This month in history: Segregation falls at University of Alabama
It was a famous scene in civil rights history. Fifty-six years ago this month, two Black students, James Hood and Vivian Malone, walked through the doors of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa despite then-Gov. George Wallace’s infamous attempt to block the door and defy court orders.
Having pledged in his 1963 inaugural speech, “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!” Wallace took what became known as the “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door” on June 11, 1963, but what he faced was a phalanx of federal government attorneys, marshals and eventually the federalized Alabama National Guard, all mobilized to carry through the court’s desegregation order.
Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach represented the Kennedy administration and confronted Wallace at the door. The New York Times reported:
“Katzenbach said he had a proclamation from President Kennedy directing Governor Wallace to end his defiant stand. He asked the Governor to give way, but Mr. Wallace interrupted him and began reading a lengthy statement.
‘The unwelcomed, unwanted, unwarranted and force-induced intrusion upon the campus of the University of Alabama today of the might of the Central Government offers a frightful example of the oppression of the rights, privileges and…
