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

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(More customer reviews)This was required reading for a graduate course in American history.

E. Culpepper Clark's The Schoolhouse Door is a narrative account of how The University of Alabama was integrated. In this detailed book Clark tells the story of the University's integration in two distinct parts. Part one tells the story of Autherine Lucy's acceptance to the University and of her swift expulsion. Clark examines how the board of trustees was successful in keeping Lucy out of the university. Part two focuses on George Wallace's stand at Foster Auditorium in June 1963. Clark documents the forces behind-the-scenes that orchestrated this infamous event. One of the author's purposes in writing this book is to debunk the idea that the University of Alabama was helpful in its own integration. Clark argues that the university desegregated its students only after immense outside pressure forced the institution to stop segregation. In the book the reader will find information on the major and minor figures who contributed to the end of segregation at the University of Alabama. The Schoolhouse Door offers the reader sound descriptions of the events and of the people who were a part of, " ... how Tuscaloosa became the Appomattox of segregation" (xix).

E. Culpepper Clark is highly qualified to write on this particular topic. Clark is currently the Dean of Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Alabama. He has worked for the university in a number of different positions since 1971 and was the Executive Assistant to the President from 1990-1996.1 Wallace's stand at the schoolhouse door is an incredibly important piece of The University of Alabama's history. Furthermore, the integration of the university stands as a lasting symbol of federal vs. state authority. Clark sets the tone of this book in the introduction, " ... Alabama was a microcosm of the larger South, as ardently committed to white supremacy as Mississippi, but more vulnerable to change by virtue of its social and economic composition" (xii). Clark argues that the struggle for integration in Tuscaloosa was a relatively peaceful and a symbolic victory over Southern segregation.

The first part of The Schoolhouse Door examines how Oliver Cromwell Carmichael, the university's president, was caught in the middle of the battle for integration. Carmichael was essentially a non-factor in the university's road to integrate because he did what the board of trustees told him to do. The members of the board of trustees legally delayed integration as long as possible to avoid integration. In 1952 Pollie Myers and Autherine Lucy applied to the University of Alabama, but did not indicate that they were black. They were accepted and they even paid the five dollar deposit on their dormitories. Once the Office of Admissions found their mistake it was immediately taken to the president (at the time, President Gallalee) with hope that the situation could be averted. However, the girls were backed by the NAACP and would wait until the courts told them they could attend. This was the first step that led to integration at the University of Alabama.

The complex nature of the university's integration is illuminated by Clark's telling of the story. On February 1SI 1956 Autherine Lucy was allowed to register, but Myers was denied because she became pregnant while unmarried. Lucy's acceptance to the university was, " ... three and a half years of costly and life-absorbing legal wrangling" (57). The board of trustees did not allow Lucy to have a room on campus, a decision which was contested by the NAACP. Lucy attended two days of classes in relative peace; however on the third day of classes a mob of students tormented Lucy and threatened her life. Lucy was expelled by the board of trustees because of the pressure placed on them by the mob. One student demonstrator said, "Well, we won. It took her four years and the Supreme Court to get her in, and it took us only four days to get rid of her" (80). Lucy was charged with conspiracy and was eventually expelled permanently. The NAACP lawyers could not win the battle in the courtroom for various reasons. It was not until 1989 that Lucy's expulsion was reversed and she was allowed to attend classes. The mob at The University of Alabama had won the first battle.

Clark's book is valuable because he places important emphasis on the behind-the scenes aspects of the situation. Most notably, Clark skillfully presents the tension between the board of trustees, the president, faculty, students, and politicians. The Schoolhouse Door successfully characterizes many people who were involved with the
university's integration. One particularly outstanding portrayal is that of James Jefferson Bennett, who was President Carmichael's top assistant. Bennett was involved in many situations in the book and actually drove the car that delivered Lucy from the mob. Clark portrays Bennett as skillful mediator who was instrumental at keeping the peace at Tuscaloosa. Bennett made the university run smoothly from the transition of the presidency from Oliver Charmichael to Frank Rose. Clark portrays Bennett as the voice of reason during many years prior to the desegregation at Tuscaloosa. The Schoolhouse Door is a work of considerable importance because Clark outlines the roles that "minor" people had in the integration of The University of Alabama.

The Schoolhouse Door is rather brief in the discussion of George Wallace's infamous stand at Foster Auditorium. Rather, the author looks at the forces that were behind the university's peaceful integration. During the course of this book Clark does an excellent job at building suspense in his description of the events leading up to the stand at the schoolhouse door. The amount of tension and uncertainty were paramount at _Tuscaloosa prior to Wallace's stand. General Graham, under the order of Robert Kennedy, was assigned the duty of removing Wallace from the steps. Thankfully, Wallace's camp informed the general that Wallace would go peacefully if given time to make a speech. Wallace briefly spoke about how the action by the federal government was, "a bitter pill for the members of the Alabama National Guard to swallow" (230). Wallace stepped aside and Jimmy Hood and Vivian Malone walked through the schoolhouse door and were met with, "a spattering of applause" (231). Although the battle against segregation lasted from 1956 to 1963 the University of Alabama was finally an institution that accepted students of any color.

One of the key themes of The Schoolhouse Door is the lack of violence that accompanied the university's integration. "For all its drama no one dies in this story" (ix). Violence had been avoided at The University of Alabama and there was no clear-cut winner of the battle. George Wallace was not successful in his stand, but gained popularity from the incident. Despite the fact that The University of Alabama was an integrated institution the feeling of white supremacy in the South was not lost. Clark says, "As a reenactment of Appomattox, the schoolhouse door fulfilled expectations federal, force-induced surrender followed by a settled conviction that the real cause, white supremacy, was not, indeed, could not, be lost" (239).

Recommended reading for anyone interested in American history, civil rights history.

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