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Why we celebrate: The importence of the 'Schoolhouse
Door' As the 40th anniversary of integration at the University of Alabama approaches, the university prepares to celebrate the occasion through a program of events June 9-11 called "Opening Doors." The program will not only serve as an observation of that day, but it will also honor 40 pioneers in civil rights history at the university and elsewhere. These pioneers will include Autherine Lucy Foster, whose admission to the university in 1956 caused riots, and James Hood and Vivian Malone Jones, whose successful enrollment on June 11, 1963, is the cause for the current commemoration. The rest of the pioneers are people who have broken color barriers or fought for equality in other ways, but the students who braved the social climates of the Old South and came to be the first African American students at a previously all-white university top the list. Anyone who has been through an American history class knows why. Almost everyone in the United States has heard about George Wallace's "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door" through those classes, and those who slept through the history classes probably know about the events through cultural references such as the movie "Forrest Gump." People from the Alabama have heard about the incident for much of their lives because of the close proximity of the stage upon which the events took place, a stage that is joined by two other Alabama towns, Birmingham and Selma, in its infamous civil rights history. A question, however, remains. Why should we look back upon this day in history more fondly than a hundred other important days? Why, in fact, did the media flock to Tuscaloosa 40 years ago to watch as Wallace made his symbolic stand for segregation? Or, taking the importance as a given, why revisit the events? How did these events become the cultural talisman that they have become?
Dean Culpepper "Cully" Clark of the College of Communication and Information Sciences at UA wrote a book titled "The Schoolhouse Door," which chronicles the events leading up to and following the event as well as taking a look at the day itself. In part, his book analyzes the politics involved in Wallace's stand and in President John F. Kennedy's determination to integrate Alabama's public school system. In a recently written editorial, Clark looks at the rest of the events of 1963, a tumultuous year which included the 16th Street bombing in Birmingham and Kennedy's assassination in Dallas. He answers the question of how the events at UA fit into the historical scene. "June 11 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama offered the only moment where the confrontation between federal and state authority over civil rights could be publicized. Foster Auditorium became the platform for the nation to declare itself and for states' rights to be revealed for what it was in 1963: the right of a state to deal with its black citizens in any manner it chose," Clark wrote. He also tried to explain the reasoning behind the university's celebration of the events: "At the University of Alabama we commemorate, even celebrate, because June 11, 1963, marked our liberation to become a whole university, one that could serve and be served by all people." As an integrated university 40 years later, students and faculty may not fully understand the meaning of that liberation.
John L. Blackburn, who served as dean of men in 1963, has impacted this campus in many ways during the years he spent here. The Blackburn Institute is named for him and he is responsible for the creation of Mallet Hall. He is also being honored as one of the 40 pioneers. Blackburn came to the university after the riots that occurred during the controversy surrounding Autherine Lucy's admission in 1956. On his first day at the university he saw members of the Ku Klux Klan standing on the corners of what was then the student union building, now Reese Phifer Hall. He said they were there to prove they had power. He'd had reservations about coming at all because he'd seen the images of violence in Tuscaloosa on television. He laughed when Louis Corson, who served as dean of men before Blackburn, called and asked him to come help out at UA. But Corson persuaded him, asking him where else he would want to be if he wanted to help facilitate with integration, which he did. In 1958, Blackburn was appointed to the position of dean by UA President Frank Rose. He came in at the same time as coach Paul "Bear" Bryant, and Blackburn said that all three of the men did their best to "reinstill faith and confidence in the institution." That confidence could not have been in more danger than on the day of Wallace's stand. The eyes of the world were watching Tuscaloosa and waiting for something to go wrong. Blackburn was intimately involved in all aspects of the integration. He helped to prepare the students for the situation, he met with the university leaders to plan the course of events and he tried to think of everything that might go wrong and remove the threat. "In preparation for [June 11] we took out all of the bottled soft drink machines all over campus, picked up rocks and every piece of wood. There was nothing bigger than a toothpick you could find to throw," Blackburn said. He and administrators, including Sarah Healy, the dean of women, chose 30 students to serve as leaders during the integration, and help smooth the transition. "These 30 students were really sticking their necks out because here they were coming out working to help integrate the university. If it went wrong and didn't succeed…then their political careers were ruined. Because political careers up until that time were based on being a segregationist," Blackburn said. The trouble with a situation like this integration is that it's very hard to control, said Blackburn. He and the others in charge looked at past cases, particularly the violence at Ole Miss nine months before, and tried to figure out the best way to handle things. They came up with this theory: "Wherever there's Federal force against state force, wherever the institution lost control of its own destiny and it was just left up to the struggle, there was failure." Blackburn helped to facilitate the organization between the Army, the federal government and Alabama's National Guard, hoping all the while that no one got trigger-happy on the important day. He tried to keep the university in control. He also had to control the students and keep them from crowding the proceedings. To do this he set up lectures on the historical significance of the events. The boys went to Paty Hall and the girls went to Mary Burke Hall. One hitch in that plan was that during the presentation the students watched a video explaining the need for people to support the University of Alabama now more than ever -- the video ended with a band playing "Dixie." Blackburn said that was the last thing they needed playing on that day in particular, so he had the projectionist cut off the film before the song began. When it came for the important moment in front of Foster Auditorium, Blackburn and the administrators kept as cool as possible. Although they probably couldn't help but sweat a little when Wallace initially turned Jones and Hood away from the door. The political maneuvering could have been explosive. "I think Wallace assumed [Assistant Attorney General Nicholas] Katzenback would take the students back off campus, and then he viewed that they would have to have federal force to bring them back in," Blackburn said. "And so that would make the federal government the aggressor against the state. But when they were turned away by Wallace, we took them to their residence hall rooms .... The inside of the campus, with the residence halls, was under control of the federal marshals. Now if Wallace was going to do anything, he would have to be the invader of the campus." Fortunately Wallace stepped down under Kennedy's order federalizing the National Guard, and the school was successfully integrated. "Prior to that date there was a cloud over the university. There were things you couldn't do, there were meetings you couldn't hold…because of that segregationist cloud," Blackburn said. He described the day as exciting: "Most people don't have an opportunity to live through an experience like that." |
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