Marion travel guide

Marion is the county seat of Perry County, Alabama As of the 2000 census, the population of the city is 3,511. First called Muckle Ridge, the city was renamed after a hero of the American Revolution, Francis Marion. It has been called The Athens of the South because of the dominating presence of its colleges, of which Judson College and Marion Military Institute remain. Howard College was founded in Marion in 1842, and moved to Birmingham in 1887, later becoming Samford University. A groundbreaking school for African Americans, the Lincoln Normal School, was founded here in 1867. The associated Lincoln Normal University for Teachers moved to Montgomery and became Alabama State University. The high school merged with Marion High School during the federally-ordered desegregation of the 1960s.
Civil rights leader Coretta Scott King attended Lincoln Normal School. She was born in the neighboring town of Heiberger.
In 1964, Marion was a center of Civil Rights protests in Alabama. During the course of one march, Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot by Alabama State Trooper James Bonard Fowler. Jackson later died of an infection stemming from the wounds at nearby Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma. Jackson's death is recognized as the catalyst for the Selma-to-Montgomery March later that year. In 2007, Fowler was indicted for murder for his role in Jackson's death.
The first Confederate flag and the Confederate uniform were designed here by Nicola Marschall, then a teacher at the old Marion Female Seminary.http://marionalabama.org/cimarion/index.cfm?pageID=93 (...) more....

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