Published On: 01.09.24 | 

By: Alabama News Center Staff

Sixty years later, Harold Franklin’s integration of Auburn University paved the way for future generations  

Auburn photo Harold Franklin 2

On Jan. 4, 1964, Harold Franklin registered for classes as Auburn University's first African American student. He would leave in frustration without graduating. (Auburn University)

As the Samford Tower clock at Auburn University hit 2:20 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 4, 1964, a U.S. Air Force veteran was making history a few hundred yards away.

Inside the Ralph Brown Draughon Library, Harold A. Franklin signed his name on an admission form to enroll as a graduate student, officially integrating the land-grant institution and marking a historic step forward in the university’s journey toward equality.

Today at 4 p.m., Auburn is commemorating the 60th anniversary of Franklin breaking the color barrier at the university with a ceremony in the Mell Classroom Building, Ralph Brown Draughon Library. Additional events in the coming weeks will explore the history and impact of integration at the university. Franklin died in 2021 at the age of 88.

Two years before arriving at Auburn, Franklin, a Talladega native, graduated with honors from Alabama State College, now Alabama State University (ASU). He left Auburn in 1965 when it became clear to him that his thesis would not be approved.

After transferring to the University of Denver and earning a master’s degree, Franklin embarked on a distinguished 27-year career as a higher education faculty member, including positions at ASU, North Carolina A&T State University, Tuskegee Institute and Talladega College before retiring in 1992.

Nearly a decade after his retirement, in 2001, Auburn honored Franklin by awarding him an honorary Doctor of Letters. In 2015, the university erected a historic marker near the library where he first registered for classes.

Franklin returned to the Plains for a long overdue opportunity to defend his thesis on Feb. 19, 2020, and took part in the university’s commencement ceremonies the following December.

“I’m just about speechless after all these years,” Franklin said after walking across the stage at Jordan-Hare Stadium in 2020. “I realized it wasn’t going to be easy when I came here as the first African American to attend Auburn, but I didn’t think it would take this long. It feels pretty good.

“I’m glad I could do something to help other people, and my mom and dad always taught us that – when you do something in life, try to do something that will help others as well.”

Following Franklin’s death, Auburn added a new bronze plaque and circular brick courtyard near the desegregation marker. In 2021 the Auburn Alumni Association’s Black Alumni Council named a scholarship in honor of Franklin, whose legacy also was honored in 2008 when Auburn students created The Harold A. Franklin Society.

“We, as the Auburn family, owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the late Harold Franklin, whose steadfast resolve as Auburn’s first African American student opened the door for generations to come,” Auburn Board of Trustees member Elizabeth Huntley said at the courtyard dedication. “As we imagine his first footsteps on this campus near this very site — where he registered in our library for classes in 1964 — we know the path he paved continues to guide our way forever onward.”

A journey of defiance and frustration

Born on Nov. 2, 1932, Franklin was one of 10 children. His father worked at the Alabama School for the Deaf and Blind, while his mother taught and played piano in church.

During his senior year of high school, the United States was embroiled in the Korean War. Franklin left school to join the U.S. Air Force.

After graduating from Alabama State College in 1962, Franklin thought about trying to attend law school at the University of Alabama, which in June 1963 would be the site of a famous showdown between then-Gov. George Wallace and federal officials over the enrollment of two Black students that would soon become known as the “stand in the schoohouse door.”

But Fred Gray — the young civil rights attorney who had represented the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and who also had attended Alabama State College — encouraged Franklin to challenge the whites-only status quo at Auburn and apply there for graduate school.

“Representing Mr. Franklin … is among one of my legal cases that gives me satisfaction,” said Gray, who is now 93 and still practicing law in Tuskegee, during a recent interview published on ASU’s website. “After all, we got him admitted to Auburn and more importantly, opened the doorway for tens of thousands of Black students who now follow the trail Mr. Franklin created.”

According to the Encyclopedia of Alabama, Gray told Franklin that if he was denied admission at Auburn, Franklin’s military service and marriage would make him an ideal applicant to challenge the school’s discriminatory admission policies.

