Prior to 1905, workmen in search of
salvageable bricks dismantled the old
Dallas County Courthouse (pictured
here). The grassy mound before you
contains the damaged bricks the
workmen left behind.
Cahawba was the county seat from
1818 until 1866. This structure was
built in 1834, after an earlier courthouse
collapsed.
The courthouse was the heart of the
town, so when the county seat was
moved to Selma after the Civil War
most of Cahawba's residents followed.
Meanwhile the abandoned courthouse
became a meeting hall for emancipated
slaves seeking new political power.
Selma newspapers began to refer to
Cahawba as the "Mecca of the Radical
Republican Party." By 1876, there were
only 307 registered voters in Cahawba;
all but 9 were African American.
Cahawba had become a village of
politically active freedmen, but soon even
that settlement would fade away.
Abandoned Courthouse Setting for 1876 Political Drama
Jeremiah Haralson, an African American, served in the U.S. Congress from 1875 until 1877. In 1876 he was giving a speech in Cahawba's old courthouse as part of his re-election campaign. His opponent, General Charles M. Shelley, the white sheriff of Dallas County, sent a deputy to Cahawba to escort the congressman to Selma. Haralson
reported that he was forced at gunpoint to retract a statement and to promise to hold no more political meetings. Seeing a congressman treated this way had a chilling effect on Black voters. This event is generally accepted as the official end of Reconstruction in Dallas County. In tallying the votes, several precincts were excluded for "irregularities," and Congressman Haralson lost his bid for re-election to Shelley.
Unfinished Business
Post-Civil War policies that protected the politically active Freedmen at Cahawba were short lived. By 1879, the chugging sounds of a steam-powered cotton gin had replaced the oratory of Congressman Jeremiah Haralson and the Radical Republicans.
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