Sixty years ago, in 1963, Governor George Wallace publicly declared his commitment to preserve white supremacy by maintaining “segregation today, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever.” A Klansman helped write the speech as a promise to those who elected Wallace to fight against the emerging push for integration–often waged at schools. Months later, he physically stood in the doorway to block African Americans from integrating into the University of Alabama (UA). Years before, UA had operated as a Confederate military training school and segregation remained as a way of life throughout the state after the end of the Civil War in 1865. The Alabama constitution was adopted in 1901, and until 2020, included Section 256, which mandated segregation in public education. This legal framework set the stage for more than a century of underfunding for African American schools at every level.

Although the 1954 United States Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling struck down segregation in public schools, Alabama responded by passing a 1956 amendment to remove the state’s duty to guarantee public education. By design, the amendment avoided desegregation and prompted the widespread growth of white private schools throughout the state. The situation worsened existing economic disparities in African American communities by often failing to equip generations of Black students for well-paying jobs and paying Black teachers far less than their white counterparts. Today, Alabama schools remain deeply separate and unequal. Most private schools operate as majority white and 90% of students attending Alabama’s 75 “failing” public schools in 2018 were black.

Still, throughout the 20th century, many African Americans invented ways to achieve success. Although everyone could not and did not survive Jim Crow, the African American community miraculously produced institutions, educators and students reflective of their determination to make education a medium for progress and change.