AUTHERINE LUCY AND GRAM

Autherine Juanita Lucy was the first black student to attend the University of Alabama in 1956. This was not accomplished without a whimper. Her attempt to integrate the University of Alabama after segregation had been struck down by law, was met with violence and hatred.


What she did took tremendous courage but oddly her name does not appear as well known in the annals of the civil rights movements as some others. Not so with me. I knew of her and that knowledge cost someone dear to me a lot of pain. That has burned her name in my memory forever.

I previously mentioned how my family were benign racists--- if there is such a thing. I would have been grounded for life if I ever used the “N” word and intentional cruelty towards anyone was just not allowed. However, my family came from an ancestry of slave holders and while blacks were to be well treated, they were not considered to be on the same level with us. They were considered chattel—personal property.

According to my family, we didn't mingle, we didn't socialize, we were very separate. I also mentioned that I was the square peg in the round hole of my family. I have no idea how I formed my opinions independently, I just knew my views were very different from my family's and were formed preschool.

Mother had read Uncle Tom's Cabin to my brother and I when I was about 5. Perhaps that started it. I loved my family, I just couldn't agree with them on this one subject. I have always had an overdeveloped sense of fair play and racism is just not fair play. I always saw blacks as being just like me, only with a better tan.

When my mother died, my father married into a family with similar views. Again, I was out numbered. Now this was not something discussed or argued, but it was always just beneath the surface. In those days of segregation in the South, there was little cause for the subject to be brought up.

When Autherine Lucy made her assault on the University of Alabama, I was a junior in high school in Sarasota Florida. It was big news in the deep south. At that time, my step-grandmother was also staying with us. We were a rather new family unit.


My two favorite Grannies. Gram on the left, Mama Fannie on the right. My maternal grandmother died when I was very young.
One day after school, Gram was talking about Autherine Lucy who was in the news. The general opinion between my sisters and Gram was that Lucy was a trouble maker and should stay in her “place”. That stirred me up and I climbed on my soap box saying she had every right to go to the university, it was the new law of the land, and I gave her a standing ovation in recognition of her courage.

Gram who was a pacifist first, started to playfully tease me to ease tensions. She started to shake her finger at me and playfully chanted, “Lucy, Lucy, Lucy,” while chasing me around the house. Gram's strategy worked for while I ran from her, I started to giggle at the silliness of the situation. I couldn't stay mad at this dear woman.

The chase ended when I fell backwards onto a daybed and she leaned on my raised knees, shaking her finger, laughing and chanting. She had leaned over to waggle her finger in my face and was resting completely on my knees. Instinctively, I pushed as I tried to get up.
She just said, “Oh”, sucked in air and stopped the teasing instantly. Game over. I thought it was abrupt but was a bit relieved it was over. Her teasing had broken up the tension and we went about the rest of the evening in peace. Gram was quiet through out supper, ate little and retired early.

All was forgotten till late that night when I heard a car door slam and voices. I had not heard anyone leave that night as I am a sound sleeper, but I did hear the return. It was my parents coming back from the emergency room with a stiffly moving Gram.

It seems with that knee thrust, I had broken several of her ribs. It hadn't been that violent a push. Her ribs had been broken quite a few times years ago on her farm and were quite fragile.

We were a new family and the boat was a little unsteady as we each tried to find a place in the new arrangement. We eventually grew into a tight knit group but those early months were a often shaky. Gram had not wanted to cause problems in the family so she had said nothing and had gone quietly to bed with the broken ribs. It was only when my step mom heard her moaning in the night that it was discovered.

I was horrified and sick at what I had done. Intentions are no excuse when such pain is caused. I felt like a stupid brute. I went into her bedroom to apologize in tears. She just took my hand and said she knew I didn't mean it.

I cried ”Why didn't you say something?”

She then just said the most amazing thing. “Honey, I didn't want you to get into any trouble and I thought I could make it. I'm sorry.”
She was actually apologizing to me for not being able to just go forward with broken ribs as if nothing happened. Of course, that made me feel even more horrible about myself, but Gram rose to the top of my book that day.
In movies you hear people saying they will take a bullet for someone. Not counting my birth, at that time, I never actually had someone willingly suffer great pain for me. I was in awe of this small but amazing woman and at that moment, she was family in every sense of the word.

As for Autherine Lucy, besides the abuse and hatred leveled at her and those whites that tried to help her, attacks were also made on the campus presidents home and to quell the swelling violence, Miss Lucy was expelled.



University of Alabama students burning desegregation literature on the University steps.
Sadly, she was not given what I felt was the proper recognition in the Civil Rights movement but because of her and those like her, it did move forward. The next year, the Little Rock Nine captured our hearts, minds and media, eclipsing earlier efforts.

While history may not have given her the proper recognition, Autherine Lucy and her courage is seared into my memory and is linked forever to Gram and myself.
Both of those ladies were my heroes--- for vastly different reasons.