The Schoolhouse Door

by Clark, E. Culpepper

• ISBN13: 9780195074178
• ISBN10: 0195074173
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1993-06-11
• Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr

Summary

On June 11, 1963, in a dramatic gesture that caught the nation'sattention, Governor George Wallace physically blocked the entrance to FosterAuditorium on the University of Alabama's campus. His intent was to defyAttorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, sent on behalf of the Kennedyadministration to force Alabama to accept court-ordered desegregation. After atense confrontation, President Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guardand Wallace backed down, allowing Vivian Malone and James Hood to become thefirst African Americans to enroll successfully at their state's flagshipuniversity. That night, John F. Kennedy went on television to declare civilrights a "moral issue" and to commit his administration to this cause. Thatsame night, Medgar Evers was shot dead.In The Schoolhouse Door, E. Culpepper Clark provides a riveting account ofthe events that led to Wallace's historic stand, tracing a tangle of intrigueand resistance that stretched from the 1940s, when the university rejected blackapplicants outright, to the post-Brown v. Board of Education era. We are therein July 1955 when Thurgood Marshall and lawyers at the NAACP Legal Defense Fundwin for Autherine Lucy and "all similarly situated" the right to enroll at theuniversity. We are in the car with Lucy in February 1956 as university officialsescort her to class, shielding her from a mob jeering "Lynch the nigger," "Keep'Bama white," and "hit the nigger whore." (After only three days, thesedemonstrations resulted in Lucy's expulsion.) Clark exposes the many means,including threats and intimidation, used by university and state officials todiscourage black applicants following the Lucy episode. And he explains howUniversity of Alabama president Frank Anthony Rose eventually cooperated withthe Kennedy administration to ensure a smooth transition toward desegregation.We also witness Robert Kennedy's remarkable face-to-face plea for Wallace'scooperation and the governor's adamant refusal: "I will never submit voluntarilyto any integration in a school system in Alabama." As Clark writes, Wallace'scarefully orchestrated surrender would leave the forces of white supremacy freeto fight another day. And the Kennedys' public embrace of the civil rightsmovement would set in motion a political transformation that changed thepresidential base of the Democratic party for the next thirty years.In these pages, full of courageous black applicants, fist-shakingdemonstrators, and powerful politicians, Clark captures the dramaticconfrontations that transformed the University of Alabama into a proving groundfor the civil rights movement and gave the nation unforgettable symbols for itsstruggle to achieve racial justice.

Author Biography

E. Culpepper Clark is Executive Assistant to the President at the University of Alabama, where he is also Professor with appointments in Speech Communication and History.

Table of Contents

Foreword to the New Edition	p. vii
Introduction	p. ix
Beginnings	p. 3
The Players	p. 23
An Uneasy Calm	p. 53
The Mob Is King	p. 71
A Gift of Peace	p. 91
And Four to Go	p. 115
Interlude	p. 135
Class of '65	p. 145
Final Cast	p. 167
Three to Make Ready	p. 189
A Moral Issue	p. 213
"Ain't forgettin' it"	p. 239
Epilogue	p. 259
Bibliography	p. 261
Notes	p. 271
Index	p. 295
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