Alabama's Scandal

Of all the Southern universities that have been forced to open their doors to Negroes,* none have reacted so violently--or surrendered so abjectly to mob pressure--as Alabama. All week a storm of hatred swirled around the lone figure of Autherine Juanita Lucy, 26, the first Negro ever admitted to a white public school or university in the state.

The youngest child of a tenant farmer in Shiloh, Autherine Lucy began her fight to get into the university in 1952. Promptly rejected, along with her Negro friend Pollie Ann Myers Hudson, she took her case to a Birmingham Negro lawyer named Arthur Shores. The Supreme Court ordered Federal Judge Harlan Grooms to instruct the university that it could not refuse students on the basis of race. Though Alabama turned down Pollie Ann on the grounds of "her conduct and marital record" (she is involved in a divorce action), it reluctantly notified Autherine, on the very eve of registration day, that she would be allowed to enroll. In spite of the fact that she was barred from all dormitories and dining halls. Autherine registered. Her life since then:

Friday, Feb. 3. Autherine was driven by a Baptist pastor the 60 miles from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa in time for her first class in geography. Before 9 a.m. she walked into Smith Hall, took a seat in the first row. "I was met with hateful stares," she reported later. "As I sat down . . . several students moved away." That night 1,000 students marched on the home of President Oliver Cromwell Carmichael. They sang Dixie, shouted, "To hell with Autherine!" and "Keep 'Bama white!" Another group of mobsters set a Ku Klux-style cross on fire in front of Dean William Adams' house.

Saturday. Autherine attended her one class, went home unmolested. But about 11 p.m. a crowd of students and townspeople once again marched on Carmichael's house, shouted him down when he urged them to disperse. Meanwhile, other hoodlums were at work downtown. They mobbed three cars driven by Negroes; one white student hopped on the roof of a car, jumped up and down until he had mashed it in. Then another cross was fired in the main quadrangle of the campus.

Monday. This, says Autherine, "is a day I'll never want to live through again." She arrived at Smith Hall in a black Cadillac driven by Henry Nathaniel Guinn, Negro owner of a Birmingham finance company. A crowd of 300 had already gathered around the hall, suddenly began to chant "Hey, hey, ho, ho. Autherine must go." At the end of class Dean of Women Sarah L. Healy and Carmichael's assistant, Jefferson Bennett, led Autherine out a back door to a waiting car. The mob spotted them, began throwing eggs and stones as the car sped off to Bibb Graves Hall for Autherine's next class (children's literature). Autherine had to use a back door once again, but the crowd kept pelting the car with rocks, shouting at Bennett, "Kill him! Kill him!" Says Autherine: "After that class I was not permitted to leave the building, for my own safety. I could still hear the crowd outside . . . Sometime later I was escorted back to Birmingham by the state police."

During these demonstrations the board of trustees met, later sent Autherine a telegram notifying her: FOR YOUR SAFETY AND THE SAFETY OF THE STUDENTS AND FACULTY MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY, YOU ARE HEREBY SUSPENDED FROM CLASSES UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. But this action did little to pacify Tuscaloosa. That night another mob, made up in part of high-school students and workers from a local rubber factory, descended again on Carmichael's home, refused to leave even when Mrs. Carmichael assured them that the president was not at home. The mob threw gravel at the house, set off firecrackers, sent an egg whizzing past Mrs. Carmichael's head.

Tuesday. In spite of President Carmichael's efforts to explain why the trustees had forbidden Autherine to attend classes ("There might have been tragedy far greater than any we have seen"), the student legislature issued a stern reprimand. It denounced mob rule, demanded that university officials take strong action to restore the university's reputation. Why, asked Dennis Holt, president of the debating society, had the trustees suspended Autherine? "They did it because the mob forced them to. The mob won."

At week's end Lawyer Shores filed contempt-of-court charges against the trustees for suspending Autherine, and another contempt charge against Dean Healy for barring her from dormitories and dining halls. But whatever the legal outcome, Autherine Lucy faces an uncertain future at the university. The police had done little against the mobs; in three days of violence they had made only three arrests. Worse still, university officials had given no indication that they could stand up to pressure, or that they really cared whether or not their campus regained its moral leadership.

"God knows," said Autherine Lucy, "I didn't intend to cause all this violence and agitation among my fellow citizens and fellow students. I merely wanted an education ... I will keep fighting until I get one."

* Beginning, as far as the U.S. Supreme Court is concerned, with the Gaines case of 1938. In 1935, Lloyd Gaines, a citizen of Missouri and a graduate of Lincoln University (Missouri), tried to enter the University of Missouri law school and was turned down. The Supreme Court's decision: the university's contention that Negroes could get special scholarships to law schools outside the state was beside the point. If Missouri itself could not provide equal-and-separate facilities for Gaines, the university would have to take him in.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.