# List of people from Selma, Alabama

The people listed below were all born in, residents of, or otherwise closely associated with Selma, Alabama:

## Activism

* Patricia Swift Blalock – librarian and civil rights activist
* Joanne Bland – civil rights movement activist
* J.L. Chestnut – author, attorney, and a figure in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement
* Annie Lee Cooper – long-time civil rights activist who was active in the 1965 Selma voting rights movement
* Willis Nathaniel Huggins – historian and social activist
* Frederick D. Reese – voting rights movement leader
* Amelia Boynton Robinson – voting rights movement leader and long-time civic activist in Selma

## Art

* Mary Morgan Keipp – noted figure in the art photography movement of the early 20th century
* Clara Weaver Parrish – artist
* Alison Elizabeth Taylor – artist

## Athletics

* Zinn Beck – former MLB infielder; managed the first Selma Cloverleafs from 1928 to 1930, winning the Southeastern League pennant in 1930
* Curtis Berry – former professional basketball player
* David Beverly – former Auburn University and NFL player
* Charles Davis – member of the Azerbaijan national basketball team
* Cid Edwards – former NFL player
* Mia Hamm – former professional soccer player
* Candy Harris – former MLB player for the Houston Astros
* Michael Johnson – professional football player, NFL, Cincinnati Bengals
* James Ralph "Shug" Jordan – former head football coach of Auburn University
* Terry Leach – former professional baseball player MLB, baseball field at Bloch Park named for him
* Larry Marks – professional boxer
* William Clarence Matthews – former baseball player, lawyer, first head football coach for Tuskegee University and civil rights activist
* Pat McHugh – former professional football player for the Philadelphia Eagles
* Ben Obomanu – professional football player, NFL, New York Jets
* L. Vann Pettaway – men's basketball head coach of Alabama A&M from 1986 to 2011
* Ken Pettway – American player of gridiron football
* Hosken Powell – former Major League Baseball right fielder
* Cal Ramsey – former NBA player
* Ed Steele – former professional baseball outfielder

## Business

* Olan Mills Sr. – photographer and founder of Olan Mills
* Richard Scrushy – founder of HealthSouth
* Craig Vetter – motorcycle designer
* Lulu White – brothel madam and procuress

## Education

* Bogart Leashore – social worker, sociologist, dean of Hunter College school of social work (1991–2003)
* Minnie Bruce Pratt – educator, activist, and essayist
* Frank Warner – American folk song collector and former YMCA executive

## Fashion

* Eunice W. Johnson – founder and director of the Ebony Fashion Fair

## Government

* David Abner – former member of the Texas Legislature
* Ann Bedsole – member of both houses of the Alabama State Legislature 1979–1995 from Mobile, born in 1930 in Selma
* Jo Bonner – U.S Representative from 2003 to 2013
* Janice Bowling – member of the Tennessee Senate
* Jim Clark – Selma sheriff during the 1965 Voting Rights campaign
* William Benjamin Craig – U.S. Representative from 1907 to 1911
* Suzan DelBene – U.S. Representative for Washington's 1st congressional district
* Jeremiah Haralson – U.S. Representative from 1875 to 1877
* Sam Hobbs – U.S. Representative from 1935 to 1951
* Truman McGill Hobbs – United States federal judge
* Michael W. Jackson – district attorney
* Thomas S. Kenan – U.S. Representative from 1805 to 1811
* William Rufus King – Vice President of the United States, U.S. Senator, Minister to France
* William Lehman U.S. Representative from 1973 to 1993
* John Tyler Morgan – U.S. Senator from 1877 to 1907, Major General CSA
* James Perkins, Jr. – first African American mayor of Selma
* Edmund Pettus – U.S. Senator from 1897 to 1907, Brigadier General CSA
* Jeff Sessions – United States Senator
* Terri Sewell – 2010 Democratic representative for Alabama's 7th congressional district
* Benjamin S. Turner – first African American elected to U.S. Congress from Alabama (1871– Republican)
* Hattie Hooker Wilkins – first woman elected to the Alabama Legislature

## Literature

* Katharine Hopkins Chapman (1870/72/73-1930) - author and historian
* Sarah Johnson Cocke – writer and civic leader
* W. C. Morrow – writer
* William O. Walker – former editor of the Call and Post
* Sheyann Webb – writer
* Kathryn Tucker Windham – storyteller, author, photographer, and journalist

## Military

* Howard W. Gilmore – World War II submarine commander who posthumously received the Medal of Honor
* William J. Hardee – Lieutenant General CSA, author of Hardee's Military Tactics used by both Union and Confederate troops
* Catesby ap Roger Jones – Naval Commander, Captain of the ironclad ship CSS Virginia in its battle with the USS Monitor during the first conflict between iron warships in world history
* John Melvin – first American naval officer to die in World War I

## Music

* Randall Atcheson – concert pianist
* Kenny Brown – blues slide guitarist
* Mattie Moss Clark – former gospel music singer, The Clark Sisters
* Jimmy Gresham – soul musician
* Johnny Moore – lead singer for The Drifters
* Bill Moss – gospel music singer
* Oscar Toney, Jr. – soul singer
* Asher HaVon - winner of NBC's The Voice

## Parapsychology

* Edgar Cayce – famed psychic

## Religion

* Moses Anderson – Roman Catholic bishop
* T. J. Jemison – president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. from 1982 to 1994
* Lippman Mayer – rabbi
* Clarence Rufus J. Rivers – priest and composer of liturgical music
* Milton L. Wood – Bishop Suffragan in the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta from 1967 to 1974

## Science

* Shwetak Patel – computer scientist and entrepreneur

## Television and film

* Gregg Hale – film producer