Alabama State University: Founded in 1867
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Founded in 1867 - Location: Montgomery, Alabama
Founded in 1867, Alabama State University, was started as the Lincoln Normal School at Marion. The Board of Trustees was made up of nine men who were formerly enslaved:
Joey Pinch
Thomas Speed
Nickolas Dale
James Childs
Thomas Lee
John Freeman
Nathan Levert
David Harris and
Alexander H. Curtis
This was not surprising because African Americans sought freedom, education, God and family after the Civil War and many advancements in education came as a result of their efforts, the efforts of organizations like the American Missionary Association, the Federal Government, everyday citizens and state legislatures. But the history of what would become Alabama State University in Montgomery, AL was not just limited to the activism that rose after the Civil War.
On May 17, 1954 the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the Brown v. The Board of Education case ending the legal support of segregation in public schools.
On August 28, 1955 Emmett Till was murdered in Money, Mississippi and on December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, AL (where Alabama State is) for not giving up her seat when a white bus driver demanded that she do so.
Immediately people at Alabama State sprung into action. Jo Ann Robinson, who was a professor of English at then Alabama State College authored a handbill that encouraged Black citizens to not ride the city buses on the day that Rosa Parks was scheduled to go to trial, that following Monday. She and some students and another faculty member stayed up that night in Councill Hall on Alabama State’s campus and printed up over 35,000 handbills.
She and students of Alabama State, members of the Women’s Political Council, along with Ralph Abernathy, handed out thousands of these handbills to students as they left schools and to people in general, to get the word out, in Montgomery, Alabama.
The response was an overwhelming success, so much so that it convinced the leaders of the Montgomery Improvement Association (of which Dr. King was a member) to continue the bus boycott until there was real change in the way black people were being treated in Montgomery on the buses and it ushered in what many consider as the dawn of the modern Civil Rights Movement…
And Alabama State was integral in that movement. If fact, Dr. King is quoted as saying in his memoir…referring to Professor Jo Ann Robinson, "Apparently indefatigable, she, perhaps more than any other person, was active on every level of protest."
Some famous people who went to or graduated from Alabama State:
Reverend Ralph Abernathy - was, by all accounts, the closest friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. throughout the Civil Rights Movement, right up until Dr. King’s death. Rev. Abernathy was instrumental in the organization of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and he was a leader in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Attorney Fred Gary — he filed the lawsuit on behalf of four women to challenge the constitutionality of the separate but equal doctrine as it relates to public transportation, Browder v. Gayle, in February of 1956. While the year-long bus boycott continued this case was fought in a U.S. District Court and in the Supreme Court, until it was finally decided that segregation, in Montgomery, AL, on intrastate buses was indeed unconstitutional.
Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth — was an undaunted freedom-fighter. Having graduated from Alabama State in 1952, Shuttlesworth was active in Birmingham, Alabama. He organized the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, when the NAACP was banned from activities in his area. He helped launch a campaign to desegregate Birmingham’s buses after the decision in Montgomery. He helped to organize the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. Despite being attacked several times and having his home bombed, while he was in it, Shuttlesworth remained defiant and believe that you have to confront "a snake, you can’t reason with it or shame it into doing what’s right.”
References:
Alabama State University. Notable Alumni Bios. Accessed, October 1, 2022. https://www.alasu.edu/alumni/notable-alumni-bios
Alabama State University. The ASU Legacy: Perseverance, Progress and Promise. Accessed October 1, 2022. https://www.alasu.edu/about-asu/historytradition/asu-legacy-perseverance-progress-and-promise
Mullinax, Kenneth. ASU Civil Rights Icon Honored: Historic Marker Honors ASU’s Civil Rights Icon, Jo Ann Robinson. Alabama State University. Retrieved September 30, 2022. https://www.alasu.edu/asu-civil-rights-icon-honored