Alabama

TV Broadcaster

b. November 23, 1960

“It’s about focusing on the fight and not the fright.”

Robin Roberts is an award-winning broadcast journalist and co-anchor of ABC News’ “Good Morning America.” She became an outspoken advocate for cancer research, after being diagnosed twice with the disease. She won a 2012 Peabody Award for her reporting on the issue. 

Born in Alabama, where her father was a Tuskegee Airman, Roberts was an athlete who excelled at school. She was a standout on the Southeastern Louisiana University women’s basketball team. The University retired her number in 2011, and she was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012.

Early in her broadcast career, Roberts predominately covered sports for Southern television affiliates and radio stations. She joined ESPN in 1990. As a sportscaster, she became well known for her catch phrase, “Go on with your bad self.” 

ABC named Roberts co-anchor of “Good Morning America” with George Stephanopoulos in 2005. The show has since earned four Emmy Awards for Outstanding Morning Program. 

Roberts made headlines in 2007 after going public about her breast cancer treatment and again in 2012 when she was diagnosed with MDS, a disease formerly known as pre-leukemia. 

After a bone marrow transplant from her sister, she collaborated with the Be the Match registry to publicize the need for bone marrow donors. Since then, more than 56,000 people have registered to donate bone marrow.

Her courage and advocacy have been recognized with numerous honors from organizations like The Congressional Families Cancer Prevention Program and The Susan G. Komen Foundation. She received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPY’s in 2013. The same year, she came out as a lesbian on Facebook, saying she was grateful for her “longtime girlfriend Amber Laign.” 

In 2014 Roberts received the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism and was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame.

U.S. Vice President

b. April 7, 1796
d. April 18, 1853

“The law established by the Creator, which has existed from the beginning, extends over the whole globe.”

William Rufus King was the 13th vice president of the United States for six weeks before he died of tuberculosis, making him the shortest-serving vice president in American history. He was the third vice president to die in office.

King served in the U.S. Congress for nearly 30 years. He was elected a U.S. representative from North Carolina and a senator from Alabama. He won a record-breaking 11 elections to the position of president pro tempore of the Senate. He also served as minister to France.

A Democrat, King was a Unionist with moderate views on slavery and westward expansion. He helped draft the Compromise of 1850, a series of bills that attempted to diffuse tensions between the North and the South.

A native of North Carolina, King purchased property along the Alabama River. At what came to be known as “King’s Bend,” he operated one of the largest plantations in the state. He and others founded the nearby town of Selma, which King named after a site in a classical legend.

For most of his adult life, King enjoyed a close relationship with James Buchanan, the 15th president of the United States. For 10 years, he and Buchanan (neither of whom ever married) shared a home in Washington, D.C. Nicknamed the “Siamese twins,” they regularly attended social functions together. Andrew Jackson referred to them as “Miss Nancy” and “Miss Fancy.”

In January 1953, vice-president-elect King became gravely ill. He left for Cuba, hoping to regain his health in a warmer climate. When he was unable to return to Washington in time for the inauguration, he took the oath of office in a town near Havana. It is the only time in the nation’s history that an executive official has been sworn in on foreign soil.

King is interred in a mausoleum in Selma. The U.S. Senate displays a bust of him in its collection.

Transgender Actor

b. May 29, 1984

“It is revolutionary for any trans person to choose to be seen and visible in a world that tells us we should not exist.”

Laverne Cox is an American actor, producer and LGBT advocate best known for her role as a transgender prison inmate in the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black.” She is the first openly transgender person to be nominated for an Emmy Award for acting and the first to appear on the cover of Time magazine.

Cox was born a twin in Mobile, Alabama. She was “majorly bullied” as a child for being feminine. Cox begged for dance lessons, which she began in third grade. She went on to earn a BFA in dance from Marymount Manhattan College, where her twin brother, musician M Lamar, pursued visual art. He has also appeared in “Orange Is the New Black,” playing the role of Cox’s character before she transitioned.

Cox is the first trans woman of color to produce and star in her own TV show, the makeover series “TRANSform Me.” She has appeared on VH1’s “Want to Work for Diddy” and on programs such as “Law & Order: SVU” and “Bored to Death.” She plays a supporting role in the 2015 film “Grandma,” starring Lily Tomlin.

Cox has earned numerous awards and honors for her work as well as her activism, including the 2013 Courage Award from the Anti-Violence Project. In 2014—the year her hour-long documentary, “Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word,” aired simultaneously on MTV and Logo—she received a GLAAD Media Award. She was also named Glamour’s Woman of the Year and included on the EBONY Power 100 List.

In 2015 Cox was named to the OUT Power 50 List and as one of People magazine’s Most Beautiful Women. Time magazine included her on its 2015 list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Actor

b. January 31, 1902, Huntsville, Alabama

d. December 12, 1968, New York, New York

“Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.”

A Hollywood celebrity, Tallulah Bankhead exemplified what it meant to be a liberated woman at a time when women were Victorian and marginalized.

Bankhead’s father was a conservative Southern Democrat who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1917 until 1940. Tallulah was raised in Washington, D.C., where she received a strict religious education.

A proponent of racial integration and civil rights, Bankhead’s political values starkly contrasted with those of her family. At age 15, she moved to New York City, where she made a name for herself as an actor and bon vivant both on Broadway and in London.

In Motion Pictures magazine, Bankhead’s former assistant disclosed that the two had been sexually involved. A self-described ambisexual, Bankhead’s sexual liaisons included the British theater actress Eva Le Gallienne and jazz legend Billie Holiday. Despite Bankhead’s notoriety, she was widely admired, including by President Harry Truman.

Bankhead’s colorful personality immortalized her in ways that few female actors have achieved. Despite her many scandals, turbulent relations and provocative nature, she is remembered as a beacon of civil rights and sexual liberation.

Entrepreneur

b.  November 1, 1960

“You can focus on things that are barriers or you can focus on scaling the wall.”

Tim Cook is an entrepreneur and the CEO of Apple, one of the world’s most valuable companies. In 2011, Steve Jobs handpicked Cook as his successor.

Cook was born in Robertsdale, Alabama. He graduated high school second in his class and matriculated to Auburn University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering. He received a master’s degree in business administration from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, graduating in the top 10 percent of his class.

Before joining Apple, Cook managed manufacturing and distribution as director of North American fulfillment for IBM. He also served as chief operating officer at Intelligent Electronics and as vice president of corporate materials at the Compaq Computer Corporation.

In 1997, Apple reported a loss of a billion dollars and was expected to declare bankruptcy. In 1998, Steve Jobs convinced Cook to accept the position of chief operating officer, despite Cook’s reservations. Within a year, Apple reported a profit.

In 2011, Cook became Apple’s CEO and a member of the board of directors. He is one of the highest-paid CEOs. He ranked No. 1 on Out magazine’s “Power 50” list of the most influential LGBT people in the United States. Forbes Magazine named him one of the “World’s Most Powerful People.”

Cook has kept his personal life private.