Crenshaw County was established after the American Civil War on November 30, 1866, by the Reconstruction era legislature.

It was formed from parts of Butler, Coffee, Covington, Pike and Lowndes counties.

While part of the coastal area, this county had relatively infertile soils, limiting cotton and other agriculture.

Its planters used enslaved African Americans for all needed types of labor.

Many of their descendants stayed in the area, and nearly one-quarter of the county population is African American.

The timber camps were rough work areas where racial tensions sometimes flared.

[3] The county is located in the Gulf Coastal Plain region of the state.

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 13,194 people, 4,943 households, and 3,384 families residing in the county.

The largest self-reported ancestry groups in Crenshaw County were English (64.5%), German (12.1%), Irish (11.2%), Italian (3.9%), "American" (3.1%), Scottish (2.9%) and Portuguese (1.8%).

The last Democrat to win the county in a presidential election is Bill Clinton, who won it by a plurality in 1996.