The U.S. Postal Service announced, on December 6, that the Alabama Bicentennial Statehood stamp would be issued on February 23 at 10 a.m. CST, at Constitution Hall Park, 109 Gates Ave. SE, in Huntsville, Alabama. The third-largest city in the state, Huntsville has been home over the last two centuries to textile mills, then munitions factories, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command nearby at the Redstone Arsenal. 

According to the USPS, “This stamp celebrates the bicentennial of Alabama statehood. Alabama became the 22nd state in the Union on Dec. 14, 1819. The stamp art is a photograph taken at sunset in Cheaha State Park. Alabama photographer Joe Miller took the picture from the park’s Pulpit Rock Trail. With Pulpit Rock in the foreground, most of the area in the valley below the overlook is part of the Talladega National Forest, which surrounds the state park. 

“The name of the state and the year of statehood are included in the stamp art. The art director is William J. Gicker. Greg Breeding designed the stamp with Miller’s existing photograph.” 

“Alabama’s rich history stretches from its earliest inhabitants and settlement by European colonists to its significant role in the civil rights movement and its participation in the nation’s space program, the USPS noted. “The state was at the center of many important events in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, including the 1965 Voting Rights March from Selma to Montgomery, a route now commemorated as a National Historic Trail.”  

In addition to the new bicentennial stamp, shown nearby are a few of the 87 other stamps you’ll find places for in the updated Bicentennial Edition of the American Philatelic Society’s Alabama Stamp Album pages. You can fill a binder you get to choose with the 30 8½- by 11-inch color pages, including four blank pages for first-day covers and memorabilia. Download the PDF 

Among the stamps you’ll find room for on our pages is the 6¢ commemorative celebrating the 150th anniversary of Alabama Statehood back in 1969, Scott 1375. As on the 1982 20¢ State Bird and Flower stamp seen here, Scott 1953, it pictures the Yellowhammer and a blossoming Camellia. The 1976 American Bicentennial 13¢ State Flag stamp for Alabama, Scott 1654, showed the simple crimson cross of St. Andrew design adopted in 1895, a variant of the 15th-century white-on-blue flag of Scotland. It was reprised 32 years later on Scott 4274, the 2008 42¢ Alabama Flags of our Nation stamp pictured here. 

On the two Greetings from Alabama stamps issued in 2002, Scott 3561 and 3696, a lovely pink Camellia is back in the lower left corner, along with views of the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery and the World War II battleship USS Alabama (BB-60), on public display since 1965 at a memorial park in Mobile Bay. 

Alabama is also represented by stamps honoring famous innovators like Booker T. Washington, Civil Rights icons like Rosa Parks, pioneer aviators like C. Alfred “Chief ” Anderson, national musical treasures such as Hank Williams and Nat King Cole, and towering sports figures like Joe Louis and Bear Bryant.  

For the new statehood bicentennial stamp, customers have 120 days to obtain the first-day-of-issue postmark by mail. They may purchase new stamps at their local Post Office or at The Postal Store website at usps.com/shop. They must affix the stamps to envelopes of their choice, address the envelopes (to themselves or others), and place them in a larger envelope stamped with the required postage and addressed to: 

FDOI – Alabama Statehood Stamp
USPS Stamp Fulfillment Services
8300 NE Underground Drive, Suite 300
Kansas City, MO 64144-9900 

After applying the first-day-of-issue postmark, the Postal Service will return the envelopes through the mail. There is no charge for the postmark up to a quantity of 50. There is a 5¢ charge for each additional postmark over 50. All orders must be postmarked by June 23, 2019.