Famed civil rights lawyer Fred Gray, at the microphone, in 2021. He successfully represented Harold Franklin in the 1963 anti-discrimination lawsuit against Auburn University. (contributed)

On Jan. 10, 1963, William Parker, Auburn’s graduate school dean, rejected Franklin’s application, saying the school lacked a graduate government program. Franklin appealed the decision, saying he now intended to apply only to the graduate history program. This time, Parker claimed that Franklin’s ASU degree was invalid because the school wasn’t accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Franklin wasn’t the first Black student to be denied admission to Auburn, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama. For decades, Auburn had denied admission to qualified Black candidates. Auburn President Ralph Brown Draughon collaborated with state public safety officials on surveillance reports about Black candidates that were used to deny their admission.

On Aug. 26, 1963, just a few weeks after the showdown at the University of Alabama, Gray — with assistance from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund — filed suit in federal court, arguing that Auburn had denied Franklin’s admission solely because of his race. That November, U.S. District Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr. issued an injunction restraining Parker from refusing Franklin’s admission. Johnson determined Auburn “had deliberately set out to bar the plaintiff from Auburn because he is a Negro.”

Draughon then issued a new policy that graduate students would no longer be housed in Magnolia Hall, the only men’s dormitory. Gray sued the school again and, on Jan. 3, 1964, Johnson ordered Auburn to house Franklin like every other student, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama.

On Jan. 4, 1964, Wallace dispatched state troopers to Auburn, hoping to obstruct Franklin’s admission. Wallace refused to provide Franklin with a bodyguard and ordered troopers to arrest any federal agent who accompanied him. Gray and Franklin agreed to have their baggage searched by federal agents. A state law enforcement official tried to plant a handgun in Franklin’s briefcase, hoping that federal agents would discover the weapon and arrest Franklin, but Gray discovered the handgun before the search began, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama. Fearing student and community demonstrations might erupt in violence and damage the university’s reputation, Auburn closed the campus to all except authorized faculty, staff, students, law enforcement officers and reporters.

A handful of students taunted and jeered Franklin as he walked toward the campus library to attend orientation and to register for classes, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama. State troopers under Wallace’s direction halted Franklin and asked to see his student identification card to enter the library. Franklin, who had not yet attended the orientation, lacked any school identification. Eventually, a sympathetic state trooper accepted Franklin’s driver’s license as proof of his identity and permitted him to enter the building.

Harold Franklin, on Auburn’s campus. (Auburn University)

Like other graduate students, Franklin needed to write and defend a research thesis. Although he hoped to write his thesis on the history of the American civil rights movement, his thesis advisor reportedly told him that the topic was too controversial and steered him toward alternative topics.

Finally, Franklin received permission to write a history of ASU. After conducting research and preparing a draft, Franklin was repeatedly asked to revise the document. He became frustrated because he felt that his work had been held to a higher or different standard than the program’s white students, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama.

For two years, Franklin presented revisions but could not meet his advisor’s expectation. Franklin believed that history faculty never intended to allow him to graduate because his admission had embarrassed Draughon, a history faculty member. Given the atmosphere and lack of support, Franklin withdrew from Auburn in 1969, convinced he would never graduate, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Franklin left, but others followed

Even though Franklin left Auburn, it wasn’t long before a new generation of African American students arrived on the Plains.

Auburn’s first African American graduate, Josetta Brittain Matthews ’66, may also be its unlikeliest. She had just graduated from Indiana University and was evaluating her options for a master’s degree, when her father, professor Joseph Brittain, received an interesting call. A fellowship for a “minority student” had just opened up at Auburn that needed to be filled immediately, before the upcoming academic year.

According to Matthews’ daughter, Heidi B. Wright ’16, her grandfather told the caller, “‘Yes, I know someone. They should be there first thing Monday morning,’” Wright said. “And that was my mom.”

Matthews arrived at Auburn in 1965 and began studying for her degree in history and French.

