
University of Alabama
The University of Alabama, founded in 1820, operated as a Confederate military training base and remained segregated for 143 years — until a federal district court demanded that it open its doors to African Americans.
Before the mandate, in 1952, African American student Autherine Lucy applied to the university. Her initial admittance was rescinded when university leadership discovered she was not white. The NAACP then secured a court order preventing the institution from rejecting applications based on race.
Lucy attended her first class on Friday, February 3, 1956. The following Monday riots broke out on the campus and a mob of more than a thousand men pelted the car in which Lucy was escorted between classes. Threats were made against her life, and the university suspended Lucy from school– citing her own safety as a concern
Stirred by the terrifying violence of white rioters at the University of Alabama, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a sermon about the events at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Just 15 years later, the university began to place Black players on its football roster and continues to dominate college football as a result of its diverse squad today.
This video highlights another African American student, Vivian Malone Jones, and her efforts to integrate the University of Alabama in 1963. In response, Governor George Wallace famously stood the doorway to uphold his promise of “segregation forever.”