University of Alabama Integration
Background:
On May 16, 1963, a federal district court in Alabama ordered the University of Alabama to admit African American students Vivien Malone and James Hood during its summer session. The court's decision virtually ensured a showdown between federal authorities and Alabama Governor George Wallace who had made a campaign promise a year earlier to prevent the school's integration even if it required that he stand in the schoolhouse door. Despite receiving a federal court injunction barring such a move, Wallace fulfilled his campaign pledge on June 11, when he temporarily blocked the students' entrance by positioning himself before the doorway of Foster Auditorium. Although he ultimately yielded when President Kennedy federalized Alabama's National Guard, the incident earned Wallace a nationwide reputation for white resistance.
Expand all | Collapse all | Results view
Archival Collections and Reference Resources
- The Civil Rights Era in the U.S. News & World Report Photographs Collection: Selected Images from the Collections of the Library of Congress (Library of Congress)
- Encyclopedia of Alabama (Encyclopedia of Alabama)
- Greensboro Voices: Voicing Observations in Civil Rights and Equality struggles (University of North Carolina at Greensboro's University Libraries)
- Voices of Civil Rights (Library of Congress)
- With an Even Hand: Brown vs. Board at Fifty (Library of Congress)
- Birmingham, Ala., Feb. 29 - Negro coed leaves court--Autherine Lucy, left foreground, leaves Federal Court here today with her attorneys, Thurgood Marshall, center and Arthur Shores, after court recessed (Black-and-white photographs)
- Telegram. NAACP Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins to Herbert Brownell concerning the expulsion of Autherine Lucy, February 7, 1956 (Telegrams)
- University of Alabama students burn desegregation literature during demonstration in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Feb. 6 against the enrollment of Autherine Lucy, an African American student (Photographic prints)
- Vivian Malone entering Foster Auditorium to register for classes at the University of Alabama (Negatives (photographic))
- WSB-TV Newsfilm Collection (Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection)
- WSB-TV newsfilm clip of African American students Vivian Malone and James Hood after registering for classes at the formerly segregated University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 1963 June 11 (Moving images)
- WSB-TV newsfilm clip of Alabama governor Georgia C. Wallace standing in the doorway to prevent registration of African American students at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 1963 June 11 (Moving images)
- WSB-TV newsfilm clip of Eugene "Bull" Connor addressing a White Citizens' Council rally and preparation for the University of Alabama integration in Holt, Alabama, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 1963 June 7 (Moving images)