Textual Politics of Alabama’s Historical Markers: Slavery, Emancipation, and Civil Rights Matthew R. Cook Contents Introduction ....................................................................................... 2 History of the Alabama Historical Association’ s Marker Program .............................. 5 Textual Politics, Historical Responsibility, and Surrogation in Historical Marker Programs . . . 6 Textual Politics ................................................................................ 6 Historical Responsibility ...................................................................... 8 Surrogation .................................................................................... 10 Methodology ...................................................................................... 10 Content Analysis Findings ....................................................................... 13 Discourse Analysis Findings ..................................................................... 18 Slavery ......................................................................................... 18 Emancipation .................................................................................. 20 Civil Rights Movement ....................................................................... 23 African-American Historical Markers and Gender ........................................... 24 Other Marker Programs in Alabama .......................................................... 26 Conclusion ........................................................................................ 27 References ........................................................................................ 28 Abstract In light of recent protests and debates over Confederate symbols, markers, and flags after the 2015 Charleston shooting, the South remains fertile ground for critically reflecting on the role of history in shaping the present. State historical marker programs are a near ubiquitous feature of the United States’ commemo- rative landscape, used to retell history at important sites. However, geographers and other memory studies scholars have not devoted much time or effort in researching historical markers, in part because they are often considered mundane or they are ignored in favor of researching stand-alone monuments or other M. R. Cook (*) Department of Geography & Geology, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, MI, USA e-mail: mcook40@emich.edu # Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018 S. D. Brunn et al. (eds.), Handbook of the Changing World Language Map, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73400-2_21-1 1