About This Stamp
Alabama became the 22nd state in the Union on December 14, 1819, and celebrated its bicentennial in 2019.
The Alabama Statehood stamp features a photograph taken at sunset on May 28, 2017, in Cheaha State Park. The photographer shot the picture from the park’s Pulpit Rock Trail. Pulpit Rock is visible in the foreground. Most of the area in the valley below the overlook is part of Talladega National Forest, which surrounds the state park.
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 word “Alabama” derives from the name of a culture of people who lived in the central part of the state. The Creeks were the dominant native group in what would become Alabama, but other peoples, including Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw, also claimed lands in the region when European and American settlers arrived.
Alabama was at the center of many important events in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to boarding whites, sparking a bus boycott, which brought the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., to national attention. The 1965 Voting Rights March from Selma to Montgomery, its route now commemorated as a National Historic Trail, was one of the emotional and political peaks of the civil rights movement.
The George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville has been the heart of the U.S. space program since its establishment in 1960, designing and building the rockets that took the first astronauts to the moon and developing the first space station, Skylab. It has also been important in the development and support of the Hubble Space Telescope, the space shuttle programs, and the International Space Station.
The state boasts 38 national historic landmarks as well as a national nature preserve at Little River Canyon, four national forests, eleven national wildlife refuges, a national military park at Horseshoe Bend, and a national heritage area at Muscle Shoals. National historic sites commemorate Alabama’s history, including sites honoring the Tuskegee Airmen and the Tuskegee Institute, once led by Booker T. Washington. Alabama is also home to many other attractions including a world- renowned Shakespeare festival.
The art director for this stamp issuance is William J. Gicker. Greg Breeding designed the stamp with an existing photograph shot by Alabama photographer Joe Miller.
Alabama Statehood is issued as a Forever® stamp. This Forever stamp will always be equal in value to the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce rate.
Stamp Art Director
William Gicker
William Gicker served as Director of Stamp Services for the U.S. Postal Service from 2020 until his retirement in 2023. In that position he oversaw stamp development, stamp products and exhibitions, stamp manufacturing, stamp fulfillment, and the Postmaster General’s Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee (CSAC).
Gicker began working for the U.S. Postal Service in 1998. Initially assistant editor of USA Philatelic, the quarterly stamp catalog produced by Stamp Services, he soon became editor where he oversaw the catalog’s award-winning program until 2013.
Named creative director of stamps in 2001, Gicker became manager and creative director of Stamp Development in 2015. Working closely with Postal Service art directors and CSAC, he managed the creative development and quality control of more than 800 stamp issuances and 1,700 individual stamp designs.
He has served as art director for some of the most popular stamps issued by the Postal Service: the five-year Art of Disney series; Star Wars; Holy Family; Harry Potter; and Hot Wheels. As both art director and designer, Gicker lists among his many stamps, Holiday Baubles; the first international rate Global stamp in 2013; and the Gifts of Friendship joint issuance with Japan. He was also art director for the first stamp to celebrate Diwali, eight more Global Forever® stamps, and several Christmas Madonna and Child issuances, the most recent in 2024.
A native of Pennsylvania, Gicker graduated from West Chester University with a bachelor of arts degree in English Literature. He and his family live in Washington, DC.
Stamp Designer and Typographer
Greg Breeding
Greg Breeding is a graphic designer and principal of Journey Group, a design company he co-founded in 1992, located in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was creative director until 2013, at which time he began serving as president and continued in that role through 2023.
Breeding’s fascination with modernism began while studying design at Virginia Commonwealth University. His affinity with the movement continues and motivates his ongoing advanced studies at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland most every summer.
As an art director for postage stamp design since 2012, Breeding has designed more than 100 stamps covering a diverse array of subjects, from Star Wars droids and Batman to Harlem Renaissance writers and the transcontinental railroad.
His work has been recognized in annual design competitions held by Graphis, AIGA, PRINT magazine, and Communication Arts.
Breeding lives in North Garden, Virginia, with his wife and enjoys nothing so much as frolicking on the floor with his grandchildren.