Turning the Tide: The University of Alabama in the 1960s

Preface

Preface on June 11, 1963, the enrollment of vivian J. malone and James a. Hood ended 132 years of segregation at the University of alabama, the state’s first public university. in september 1964, i enrolled as a freshman. a large billboard greeted my parents and me as we drove into town. it read,“Welcome to Tuscaloosa: Home of the Ku Klux Klan.”The billboard featured a Klansman holding a fiery cross, sitting atop a rearing horse. When i entered the university it was best known for winning football teams. Under legendary coach Paul W. bryant, the Crimson Tide won the national championship in 1961, a feat it repeated during my freshman and sophomore years. The university also possessed a well-deserved reputation as one of the south’s leading party schools. Turning the Tide is about change. during the turbulent 1960s, when campuses erupted into confrontations between student dissidents and administrations unable or unwilling to deal with them effectively,a handful of student activists at the University of alabama formed an alliance with President frank a. rose, his staff, and a small group of liberal professors. They were allied in a struggle with Governor George C. Wallace and a state legislature reflecting the worst aspects of racism in a state where the passage of federal civil rights laws in 1964 and 1965 did little to reduce segregation and a lot to inflame the fears and passions of many white alabamians.That alliance held until the end of frank rose’s presidency in 1969 when, for a variety of reasons, student dissent went in a more radical direction. Even then, dissent at alabama failed to attain the intensity extant on other campuses, even some in the deep south. alabama was unique in that dissent originated within the traditional student power structure formed by the top fraternities and manifested in the “machine,”a group that shaped and dominated not only campus politics but also the state’s business, legal, and political com- xvi / Preface munities.The “revolution”at the University of alabama, like the french revolution or the russian revolution, was conceived by the privileged and then, like those revolutions,degenerated into a wider and more radical manifestation. The University of alabama was unique in other ways. from its origins in 1831 it served the sons of alabama’s “bourbon” planter class. in 1860, in an effort to instill discipline into this class of unruly young men, the university became a military school, which it remained until the early twentieth century, a decade after admitting its first female students. in 1900, the student body numbered fewer than five hundred. during the twentieth century the university benefited from extraordinary leadership, especially during the presidencies of George Hutchison “mike” denny (1912 to 1936) and frank a. rose (1958 to 1969). President denny increased enrollment from five hundred to almost five thousand. during the Great depression, when many universities abandoned football, denny used the sport to gain national attention. He also recruited students from outside alabama, which proved financially lucrative. frank rose built on the foundation laid by mike denny. rose worked against extreme odds in a state where segregation’s hold had only started to loosen by the end of his tenure in 1969. for some, especially the more idealistic faculty and the small cadre of student dissidents, the tide turned too slowly. frank rose, however, turned the tide despite winds that often buffeted his efforts. of necessity he moved cautiously and picked his causes carefully, leading many to see him as “facile.” some dubbed him “slick Tony.” but in the end, amid turmoil and the constant threat of violence, frank rose charted a course away from the university’s party school reputation and academically mediocre past. rose urged students to “pursue excellence.”While that pursuit often seemed more like an ambling stroll amid the campus’s stately oaks and magnolias, the transition was filled with conflict that jeopardized its success. This book was conceived during my days as an undergraduate. i nurtured the concept through four decades. in July 2008, thirty-nine years after leaving Tuscaloosa with a master’s degree in history, i returned to explore and then write about the changes that went on while i was a student unable to understand or appreciate the sociocultural turmoil i sensed but did not fully grasp. What i failed to see as a student, but what i have discovered in researching and writing this book, is the sense of “in loco familia...