Vivian Malone Jones

Vivian Juanita Malone Jones (July 15, 1942 – October 13, 2005) was the first black student to graduate from the University of Alabama, in 1965. She and James Hood were the first black students able to enroll at the university since Autherine Lucy and Pollie Myers initially strove to desegregate the school. Malone became famous when George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, attempted to physically block her and Hood from enrolling at the all-white university. Malone faced threats and ostracism at the university but successfully graduated in two years with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management. Throughout her career, Malone continued to work for civil rights causes. She worked for various federal agencies like the Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency, and served as executive director of the Voter Education Project.

Malone was born in Mobile, Mobile County, Alabama in 1942, the fourth of eight children. Her parents both worked at Brookley Air Force Base; her father served in maintenance and her mother worked as a domestic servant. Her parents emphasized the importance of receiving an education and made sure that their children attended college. Each of Malone's older brothers attended Tuskegee University. Her parents were also active in civil rights and often participated in local meetings, donations, and activities in the community that promoted equality and desegregation. As a teenager, Malone was often involved in community organizations to end racial discrimination and worked closely with local leaders of the movements to work for desegregation in schools.

Malone attended Central High School, where she was a member of the National Honor Society. In February 1961, she enrolled in Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University, one of the few colleges for black students in the state. She attended Alabama A&M for two years and received a bachelor's degree in business education. Malone had wanted to pursue a degree in accounting, a field of study not offered by Alabama A&M at the time. Moreover, the bachelor's degree Malone received was issued to her before the university had been fully accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. To earn an accredited degree in accounting, Malone would have to transfer to another university.

In 1961, Malone had received word from a family friend that the local Non-Partisan Voter League had organized a plan to desegregate the University of Alabama's branch school in Mobile. Due to her exceptional performance in high school, the organization suggested Malone apply to the Mobile campus. At least 200 black students had applied to the university only to have their applications rejected. The university denied admission to the applicants on the grounds of over-enrollment and closed enrollment, the quotas already being filled or the academic performance of the students not meeting required standards; however, it had become understood by the community that the university would not admit the black students because of resistance to school desegregation.

Black students who had applied to the university's branch campus in Mobile were investigated by the university's department of Public Safety, including Malone. After applying to the Mobile branch of the University of Alabama, Malone and her family had been visited by two white men who had claimed that they were representatives of the state. They disclosed that her attempts to apply to the Mobile campus and integrate with the school had instigated violent retaliation from the local white community from which the family would not receive much protection. The threat to her safety did not deter Malone from continuing to support integration in the university and she persisted in applying to the University of Alabama to earn a degree in accounting. In later interviews, Malone recounted that seeing Autherine Lucy's initial attempt to desegregate the University of Alabama inspired her to persevere in desegregation work: “I was a child when that happened, but her efforts had an indelible impression on me...I figured if she could do it, I could do it.”

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund of Alabama organized an opportunity with Malone to enroll her in the University of Alabama's School of Commerce and Business Administration to earn her accounting degree. The Legal Defense Fund had been working closely with a student, James Hood, to desegregate the University of Alabama. After two years of deliberation and court proceedings, Malone and Hood were granted permission to enroll in the university by order of District Court Judge Harlan Hobart Grooms in 1963. The district court had ruled that the University of Alabama's practice of denying black students admission into their university was a violation of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education case, in which the act of educating black children in schools intentionally separated from white students was charged as unconstitutional. Judge Grooms had also forbidden Governor George Wallace from interfering with the students' registration.

On June 11, 1963, Malone and Hood, accompanied by United States Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach and a three-car motorcade full of federal marshals, arrived at the University of Alabama's campus with the intention to enroll. Waiting for them on campus and blocking the entryway to Foster Auditorium was Governor Wallace, flanked by a group of state troopers. Wallace intended to keep true to his promise of upholding segregation in the state and stopping "integration at the schoolhouse door". As Malone and Hood waited in a car, Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach and a small team of federal marshals confronted Wallace to demand that Malone and Hood be allowed entry by order of the federal court and for Wallace to step aside.

Wallace had not only refused the order, but he interrupted Katzenbach; in front of the crowds of media crews surrounding him, Wallace delivered a short, symbolic speech concerning state sovereignty, claiming: