Autherine Lucy Foster integrated The University of Alabama 65 years ago today
Updated Feb 01, 2021;
The night before a 26-year-old secretary from Birmingham was set to enroll as the first Black student in The University of Alabama’s 124 years of existence, four crosses were burned on the Tuscaloosa campus.
Autherine Lucy made history the next day, Feb. 1, 1956, when she successfully enrolled at the university after a three-year federal court battle.
Minutes later, Lucy was informed that the board of trustees would not allow her to stay in a dormitory or eat in the cafeteria because her presence “might endanger the safety or result in sociological disadvantage to the students.”