When I arrived for my first day of school as a first-grader in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1963, my
entrance was blocked by the governor. In fact, George Wallace closed all the Huntsville schools
that day rather than have a black boy enroll at one. The governor relented a few days later, but
only after my family had made another visit to federal court in Birmingham, allowing me -- on
September 9, 1963 -- to be the first black child to attend a previously all-white primary or
secondary public school in the State of Alabama.
My desegregation experience began with my father's experiences -- conditions he was
determined his children would not live under. My father was born in 1931, grew up in Madison
County, Alabama, and went to school in the '30s and '40s when "separate but equal" (a
description that was only half true) was the law of the land. My father walked seven miles to
school. School buses ran along parts of his route to school, but black children were not allowed
on them. Instead, the buses would kick up dust into the faces of the black children, and white
children would sometimes spit out of the windows and throw things at the black children.
My father's school was surrounded on three sides by the Huntsville City Dump. Given
the climate of north Alabama and the lack of air conditioning that often made it necessary to
open the windows, one can only imagine the odors the black students had to endure. This was
then the only school for black children in Huntsville, and it had very little lab equipment, no
gym, no playground equipment, no lunchroom and no library. Black citizens were not allowed to
use the public library, even though their taxes, too, helped support the public library -- and, for
that matter, the school buses.
In high school, my father decided he wanted to become a doctor. He wrote to the
University of Alabama to obtain a catalog for their pre-med curriculum. The university obliged,
and he later applied there. His application was rejected, even though he was valedictorian of his
high school class. The problem may have been that he had checked the "Colored" box indicating
his race. But knowing what classes made up a pre-med curriculum, he took them at a local black
college and was accepted into medical school after only two years.
In 1954, two years before my father began his medical practice, the Supreme Court's
unanimous decision in Brown vs. Board of Education (brought against the Topeka, Kansas,
school system) struck down the "separate but equal" segregation plan. But public schools and
other facilities in Alabama did not immediately begin to desegregate. Challenges by courageous
and determined people would be needed.
My father began his medical practice in Huntsville in 1956. At Huntsville Hospital the
black doctors -- both of them -- were not allowed to eat in the hospital cafeteria. Only one room
was available to black patients; it served as the delivery room, the operating room and the
emergency room. A patient who had been prepped for surgery would sometimes have to be taken
off the table and wait while an emergency, such as a woman in labor, was attended to. This was
true even though some facilities on the "white" side of the hospital frequently went unused.
Separate but not so equal
The beginnings of major social changes came to Madison County in 1962. At
that time all public schools were segregated. There were no black policemen, firemen or bank
tellers. There were no bathrooms for blacks at stores. Blacks were not allowed to go to the
downtown public park, nor were they allowed to go to bowling alleys, professional sporting
events or concerts. The Madison County Courthouse had restrooms for white men, white
women, colored men and colored women. Restaurants that served blacks at all would only do so
through a side window. When I was about 4 or 5 years old, my father had to explain to me why
we couldn't walk into Shoney's Big Boy restaurant and order a meal. I knew there was food
inside because of the large statue outside of the boy holding a hamburger up high.
A white gentleman had moved to Huntsville from St. Louis, and was a violinist in the
Huntsville Symphony Orchestra. His belongings had not yet arrived. He found out my father
owned a very expensive violin. The gentleman asked to borrow the violin to play a solo in a
concert, and my father agreed. My father remembers thinking later, My violin is good enough to
go to the concert, but I am not.
Some whites in northern Alabama assisted the civil rights movement. One such group
was referred to as the "Block Busters." At a time when real estate agents would not even show a
home in a white neighborhood to a black family, the Block Busters would buy a home then sell it
to a black family who wanted to buy it. There was also a white pediatrician who signed bonds for
black students arrested at demonstrations and sit-ins. Even though many of his fellow white
physicians refused to refer patients to him, he continued to sign the bonds. The Unitarian Church
in Huntsville was the only white church that supported the civil rights movement in our area.
None of the white Christian churches formally supported the movement, although I'm sure a few
individuals from white Christian churches did.
Often repercussions were worse for whites who supported the movement than for blacks.
I have always thought that no matter how racist a person is, at some level he or she can
understand a person fighting for his or her own equal rights. But whites who did not support the
movement considered whites who were sympathetic to the cause as traitors to their own race.
In spring 1962, in spite of appeals to public officials, poster-walk demonstrations, lunch
counter sit-ins and other efforts, little progress had been made in the civil rights movement in
Madison County. The movement had lost much of its momentum, and organizers decided to
bring someone influential to the area to help the cause. So in March 1962, Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr., at that time not nearly as famous as he became, came to Huntsville. My father, as one
of the principal organizers of the movement, met King at the airport and escorted him to his
speaking engagements. King emphasized voter registration, school desegregation and
nonviolence. His rousing speeches included an early version of the "I Have a Dream" speech. He
generated enthusiasm, and by attracting regional attention to the situation he helped shine a light
on the circumstances in northern Alabama -- a light local politicians and leaders were not eager
to see.
