Alabama adopted the concept for a mock state government program for high school students from its sister state of Georgia, then quickly positioned itself as a leader for Youth Legislature programs throughout the nation.

The YMCA Youth Conference on National Affairs was born of an idea first proposed during a planning session of the Alabama YMCA Youth Legislature. Indeed, Alabama helped start Youth In Government programs in Florida and Tennessee.

Alabama is the only state Youth Legislature to hold an electoral college, wherein delegates from various districts come together to elect candidates for major offices. Alabama also can claim the nation's first Youth Legislature Special Session and the country's first Youth Legislature program for college students, the Collegiate Legislature.

The distinctive history of the YMCA Youth Legislature began in December, 1948, when the Selma YMCA, under the leadership of Paul Grist and Jere Hardy, invited Hi-Y and Tri-Hi-Y representatives from throughout the state to a special meeting called to study the success and benefits of the Georgia Youth Assembly.

From this meeting, the decision was made to begin an Alabama YMCA Youth Legislature, in which young people actually could experience how the legislative process works, and develop skills inherent in that process as part of their formation as future leaders.

Paul Grist asked Bill Chandler, of the Montgomery YMCA, to provide the program's adult leadership. However, from the very beginning the decision was made to make student delegates co-partners in all aspects of planning and operation. Indeed, today the Youth Legislature is largely led, year to year, by its student participants.

With the elements of a program in place, the first Alabama YMCA Youth Legislature convened, in the Spring of 1949, in the Hall of the House of Representatives in the State Capitol in Montgomery. This first body consisted of only a unicameral Legislature, with Bill Bell of Selma serving as its Speaker. In 1950, the Youth Legislature became bicameral with the separation of the body into a House of Representatives and a Senate. Also in that year, Youth Legislature elected its first Governor, Jack Noble of Montgomery.

Over the years, Youth Legislature has expanded to allow for a Governor's Cabinet, as well as the establishment of a Judicial Branch in 1979. Today, a Supreme Court sits concurrently with the Sessions of the Youth Legislature, to determine the constitutionality of its enactments.

In order for Youth Legislature to replicate the "real" experience of the legislative process, other student participants serve as lobbyists advocating a variety of positions, and pre-teen students serve as Pages in each of the two houses of Youth Legislature.

Also, from its inception, each house of Youth Legislature has a full "desk staff", headed by a Secretary of the Senate and a Clerk of the House, to execute the administrative functions of each house through the processing of bills and resolutions. Each house also maintains a journal of its floor proceedings.

Almost from the beginning, Youth Legislature has had as a part of its Sessions, the participation of student reporters, who write and publish Tomorrow Today, the official daily newspaper of Youth Legislature. For several years, Youth Legislature also provided its own television reporters who wrote, produced and anchored their own television news program, "Y Witness News". Hopefully, with the assistance of Alabama television and radio stations, this vital aspect of Youth Legislature will be reinstated.

Throughout its history, the Alabama YMCA Youth Legislature has been an evolving, innovative program, constantly pursuing the complete experience of Sessions of the Alabama Legislature, and beyond. For example, at an Alabama Youth Legislature Fall Retreat, in 1967, Michal Hart Hillman proposed a National Youth Congress, and under Alabama leadership a Southern Conference on National Affairs was held in the summer of 1968. From this regional convocation, the program has spread and presently includes the participation of 28 states in an annual YMCA Youth Conference on National Affairs.

In 1994, Youth Governor Turner Inscoe, of Montgomery, called a Special Session of Youth Legislature for the purpose of considering education reform legislation. In so doing, Alabama became the first and only state Youth Legislature to hold a Special Session.

In 1995, Emily Hawk and Michael Musselwhite envisioned a Youth Legislature program for college students, and by the next year the first Collegiate Legislature met. In four years, participation in the program has grown to over 200 delegates, and appears on course to eventually equal the popularity of Youth Legislature.

Several years ago, a concurrent Session was developed for first-year participants, to prepare these students for assimilation into the full Youth Legislature the following year. While the Youth Legislature holds its Sessions in the State House Chambers of the House and Senate, the first-year program operates as a unicameral body in the Capitol.

Over the past 50 years, tens of thousands of Alabama students have participated in the Alabama YMCA Youth Legislature. Many college student government presidents got their start as Alabama Youth Legislature delegates, and these and other former delegates have achieved success and prominence in various fields of endeavor.

Like most aspects of life, the Alabama YMCA Youth Legislature offers opportunity for those who choose to take it and make the most of it - the opportunity to learn about the legislative process, politics, issues and good citizenship. More importantly, the program provides the opportunity for students to learn more about themselves, how to respect other opinions and how to lead, as well as serve.

Just as cream rises to the top, so too is the Alabama YMCA Youth Legislature, like Boys & Girls State, emblematic of the best of its generations. The inherent inquisitiveness, energy, ambition and idealism of youth is just as present in today's Youth Legislature as that of 50 years ago. In an age when the lower elements of society capture headlines for cowardly crimes against their peers, and humanity itself, Alabamians can take heart that our state is rich in the bounty of a generation that counts among its number, thousands of young citizens of all races, background and religion, who seek not only the fulfillment of their own dreams of personal success, but are anxious to share a part of their talent and ability as their contribution toward the future of all Alabamians.