Video: 'Hidden History: Integration of Alabama Schools'
(Monday, September 9, 1963, morning, local time; during the civil rights movement) — Sonnie Hereford IV, 6, became the first African-American student to integrate public schools in Alabama this morning following a lengthy court battle.
Six days before, on September 3, 1963 — the first day of first grade — Hereford, and his father, Sonnie Hereford III, were greeted at Fifth Avenue Elementary School in Huntsville, Alabama, by white parents chanting segregationist slogans, their children in tow.
“There was a mob out there, I guess 150, 175 parents and kids,” Dr. Hereford told AL.com in a 2013 interview. “They called my son and me everything you can think of.”
They walked home, the father holding his son’s hand.
They tried again the next day, but Fifth Avenue Elementary School was still locked. When Dr. Hereford found it shut the day after that, too, he sent a telegram to the federal judge who had ordered the Huntsville Board of Education to desegregate the city’s public schools by enrolling his son.
At first, the telegram seemed to have backfired. The Herefords found the school surrounded by armed and helmeted state troopers, dispatched by Alabama Gov. George Wallace – who earlier that year had pledged “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” – to prevent children of any race from entering the school.
But by today, Alabama could no longer keep Sonnie Hereford IV from first grade.
Veronica Pearson (Rison School), David (Piggee) Osman (Terry Heights School) and John Anthony Brewton (East Clinton School) enrolled in other Huntsville City Schools later that day.
On the following day, September 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy federalized the 17,000 member Alabama National Guard to allow black students to attend nine previously all-white schools in Birmingham and across the state.
“Governor Wallace has refused to respect either the law or the authority of local officials. For his own personal and political reasons — so that he may later charge Federal interference — he is desperately anxious to have the Federal Government intervene in a situation in which we have no desire to intervene,” Kennedy stated.
Wallace, trying to avoid being served with a restraining order forcing integration of Mobile schools, fled the state capitol, flanked by state troopers, shortly after 1:30 that morning.
“Mr. Kennedy, consumed by his doubtful re-election, has taken complete control. The Kennedy forces are laying the predicate for the jailing of the governor of Alabama,” Wallace said in a statement to the press.
Other Alabama school systems began desegregation in the weeks that followed.
