On this day in Alabama history: Buford Boone wrote Pulitzer-winning editorial
Roy Wilkins in press conference with Autherine Lucy and Thurgood Marshall, director and special counsel for NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, March 2, 1956. (Wikimedia, Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress)
February 7, 1956
Buford Boone, former publisher of The Tuscaloosa News, wrote his Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial “What a Price for Peace.” Published the day after the University of Alabama expelled its first African-American student, Autherine Lucy, the editorial denounced the university for submitting to the will of an angry mob. Despite negative publicity, threats and even a lawsuit, Boone remained a voice of moderation throughout the civil rights movement as he called for an end to violence, condemned the Ku Klux Klan and rebuked Gov. George Wallace. Boone died 27 years to the date of the article on Feb. 7, 1983.
Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama. For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.
