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
 * 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