On this day in Alabama history: First African-American graduated from University of Alabama
Vivian Malone, one of the first African-Americans to attend the University of Alabama, walks through a crowd that includes photographers, National Guard members, and Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach. (Warren Leffler, photographer, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)
May 30, 1965
Vivian Malone Jones became the first African-American to graduate from the University of Alabama. Jones was one of two black students, with James Hood, who enrolled at the university after initially having their entry blocked by Gov. George Wallace. While Hood left the university after two months, Jones remained and earned her degree in business administration with a B-plus average. She went on to work for the U.S. Justice Department in its Civil Rights Division and the Environmental Protection Agency as director of civil rights and urban affairs and director of environmental justice. In 1996, former Gov. Wallace presented Jones with the inaugural Lurleen B. Wallace Award of Courage.
Read more at the New York Times.
Vivian Malone, far left, was one of the first African-American students to attend the University of Alabama and the first black graduate of the school. Malone was blocked from enrolling during Alabama Gov. George Wallace’s famous “stand in the schoolhouse door” to oppose integration of the university in 1963. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, Courtesy of W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, The University of Alabama Libraries)
For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.
