world today knows that we are here,
37:54and we are standing before the forces of power
37:57in the state of Alabama, saying,
37:59we ain't gonna let nobody turn us around.
38:03King's speech, and the voices of the marchers,
38:06were heard in every corner of the nation.
38:09Less than five months later,
38:11President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law,
38:14which guaranteed that blacks could register to vote,
38:17just as easily as whites could.
38:19It was a defining moment in America's civil rights struggle.
38:25Alabama's not an easy state to pigeonhole.
38:29For some, it's a place of defining victories over injustice,
38:33and one rich with the history of fire and forge.
38:37Some know Alabama as the home of Crimson Tide football.
38:42But for others, this state is what lies
38:45at the end of a long annual pilgrimage here,
38:48to one of NASCAR's most famous tracks,
38:51the Talladega Super Speedway.
38:54Thousands come here every year and camp out in their RVs.
38:59The air over the track is thick
39:01with the smoke from hundreds of pre-race barbecues.
39:05This is the biggest, fastest,
39:07and most competitive track on the NASCAR circuit.
39:11It was here in 2004 that driver Rusty Wallace
39:15hit 228 miles per hour during a practice run,
39:18making history as the fastest recorded time
39:21on a closed oval track.
39:24Talladega is also one of the most dangerous NASCAR speedways.
39:28Its steep banks and 48-foot-wide racetrack
39:31allow up to five cars to race side-by-side,
39:34which has resulted in many crashes,
39:37so many that some believe the track is cursed.
39:39They call it the Talladega Jinx.
39:45It was on this track that actor Will Ferrell
39:48filmed the 2006 comedy Talladega Nights,
39:51crashing his race car,
39:53and then sprinting on foot to the finish line
39:55to try and beat his competitor,
39:57played by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.
40:04But northeast of the speedway,
40:07it's a very different scene.
40:09Trees stretch as far as the eye can see.
40:13This is the Talladega National Forest,
40:16an Alabama treasure,
40:19one of the most biologically diverse woodlands in the world.
40:24It's home to nearly 30 species of trees.
40:27Poplars, dogwoods, hickories, and maples all thrive here,
40:32each turning a different, brilliant color in fall.
40:34Eastern Alabama is well-known for its natural wonders.
40:38These rocks poking above the trees
40:41are a sacred site for the Cherokee,
40:44though most Cherokee were forced out of Alabama in the 1830s
40:48and sent west on the infamous Trail of Tears.
40:51Today, Cherokee Rock Village is popular with hikers and climbers
40:56who use the rocks to test their skills.
40:59Just north lies Little River Canyon.
41:01This is one of the longest rivers in the world
41:04that runs on top of a mountain plateau.
41:07This fall, the river is no more than a trickle.
41:10But when it swells in the spring,
41:13it's a kayaker's paradise.
41:15The most daring are known to ride right over Little River Falls.
41:21With so many rivers and streams in Alabama,
41:24it's not surprising that it's a fisherman's paradise.
41:27Some say that the river is the only place
41:29to catch bass than in these waters.
41:32The Tennessee River crosses northern Alabama,
41:36and one of the best fishing spots on the river today
41:39is a surprising one.
41:42These fishermen are tossing their lines
41:45in the water being discharged
41:48from a nearby nuclear power plant.
41:51On cold fall days,
41:54the warm water from the plant's cooling towers attracts the fish.
41:56High over the river stands Browns Ferry Nuclear Reactor.
42:00When it was built,
42:03it was part of a vast government experiment
42:06that's still in operation today.
42:09In 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression,
42:12President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
42:15signed legislation to launch a megaproject
42:18in the economically hard-hit areas along the Tennessee River.
42:21Part of Roosevelt's New Deal,
42:23the Tennessee Valley Authority, or TVA,
42:26was created as a giant energy agency
42:29that would be run with the efficiency of private industry.
42:32The idea was to revitalize the economy
42:35of the Tennessee River Basin
42:38by controlling and harnessing the power of the river,
42:41helping farmers fight erosion from floodwaters,
42:44and generating energy that could power new industries.
42:47The TVA also got into the business
42:50of malaria prevention,
42:53and reforestation.
42:57This was one of the TVA's first projects.
43:00The already-completed Wilson Hydroelectric Dam
43:03was turned over to the TVA in 1933,
43:06and then joined a series of new dams
43:09up and down the river.
43:12The flow of water in the Tennessee
43:15was ultimately so controlled by TVA projects,
43:18it acted more like a giant canal than a river,
43:20and still does today.
43:23Browns Ferry is just one of three nuclear plants
43:26run by the TVA on the river.
43:29Its cooling towers don't look like the spool-shaped ones
43:32used at most nuclear facilities.
43:35These are more like water coolers,
43:38running on electricity, each with 16 enormous fans.
43:45In the 1950s, power from the TVA
43:47fueled another government experiment.
43:50But this one launched humans to the moon.
44:07A rocket towers high over the Alabama city of Huntsville.
