The Schoolhouse Door: Segregation's Last Stand at the University of Alabama - Hardcover

E.Culpepper Clark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0817315705 ISBN 13: 9780817315702

Publisher: The University of Alabama Press, 2007

Synopsis

E. Culpepper Clark's book is a well-researched and crisply written narrative that draws its energy from the drama of the desegregation crisis in the postwar South...The first part of the story, covering the period 1943-57, centers on the admission to and expulsion from the University of Alabama of Autherine Lucy in 1956. In retrospect this appears as an opportunity for peaceful change that was tragically lost by inept university administrators and trustees, who stalled until Alabama's populist New Deal politics shifted sharply toward segregationist defiance following the bus boycott in Montgomery in 1955-56. The second part centers on the events culminating in Wallace's spectacular stand at Foster Auditorium in June 1963. The flagship at Tuscaloosa, threatened by the research pace of the branch campuses at Birmingham and Huntsville, unable to keep or recruit superior faculty during the post-Sputnik boom years, weakly led by strong politicians like John Patterson and Wallace, emerged from the drama as a badly mauled institution, notable chiefly for its football team and Coach Paul 'Bear' Bryant.

About this title

Review:

This is an important and moving story. Clark tells its well, respecting his historical actors by treating them critically but fairly, and respecting his readers by allowing them to draw their own conclusions. - American Historical Review ""E. Culpepper Clark tells a powerful story, balancing the need for continuity of theme with dozens of anecdotal illustrations of the main points, which are always blended gracefully and strategically into the narrative. The writing is accessible, engaging, and more than occasionally eloquent."" - History of Education Quarterly ""Culpepper's account of how Alabama came to occupy a special place in the demise of both segregation and states' rights deserves a close reading."" - Library Journal

From the Back Cover:

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: The University of Alabama Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0817315705
• ISBN 13: 9780817315702
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352