Opening the Doors

Opening the Doors is a wide-ranging account of the University of Alabama s 1956 and 1963 desegregation attempts, as well as the little-known story of Tuscaloosa, Alabama s, own civil rights movement. Whereas E. Culpepper Clark s The Schoolhouse Door remains the standard history of the University of Alabama s desegregation, in Opening the Doors B. J. Hollars focuses on Tuscaloosa s purposeful divide between town and gown, providing a new contextual framework for this landmark period in civil rights history. The image of George Wallace s stand in the schoolhouse door has long burned in American consciousness; however, just as interesting are the circumstances that led him there in the first place, a process that proved successful due to the concerted efforts of dedicated student leaders, a progressive university president, a steadfast administration, and secret negotiations between the U.S. Justice Department, the White House, and Alabama s stubborn governor. In the months directly following Governor Wallace s infamous stand, Tuscaloosa became home to a leader of a very different kind: twenty-eight-year-old African American reverend T. Y. Rogers, an up-and-comer in the civil rights movement, as well as the protege of Martin Luther King Jr. After taking a post at Tuscaloosa s First African Baptist Church, Rogers began laying the groundwork for the city s own civil rights movement. In the summer of 1964, the struggle for equality in Tuscaloosa resulted in the integration of the city s public facilities, a march on the county courthouse, a bloody battle between police and protesters, confrontations with the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, a bus boycott, and the near-accidental-lynching of movie star Jack Palance. Relying heavily on new firsthand accounts and personal interviews, newspapers, previously classified documents, and archival research, Hollars s in-depth reporting reveals the courage and conviction of a town, its university, and the people who call it home.