Poster-walks and sit-ins continued, as did negotiations with local officials. People from
Huntsville even picketed at the New York and Chicago stock exchanges, discouraging potential
investors from supporting companies that operated in Huntsville. Progress was slow. My mother,
who was eight months pregnant with my second sister, was arrested for sitting at a Walgreen's
lunch counter. Gradually, as a result of these and other efforts, local officials began allowing the
integration of public facilities, restaurants, hotels and entertainment facilities.
The court case
Still, in summer 1962, Huntsville city schools remained segregated. There was an all-white school a few hundred yards from my family's home. The all-black school was about a mile
and a half away. My father initiated a lawsuit in my name to allow me to go to the nearer school.
The case was heard in federal court in Birmingham, and the lawyers for the school system tried
everything to keep me out of that school. Their four-point argument was: (1) it would be
dangerous for me to cross such a wide street to get to the school; (2) such a thing had never been
done before; (3) admitting me (and three other black children) would completely disrupt the
Huntsville school system; and (4) officials had turned the state capital, Montgomery, "inside
out" and could not find a copy of my birth certificate.
Readily dismissing the first two points, the judge -- assessing the third point --
commented that he found it difficult to believe that the Huntsville Board of Education had such
poor control of their schools that four young children could completely disrupt the entire system.
As for the fourth point, I must assume they were trying to prove I didn't really exist. They must
have been more than a little embarrassed when it was explained to them in court that I was born
in Indiana.
At the conclusion of the arguments, the judge did not retire to deliberate; he ruled from
the bench. He said this case could be decided based on the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling.
Consequently, in spite of the efforts of Alabama Governor Wallace, I became the first black
child to attend a previously all-white public school in Alabama. Even then I was something of a
survivor. At one point during the civil rights movement in Madison County, about 35 black
families had offered to have their children be a part of the first wave of school desegregation.
Because of threats of physical violence and property damage and destruction, and threatened
dismissals from employment, only four families remained at the time of the court's decision.
Between the brief time of the court case decision and actually starting first grade
(kindergarten was not required in those days), it was the Unitarian Church of Huntsville that put
together a "playschool" for me, three other black children and about a dozen white children. The
purpose of the preschool was to enable us to get used to going to school together -- to show us
that children were just children.
Bad experiences
For me, being in a large school with only white children was mostly uneventful. At that
age, for the most part we simply thought of each other as children, classmates and playmates.
However, two experiences stand out in my mind and will be with me forever. In first grade, I
remember being in the cafeteria lunch line next to a little white girl who was not tall enough to
get her tray down off the stack. I got her tray for her and attempted to hand it to her. As I did she
said, "Oh, no, my mother told me never to take anything from a nigger." Amazingly, I took
something positive from that experience. Even at age 6, I realized this little girl did not know
what she was saying. She had not been born with these sentiments; this was her mother speaking
through her. Throughout my life, this incident has given me hope that, with time, fewer and
fewer parents will teach this kind of bigotry to their children.
The other experience occurred in second grade at the same school. I was on the
playground, and another second grader named Roger started calling me names. I've never had a
quick temper; I merely told him to leave me alone. Roger saw he wasn't getting under my skin,
so he decided to throw some dirt on me. That was more than I could take. We got into a fight,
and I got him down and sat on his chest. I then scooped up dirt and put it all over him, head to
toe. We were soon separated by one of the playground monitors and dragged into the principal's
office. She asked us what had happened. I told her the story exactly as it had occurred, and
Roger didn't dispute any of it. Our principal decided I would be the only one punished for this
incident "because of the amount of dirt Roger had on him." I guess I had failed to understand the
concept which President Reagan would later refer to as a "measured response."
A few years later, still as a grade-schooler, I went with family and friends, both black and
white, to the only ice skating rink in Alabama at that time, which was in Huntsville. I remember
the person collecting admission telling the white members of our group they could come in but
telling the blacks we could not. Many years later that rink had been closed, and a new rink was
opened in Huntsville, run by the same family. When I was about 30 years old, I went skating and
recognized the gentleman who had been in charge of the rink when I had been denied access all
those years earlier. I told him about my earlier experience. He said that must only have been
because of the person at the ticket window that day. He said he would never have had such a
policy at his place. Right.
I also remember receiving an autographed picture of Governor Wallace at the time of my
graduation from high school in 1975. Quite ironic considering how he had tried to keep me from
ever entering first grade at the school around the corner from my home.
Still, today, when I look at Huntsville and Madison County in 2007, it is clear that
tremendous progress has been made. Institutionalized racism is practically nonexistent.
However, I'm afraid racism in people's hearts will last for many more generations -- as long as
parents and others keep teaching it to children.
Every year I am asked to speak to several groups about my desegregation experiences.
One particular teacher has me speak each year to her 4- and 5-year-old students. Of course their
attention spans are much shorter, and one must use smaller words. But they have a basic
understanding of right and wrong, and of being mean or being nice. Once, after I had finished
speaking to this group, a little girl raised her hand to make a comment. She said in her family
they have a white dog and a black dog. When they take their dogs to the vet, he treats the dogs
just the same. This little girl got it; why do adults have such difficulty?
Sonnie Hereford is a software engineer at Freedom Information Systems and supports the NASA
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
The photo of Sonnie Hereford is by Glen Campbell.
(April 2007)
