today in Black history - feb 3

Autherine J. Lucy was the first Black student to attend the University of Alabama. Her first day on campus (February 3, 1956) was made possible by nearly four years of legal battles for the right to attend. Lucy was expelled only a few days later after being bombarded by a mob of students shouting epithets and flinging rotten eggs.

Autherine Lucy at the home of Dr. Lucius Pitts on the campus of Miles College in Birmingham, Alabama.

As an educator who has worked in higher education for most of my career, the experiences of Autherine Lucy have not only been in my awareness, her story has served as continuous and conscious inspiration for my daily work. She fought an intense legal battle and endured harrowing attacks so that I could not only receive the education that I have, but so that I could work to pass that along to others. My gratitude to her is immense.

If you aren't already aware of the specific details surrounding her groundbreaking experiences, I definitely suggest that you read more about her (at least watch this video and check for the part where Thurgood Marshall drops an absolute bar). Her work is a critical component of the school desegregation battle that most of us associate with Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka in 1954, and her part of the story followed on the heels of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, one of the most successful social movements in history.

Autherine Lucy's expulsion was finally revoked in 1988, and she graduated from the University of Alabama in 1992, alongside her daughter.