10 Alabama culture

Cannabis in Alabama is illegal for recreational use. First-time possession of personal amounts is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in prison, a fine of up to $6000, and a mandatory six months driver's license suspension. Repeat offenses and possession with intent to sell are felonies.

China Marine: An Infantryman's Life after World War II is the second memoir written by United States Marine Corporal Eugene B. Sledge, published posthumously with foreword by Stephen E. Ambrose, without subtitle, on May 10, 2002 by University of Alabama Press It was republished in paperback with the full title by Oxford University Press in July 2003. This book is the sequel to his first, better known, memoir, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa and Ambrose identifies it as the only account of the Marines stationed in postwar China. It has recently achieved wider public recognition as credited source material for the 2010 HBO miniseries The Pacific.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is a book with text by American writer James Agee and photographs by American photographer Walker Evans, first published in 1941 in the United States. The work documents the lives of impoverished tenant farmers during the Great Depression. Although it is in keeping with Evans's work with the Farm Security Administration, the project was initiated not by the FSA, but by Fortune magazine. The title derives from a passage in the Wisdom of Sirach (44:1) that begins, "Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us".

Light in My Darkness is a book, originally published in 1927 as My Religion, written by Helen Keller when she was 47 years old. The book was written as a tribute to Emanuel Swedenborg whom Helen regarded as "one of the noblest champions true Christianity has ever known". This book is regarded as Keller's spiritual autobiography in which she openly told that "the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg have been my light, and a staff in my hand and by his vision splendid I am attended on my way".

Jubilee is the name used locally for a natural phenomenon that occurs sporadically on the shores of Mobile Bay, a large body of water on Alabama's Gulf Coast. During a jubilee many species of crab and shrimp, as well as flounder, eels, and other demersal fish will leave deeper waters and swarm—in large numbers and very high density—in a specific, shallower coastal area of the bay. A jubilee is a celebrated event in Mobile Bay, and it attracts large crowds, many drawn by the promise of abundant and easy-to-catch seafood.

Thomas McAdory Owen was an American lawyer, archivist, historian, and founder of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, serving as its first director. Owen was the author of a large and noted four-volume work, History of Alabama and dictionary of Alabama biography, and numerous other historical works. Through his lobbying efforts Owen was instrumental at obtaining the needed support and state funding for the Alabama Historical Society and other archival and historical institutions in the state.

The Red Lady of Huntingdon College is a ghost said to haunt the former Pratt Hall dormitory at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama. Her story is told in Huntingdon alumnus Kathryn Tucker Windham's book 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey.

The Story of My Life, first published in 1903, is Helen Keller's autobiography detailing her early life, especially her experiences with Anne Sullivan. Portions of it were adapted by William Gibson for a 1957 Playhouse 90 production, a 1959 Broadway play, a 1962 Hollywood feature film, and the Indian film Black. The book is dedicated to inventor Alexander Graham Bell.

They Live on the Land: Life in an Open Country Southern Community is a social study of an Alabama rural community written by social scientists Paul W. Terry and Verner M. Sims and published in 1940. The book was based on research undertaken by Terry and Sims under the auspices of the Tennessee Valley Authority during the period 1934–1936. Terry and Sims were academic researchers in educational psychology based at the University of Alabama at the time.

With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa is a World War II memoir by United States Marine Eugene Sledge, first published in 1981. The memoir is based on notes Sledge kept tucked away in a pocket-sized Bible he carried with him during battles he fought at Peleliu and Okinawa. The book formed part of the basis of the material covered by Ken Burns' PBS documentary The War (2007), as well as the HBO miniseries The Pacific (2010), in which Sledge was portrayed by Joseph Mazzello.