By J. Rydell
Special to the AFRO
Having just been accepted at the University of Alabama, Autherine Lucy Foster was eager to continue her education by pursuing a master’s degree. She received a bachelor’s degree from Miles College, a private, historically Black liberal arts institution. But the year was 1952, and when administrators at Alabama discovered she and her friend were Black, their admissions were suddenly rescinded.
“Clearly she (Foster) was qualified, because they looked at her credentials and accepted her,” said Dr. Edwin T. Johnson, special assistant to the provost and university historian at Morgan State University. “But when you understand that most of what Blacks endured in this country is hinged on the fact that supposed to be an inferior race [you can understand their decision]. So if she was indeed inferior, why was she qualified until she showed up?”
Two years later, Baltimore attorney Thurgood Marshall, chief counsel for the NAACP, played a pivotal role in persuading the U.S. Supreme Court to issue its historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which declared school segregation unconstitutional. By 1955, the NAACP helped secure a separate court order preventing the University of Alabama from barring Foster’s admittance based on her race. But her second attempt to attend classes in 1956 sparked an angry backlash by a mob of White students and adults. During the riot, her life was threatened, and the university president’s mansion was damaged. Fearing for Foster’s safety, the university’s board of trustees suspended and then expelled her.
Dr. Ida Jones, historian, author and university archivist at Morgan State University, reflects on the unrest: “Someone could have been shot, and they (protesters) didn’t care whether she was a woman or a man. It’s amazing … things could have been more volatile and she could have lost her life.”
During a televised interview with Mike Wallace in 1957, Marshall criticized President Dwight D. Eisenhower for not taking a more active role in ordering states to abide by the high court’s ruling banning segregation in public schools and universities.
“The president should have shortly after the decisions gotten on the television network or radio and spoken as the chief executive of this government to the good people of the South, urging them to support the decision of the Supreme Court as the law of the land, whether they believed in it or not,” Marshall said then.
In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Marshall to the high court, making him the first African-American Supreme Court justice.
Foster’s struggle to pursue graduate studies at an all-White university occurred during a tumultuous time in the Civil Rights Movement. Jones points to the lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi in 1955. That same year, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Ala., for refusing to give up her seat to a White man in the front of the bus. Her arrest sparked a 13-month bus boycott by Black citizens and prompted the Supreme Court to issue a ruling, which declared segregated buses unconstitutional.
“So you had to really beat this (segregation) down to get it off of the books and then to build a civil society in which people were judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin,” said Jones.
Foster’s struggle to attend the university came several years before the election of Alabama Gov. George Wallace. During his inaugural address in 1963, Wallace told cheering supporters: “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever.” His statements were seen as a rallying cry against federal government mandates to integrate public schools. In a symbolic move several months later, Wallace stood at the door of the university’s auditorium, briefly blocking two African-American students from enrolling. He only stepped aside after President John F. Kennedy mobilized the Alabama National Guard, allowing the two students to register to attend classes. That night, Kennedy delivered a televised address on civil rights and proposed legislation that would eventually become the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Dr. Johnson said Foster’s notoriety adversely impacted her career as a teacher.
“She had problems getting employment because people knew who she was and didn’t want to hire a troublemaker and bring unwanted attention to their organizations or schools, so her family moved around three or four times for her to try to outrun her identity and get a fresh start,” the historian said.
It was not until 1988 that the University of Alabama formally rescinded Foster’s expulsion. She re-enrolled at the Tuscaloosa campus and in 1991, she received her master’s degree in elementary education. In 2010, the clock tower on the Tuscaloosa campus was named in her honor, in a ceremony which commemorated the first three Black students who helped desegregate the university. A campus dormitory was also named in Foster’s honor. The building was previously named for Bibb Graves, a former Alabama governor and local leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
To celebrate her civil rights achievements, Autherine Lucy Foster was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in public service during Morgan State University’s commencement ceremony in December 2015. She was invited by Morgan’s President David W. Wilson, who grew up in the same Alabama county as Foster.
The Rev. Dr. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., who delivered the commencement address that day, said Foster “represents the best in us … a Black woman who refused to flinch, refused to back down, first in the doors of the University of Alabama.”
Dr. Jones said it is likely Foster did not set out to be a hero. “I don’t think she started out trying to be a trailblazer. I think her efforts were to just get her degree and become a good, educated citizen.”
Reflecting on Foster’s life, Dr. Johnson said it is a reminder of the lengths many African Americans have to go to obtain a higher education.
“Her journey was not only amazing, but it served as a reminder to what African-Americans experienced trying to make their way through American higher education, which should have been a right, but since its inception had been a privilege,” Johnson said.
Autherine Lucy Foster died in March 2022 at age 92.