← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Eendracht Maakt Mag
Thread ID: 7358 | Posts: 4 | Started: 2003-06-14
2003-06-14 23:48 | User Profile
'Bama celebrates 40th anniversary of school's desegregation Jay Reeves, Associated Press
TUSCALOOSA, ALA. -- American politics changed 40 years ago last week at a schoolhouse door.
Five months after vowing "segregation forever" at his 1963 inaugural, Gov. George C. Wallace tried to block the admission of two black students to the all-white University of Alabama.
Wallace's defiant "stand in the schoolhouse door" failed to keep out minorities.With about 19,600 students, Alabama's student body is now 13 percent black. But it launched Wallace onto the national political scene and moved the Democratic Party firmly into the corner of civil rights.
"What happened that day did represent a tectonic shift in American politics," said Culpepper Clark, Alabama's communications dean and the author of a book on the showdown.
This week, the university will hold a three-day observance for the anniversary of Wallace's infamous stand. Honorees include the two black students who faced the governor that day -- Vivian Malone Jones and James Hood.
Jones, who entered as a junior after attending a historically black college, became in 1965 the first black graduate of Alabama. Hood left after a few months but returned to receive his doctorate in 1997.
Wallace, a Democratic populist at the time, renounced his segregationist views before his death in 1998.
By publicly opposing Wallace, President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, helped chart their party's course for decades to come, according to Clark.
"Wallace warned at the time that the Kennedys risked losing the Solid South, and indeed they did," said Clark, who wrote "The Schoolhouse Door: Segregation's Last Stand at the University of Alabama."
The observance, including a speech by Robert Kennedy Jr., is welcomed by black students, said Laborian Jones, who said he didn't know much about the events of 1963 when he enrolled at Alabama.
Wallace's stand came during a time of racial turmoil across the South.
Rioting had broken out in 1956 when Autherine Lucy briefly became the first black to enroll at Alabama. Later, bloody fights erupted over the integration of public schools and universities in Mississippi and Arkansas.
Then a federal judge ordered Wallace to admit blacks to Alabama.
After being threatened with contempt and jail, Wallace entered into days of tense negotiations with the Kennedy administration.
Finally, Wallace fulfilled a promise by literally standing in the doorway of Foster Auditorium to block the admission of Jones and Hood, who were accompanied by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach.
Hood said it was all just a show: He and Jones already had registered and gotten their dormitory assignments. "All we had to do was pay our fees," he said.
In front of TV cameras, Wallace decried the federal government's involvement in what he claimed was a state issue. Katzenbach's group retreated after a few minutes.
President Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard, and Wallace made another stand later that day when the students returned. He finally stepped aside at the request of Guard Gen. Henry Graham; Hood and Malone entered the building through another door.
It was vastly different from what occurred in September 1962 at the University of Mississippi, where two people were killed and more than 150 federal marshals were injured when the first black student enrolled.
On campus, interracial friendships have been forged just around the corner from where Wallace made his stand. Courtney Tooson, a black student from Birmingham, said he wishes there was more emphasis on remembering what happened in '63.
"If you don't teach someone their past, how can they dictate their future?" he asked.
[url=http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/3934324.html]http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/3934324.html[/url]
2003-06-15 02:04 | User Profile
Gotta keep reminding whitey of just how evil and wrong he was back in the day. Yep, things are a lot better now. And look at what integration and it's attendant policies have done for the image of whites in America today. Yep, things have never been better, have they?
2003-06-15 18:37 | User Profile
"If you don't teach someone their past, how can they dictate their future?" he asked.*
Brute force is all that matters in the end, all that has ever really mattered. Not the Constitution. Certainly not "democracy".
We must get ourselves back into the postition of wielding enough force to "dictate" to The Filthy Juus & their shabbos goy/brownwog lapdogs.
2003-06-16 19:29 | User Profile
Hood left after a few months but returned to receive his doctorate in 1997.
Anyone want to bet that doctorate is "honorary?"
Jones and Hood, who were accompanied by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach****
Well, shut my mouf' an' call me a raciss!
It was vastly different from what occurred in September 1962 at the University of Mississippi, where two people were killed and more than 150 federal marshals were injured when the first black student enrolled.
It is truly amazing the difference a mere 41 years can make. Whites certainly had their sheet together back then, but were anyone to try the same today, the National Guard would have to be there to protect the protestors from other whites trying to kill 'em. Strange times.
N.B. Forrest is right on the money.