What I Learned Today

by: Redeye

Mon Jan 26, 2009 at 19:16:43 PM CST

Alabama has a creed and a motto.  

Here is the Alabama Creed;

In 1953 the state legislature approved Act no. 244, adopting the Alabamian's Creed, as Alabama's Creed. The Alabamian's creed was written by Mrs. H.P. Thetford, Birmingham, Alabama. The creed was adopted by the Board and Council of the Alabama Federations of Women's Clubs who in turn recommended it for adoption by the state legislature.

I believe in Alabama, a state dedicated to a faith in God and the enlightenment of mankind; to a democracy that safeguards the liberties of each citizen and to the conservation of her youth, her ideals, and her soil. I believe it is my duty to obey her laws, to respect her flag and to be alert to her needs and generous in my efforts to foster her advancement within the statehood of the world.

The official Alabama Motto:

Audemus jura nostra defendere" has been translated as: "We Dare Maintain Our Rights" or "We Dare Defend Our Rights." This Latin phrase is on the state coat of arms completed in 1923.

According to a Birmingham News-Age Herald article by Marie Bankhead Owen (the director of the state Archives) dated April 23, 1939, she came upon the idea while searching for "a phrase that would interpret the spirit of our peoples in a terse and energetic sentence." A part of a poem entitled "What Constitutes a State?" by the 18th-century author Sir William Jones found in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations includes the stanza "Men who their duties know. But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain." The motto was translated into Latin by Professor W. B. Saffold, of the University of Alabama.

All Alabama license plates are reguired to have the phrase "Heart of Dixie"printed on them.

The Heart of Dixie slogan was one dreamed up in the late 1940s and early 1950s as a public relations tool. It was first promoted by the Alabama Chamber of Commerce. It was to give Alabama a distinctive motto and replace a commonly used motto of the "cotton state" (which could also be used to describe many other states). The Chamber noted that "Alabama is geographically the Heart of Dixie, Alabama is industrially the Heart of Dixie, Alabama is, in fact, the Heart of Dixie." The Chamber of Commerce advocated its use on state license plates and a bill was passed in 1951 to add it to license plates. Actual implementation of the motto on auto tags did not occur until 1955.

Who knew?