Prohibition

There have been two periods of Prohibition of alcoholic beverages in Birmingham. A Jefferson County measure restricting alcohol sales was in force between 1908 and 1911, and a statewide prohibition was in effect from July 1, 1915 until 1937.

The county-wide prohibition campaign was an effort, led by mayor George Ward and the Birmingham News to improve the city's notorious image following a series of bribary scandals involving liquor and gambling interests. Birmingham's “red light” districts, such as Pigeon’s Roost and Scratch Ankle, were also cited as both a public safety concern and a source of negative publicity.

In 1907 Ward and the News began a push for prohibition of alcohol within the city. A special election was held on October 28, 1907, and on New Years Day 1908, Jefferson County went dry. The experiment was repealed in 1911.

Birmingham would again experience prohibition beginning on July 1, 1915 with the Alabama legislature's passage of a total ban of alcohol over the veto of Governor Charles Henderson. Meanwhile national prohibition came into effect with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1918. This measure was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933. Alabama, however, remained dry until the establishment of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board in 1937.

References

• Sellers, James Benson (1943) The Prohibition Movement in Alabama, 1702 to 1943. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
• Birmingham Area Chamber of Commerce (1976) Century Plus: A Bicentennial Portrait of Birmingham, Alabama 1976 Birmingham: Oxmoor Press, p. 18.