NY Times: “Autherine Lucy had no particular desire to be a civil rights pioneer. Growing up as the youngest of 10 children in an Alabama farm family, she simply wanted to get the best education her state could offer.
She obtained a bachelor’s degree in English from the historically Black Miles College in Fairfield, Ala., in 1952. But then, though she was a reserved, even shy person, she took a daring step: She applied for entrance to her state’s flagship educational institution, the University of Alabama. And she was accepted — at least until university officials discovered that she was Black and promptly told her that a mistake had been made and she would not be welcome.
So began a legal fight that culminated in 1956 — nearly two years after the Supreme Court found segregation in public schools and colleges unconstitutional in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision — when Ms. Lucy became the first Black student at Alabama.
But her quest to obtain a second undergraduate degree, in library science, lasted only three days of classes at Tuscaloosa. When mobs threatened her life and pelted her with rocks, eggs and rotten produce, the university suspended her, ostensibly for her own safety. Several weeks later, it expelled her.”