Josetta Brittain Matthews, Auburn’s first African American graduate. (Auburn University)

Wright recalls her mother’s long days and late nights, working full time in addition to earning her degree at Auburn and caring for her as a child. In the morning, she left her home in Montgomery to work in Tuskegee. From there, she traveled to Auburn for classes, and after that back to Montgomery to care for Wright and do her homework. The stress was so great that her hair began to fall out. But she never complained.

“She never fussed about it,” Wright said. “She never cried over it. She said, ‘I’m not going to quit.’ That was never an option. She did what she had to do, and she did it with grace.”

When Matthews defended her thesis and earned her master’s degree in education, she had no idea she was the first African American graduate of Auburn. Not until the cameras snapped her photo.

“That’s why she looks surprised in the photo,” Wright said. “They told her, ‘You’re the first Black person to graduate from Auburn.’”

Matthews would go on to make additional Auburn history, becoming the university’s first African American faculty member in 1972 as a history and French professor, as well as being the first person of color to earn a doctorate in 1975.

Samuel Pettijohn Jr. ’68, Auburn’s first African American undergraduate, originally enrolled at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University). He changed his major to physics once the curriculum became available, but when the fledgling program began to flounder, a Tuskegee professor contacted Auburn physics professor Raymond Askew and arranged for Pettijohn to continue his education at Auburn.

“Originally, I was told that I would continue to be officially enrolled at Tuskegee and just attend the classes at Auburn,”  Pettijohn said in a 2013 interview with Auburn to commemorate 50 years of integration. “And that’s the way it was the first term. But, after that first term, I was told I would have to enroll at Auburn.”

Samuel Pettijohn in 1968. To his right is then-Gov. Lurleen Wallace. (Auburn University)

It was a prescient decision for Pettijohn, who also became Auburn’s first African American ROTC graduate and joined the U.S. Army shortly after graduation. As a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, he received a Bronze Star and an Army Commendation Medal for his service in combat support in Vietnam. After an assignment with the Defense Nuclear Weapons School, he enjoyed a long career with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In 2001, Auburn awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science.

The first African American woman to earn an undergraduate degree, Yvonne Lampkin Fowlkes ’69, saw Auburn as much of a challenge as an opportunity.

“I was a civil rights baby, and there was a sense that we were not good enough — that we couldn’t cut it,” Fowlkes said. “Part of me decided I was going to do it to prove we could make it as Black undergraduate students in a predominantly white university.”

As the only African American undergraduate woman at the time, the extroverted Fowlkes didn’t enjoy as much of the camaraderie as her male counterparts across campus in Magnolia Hall. Though difficult at times, her isolation would only reinforce her determination to see the experience through. Joining student organizations, such as the French Club and Campus Crusaders for Christ, helped expand her social circle, and she said it made her feel more at home.

Fowlkes said she remains grateful to people, like her advisor, for not only helping her succeed, but being conscious of potential prejudice and discrimination she might face around the region. As an education major, Fowlkes had to complete an internship teaching at a school. It was a general rule that students couldn’t teach in their hometowns, but her advisor allowed her to be an exception.

Yvonne Lampkin Fowlkes, the only Black woman in the photo, in 1969. (Auburn University)

“I remember him talking about it, very conscious of making sure that wherever I did my student teaching was in a place where I wouldn’t have to experience anything negative, in terms of living there,” Fowlkes said. “Also, (he took into consideration) the fact that I didn’t have a car and would have had to get housing. He did that intentionally, so that I would be comfortable in the city that I had to do most of the teaching.”

After graduation, Fowlkes moved to Atlanta, where she still resides. She went on to earn a master’s in counseling from Georgia State University and later a doctorate in organizational leadership. After teaching for a number of years, she worked in corporate organizations and owned a couple of businesses.

“As you get older, you’re proud that you were a part of that change that is now happening,” Fowlkes said. “You may not be given credit for it, but I know that us being there helped make the change.”

Information from the Auburn University and Alabama State University websites, and the Encyclopedia of Alabama, were used in this report.