44:10It's a Saturn V,
44:13the most powerful launch vehicle in history.
44:15The story of how Huntsville
44:18came to be known as Rocket City
44:21begins at a former military base,
44:24just outside of town.
44:27In 1945, at the end of World War II,
44:30the U.S. government smuggled a group of German scientists
44:33into the United States
44:36to keep them out of Russian hands.
44:39It was a program codenamed Operation Paperclip.
44:42One of those scientists,
44:45named Dr. Werner von Braun,
44:48had worked to develop rockets for Hitler.
44:51The U.S. government wanted his expertise,
44:54despite his Nazi sympathies.
44:57So, starting in 1950, von Braun worked here,
45:00on the grounds of the U.S. Army's Redstone arsenal.
45:03He led a team of German and American scientists
45:06to develop a rocket that could, one day,
45:09carry humans into space.
45:12In 1958,
45:15Eisenhower signed legislation to create NASA,
45:18which soon established the Marshall Space Center
45:21here at Redstone, NASA's first home.
45:24By the late 1960s,
45:27von Braun's team had tested 32 of their Saturn designs.
45:30Not a single one failed.
45:34Finally, in 1969,
45:37powered by a Saturn V,
45:40Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin lifted off
45:42and were the first to set foot on the Moon.
45:47Thanks to the Marshall Space Center,
45:50Huntsville is also home to one of the biggest concentrations
45:53of high-tech companies in the country.
45:56Siemens, Boeing, and a wide range of other aerospace-related firms,
45:59whose names are less familiar to the public,
46:02all call Huntsville home.
46:05Huntsville continues to live up to its nickname,
46:08Rocket City.
46:10Like the McMorrow Missile Laboratories,
46:13scientists develop a wide range of missiles for military use.
46:16And the nearby Huntsville Airport
46:19is still a place to see amazing flying machines,
46:22like this Boeing Dreamlifter,
46:25one of the highest-capacity cargo planes in the world.
46:29The fortunes of many in Alabama
46:32are still soaring on the frontier of space exploration.
46:35But most in this state still live and work
46:37by age-old rhythms,
46:40defined by Alabama's fertile fields
46:43and the rich resources of its land and water.
46:47Resources like those in these giant ponds.
46:52Once, this was cotton country.
46:55But now this farmer is shooting pellets of food
46:58into his flooded fields.
47:01Food to feed farm-raised catfish.
47:04The catfish industry kicked off here in Alabama
47:07in the 1960s.
47:10Thousands of these fish can be raised in a single pond.
47:13And since catfish have big stomachs,
47:16they only need to be fed once a day.
47:19But when the fish come up to feed,
47:22they're easy prey for Alabama's wood storks,
47:25one of the state's endangered species.
47:28Turning fields into fish farms
47:31is one way people in Alabama have adapted to changing times.
47:34But some still continue to make a living here
47:37just as their ancestors did.
47:40The fishermen of Mobile Bay.
47:43There's an old saying in this part of the world
47:46that there are four seasons here.
47:49Shrimp, oyster, crab, and of course, fish.
47:55When the sun sets over the bay,
47:58these men and women will head home
48:01to one of Alabama's oldest fishing ports,
48:04founded way back in 1786.
48:08The port of Bayou La Batre
48:11is located on Alabama's tiny 53-mile coast,
48:14separated by just a narrow barrier island
48:17from the Gulf of Mexico.
48:20This quiet fishing port is known to many around the world,
48:23thanks to its starring role
48:26in the 1994 blockbuster, Forrest Gump.
48:29It was here where the fictional Forrest,
48:32famously played by Tom Hanks,
48:34meets his buddy Bubba,
48:37and launches his own shrimping boat.
48:40During Hurricane Katrina,
48:43half the houses in Bayou La Batre were destroyed.
48:46Losses to the fishing industry
48:49were estimated at $112 million.
48:52But still, every morning,
48:55men and women from Bayou La Batre
48:58head out into the bay,
49:01hoping for a good day's catch.
49:04Many think of oil and gas rigs
49:07as threats to the environment.
49:10But people here in Mobile Bay know
49:13they can also create a boon.
49:16Below water, the legs of these rigs
49:19act like artificial reefs
49:22to create habitats for fish,
49:25including speckled trout.
49:28Many tourists who come to Alabama
49:31just to go fishing
49:34know one phrase that can sum up Alabama.
49:38Some call it the Cotton State.
49:41But there's much more to this fertile land
49:44than its white fields of gold.
49:47It's also a place of endless waters,
49:50whose banks are rich with stories
49:53that span the history of the nation,
49:56from the settlements of America's early inhabitants
49:59to the terrifying siege
50:02to the brave civil rights leaders
50:05who forged a path to freedom for millions
50:09to raging fires lit to regenerate the land.
50:15Even though scientists here help send humans to the moon,
50:19locals like to call their southern state
50:22the heart of Dixie.
50:25Or, more simply, just Sweet Home, Alabama.
50:31♪
51:01♪