Alabama State University

Alabama State University’s imprint on the Civil Rights Movement is evident in almost every demonstration and legal battle of the period. For decades, its students and professors served as foot soldiers in the fight for equality.

In the 1950s, ASU professors Jo Ann Robinson and Mary Fair Burks established the Women’s Political Council to increase Black voter registration and eradicate racist city policies. In 1954, Robinson used the university’s mimeograph machine to generate thousands of fliers telling people to stay off the buses on the day of Rosa Parks’ trial. Her actions were seeds in what became the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

In the days prior to the year-long protest, Fred Gray, attorney and ASU graduate, sat in Robinson’s living room as they developed a plan. Gray remembered Robinson surmising, “We’re going to need a spokesman,” and recommended a rising minister. Her suggestion created an opening for her pastor, Martin Luther King Jr., to get involved. ED Nixon, another ASU graduate and leading strategist, lent his support as the president of the local NAACP.

ASU students, such as Vera Harris, Mittie Authur, and many others helped distribute the fliers for the most successful boycott in American history.

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