Hobson City Citizens are Living History!

If you live in Hobson City, you wake up every morning for another day of being part of actual living history! Unlike most other cities in Alabama and across the country, Hobson City was established by and for its black citizens. When Hobson City (first known as Mooree Quarters) came into being, it was a different world than the one we live in now. The freedoms and rights that black people have today were purchased by the blood, sweat, and tears of men like the fearless few who incorporated YOUR city as the first black-governed city in Alabama (it is one of the three oldest black cities in the United States). 

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Before then Mooree Quarters was part of the city of Oxford. At that time, black voters turned out in enough numbers to have a say in who ran the city government. When a black man was elected as Justice of the Peace, the next white man running for mayor promised that if he won, he would see to it that black people no longer would have a say in how Oxford was run. When he was elected, with the help of Ross Black, an Anniston attorney, black citizens of Mooree Quarters filed a petition on July 20, 1899, with the Calhoun County Probate Judge, to become a separate municipality.Those signing the petition included Freddie Striplin, Susie Jones, Joe Cunningham, O-Mildred Ball, and Deneva Barnes. After proper legal proceedings, the town was incorporated on August 16, 1899.  It then became "Hobson City," named after Richmond P. Hobson, a white naval hero from the Spanish-American War and a member of Congress.

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Hobson City went through many changes in the years since incorporation. Time has not always been kind. Some periods of its history seemed sure to be a death knell. Indeed, in 2010In 2010, the Alabama Historical Commission declared the town one of Alabama’s “Places in Peril.” 

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