List of Famous people born in Alabama, United States of America
Laverne Cox
Laverne Cox is an American actress and LGBTQ+ advocate. She rose to prominence with her role as Sophia Burset on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, becoming the first openly transgender person to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in any acting category, and the first to be nominated for an Emmy Award since composer Angela Morley in 1990. In 2015, she won a Daytime Emmy Award in Outstanding Special Class Special as executive producer for Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word, making her the first openly transgender woman to win the award. In 2017, she became the first transgender person to play a transgender series regular on broadcast TV as Cameron Wirth on CBS's Doubt.
Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has called her "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement".
Mitch McConnell
Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr. is an American politician serving as the Senate Minority Leader since January 20, 2021. A Republican, McConnell is currently serving as the senior United States senator from Kentucky, first elected in 1984. McConnell is the second Kentuckian to serve as a party leader in the Senate, the longest-serving U.S. senator for Kentucky in history, and the longest-serving leader of U.S. Senate Republicans in history.
Philip Rivers
Philip Michael Rivers is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 17 seasons, primarily with the Chargers franchise. He played college football at North Carolina State and was selected in the first round of the 2004 NFL Draft as the fourth overall pick by the New York Giants, who traded him to the San Diego Chargers during the draft. Rivers was a member of the Chargers for 16 seasons and played his final season for the Indianapolis Colts.
Jameis Winston
Jameis Lanaed Winston is an American football quarterback for the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League (NFL). Born and raised in Alabama, he was a highly regarded quarterback in high school and led his team to the state championship as a junior. Winston played college football for the Florida State Seminoles and as a redshirt freshman became the youngest player to win the Heisman Trophy and helped lead the Seminoles to a victory in the 2014 BCS National Championship Game. In his sophomore and final year, the Seminoles advanced to the Rose Bowl, part of the College Football Playoff. Winston also played on Florida State's baseball team. Winston was drafted as the first overall pick by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 2015 NFL Draft.
DeMarcus Cousins
DeMarcus Amir Cousins is an American professional basketball player for the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "Boogie", he played college basketball for the Kentucky Wildcats, where he was an All-American in 2010. He left Kentucky after one season, and was selected with the fifth overall pick in the 2010 NBA draft by the Sacramento Kings. In his first season with the Kings, Cousins was named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team, and from 2015 to 2018, he was named an NBA All-Star. He is also a two-time gold medal winner as a member of the United States national team, winning his first in 2014 at the FIBA Basketball World Cup and his second in 2016 at the Rio Olympics.
Jordan Fisher
Jordan William Fisher is an American actor, singer, dancer, musician and gamer. He began his career with recurring roles on several television series, including The Secret Life of the American Teenager in 2012 and Liv and Maddie from 2015 to 2017. He also is known for voicing Sea Hawk (She-Ra) in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power He also had supporting roles in the television films Teen Beach Movie (2013), Teen Beach 2 (2015) and Grease Live (2016), and starred in Rent: Live (2019).
John Lewis
John Robert Lewis was an American politician, statesman, and civil rights activist and leader who served in the United States House of Representatives for Georgia's 5th congressional district from 1987 until his death in 2020. He was the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1963 to 1966.
Kirby Smart
Kirby Smart is an American football coach and former player. He has been the current head football coach of the University of Georgia since 2016.
Helen Keller
Helen Adams Keller was an American author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer. Born in West Tuscumbia, Alabama, she lost her sight and hearing after a bout of illness at the age of nineteen months. She then communicated primarily using home signs until the age of seven when she met her first teacher and life-long companion Anne Sullivan, who taught her language, including reading and writing; Sullivan's first lessons involved spelling words on Keller's hand to show her the names of objects around her. She also learned how to speak and to understand other people's speech using the Tadoma method. After an education at both specialist and mainstream schools, she attended Radcliffe College of Harvard University and became the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. She worked for the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) from 1924 until 1968, during which time she toured the United States and traveled to 39 countries around the globe advocating for those with vision loss.