The Schoolhouse Door

by Clark, E. Culpepper

• ISBN13: 9780817354336
• ISBN10: 0817354336
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-06-01
• Publisher: Fire Ant Books

Summary

On June 11, 1963, in a dramatic gesture that caught the nation's attention, Governor George Wallace physically blocked the entrance to Foster Auditorium on the University of Alabama's campus. His intent was to defy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, sent on behalf of the Kennedy administration to force Alabama to accept court-ordered desegregation. After a tense confrontation, President Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard and Wallace backed down, allowing Vivian Malone and James Hood to become the first African Americans to enroll successfully at their state's flagship university. That night, John F. Kennedy went on television to declare civil rights a "moral issue" and to commit his administration to this cause. That same night, Medgar Evers was shot dead. In The Schoolhouse Door, E. Culpepper Clark provides a riveting account of the events that led to Wallace's historic stand, tracing a tangle of intrigue and resistance that stretched from the 1940s, when the university rejected black applicants outright, to the post-Brown v. Board of Education era. In these pages, full of courageous black applicants, fist-shaking demonstrators, and powerful politicians, Clark captures the dramatic confrontations that transformed the University of Alabama into a proving ground for the civil rights movement and gave the nation unforgettable symbols for its struggle to achieve racial justice.

Author Biography

E. Culpepper Clark is Dean Emeritus of the College of Communication and Information Sciences at The University of Alabama

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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