Tuscaloosa To Host Alabama NAACP's 73rd Annual State Convention

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Tuscaloosa has been chosen as the host city for The Alabama State Conference of the NAACP's 73rd Annual State Convention.

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The Tuscaloosa County Branch NAACP says a press conference to announce the event is scheduled for 11 a.m. at 69 Jack Warner Parkway — on land once home to the Bryce Hospital Coal Mines where Black laborers worked in dangerous conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The 2025 convention will take place Sept. 25-28 at Hotel Capstone, with the Tuscaloosa County Branch NAACP serving as the host branch.

“The land we stand on is not just earth — it is memory,” Tuscaloosa County NAACP President Lisa Young said in a statement. “This press conference is not only an announcement; it is an act of truth-telling. It is our declaration that the past must not be buried under silence."

Young explained that on Feb. 20, 1901, a mine collapse at the site claimed the lives of three Black workers — Dock Foster, Pompey Stokes and Jeff Hamner — after a breach into an abandoned shaft caused a sudden flood.

Survivors were trapped in waist-deep water for more than 63 hours and later filed lawsuits against Bryce Hospital. The advocacy group says that while the families of those killed received small settlements, the Alabama Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favor of the hospital.

The Tuscaloosa County Branch NAACP says no physical trace of the mines or the lives lost remains today.

With research led by George Adair and in collaboration with the City of Tuscaloosa, the NAACP will unveil its plans for a historical marker at the site to commemorate the laborers who lost their lives.

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