Vivian Malone Jones

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Malone registering for classes at University of Alabama

Vivian Juanita Malone Jones (July 15, 1942, in Mobile, Alabama – October 13, 2005 in Atlanta, Georgia) was an African-American woman, one of the first two African Americans to enroll at the University of Alabama in 1963 and the university's first African American graduate. She was made famous when Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked them from enrolling at the all-white university.[1]

Contents

Early life [edit]

Malone was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1942 as the fourth out 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.[2] Because her parents could not receive an education themselves when they were children and adolescents, they greatly emphasized the importance of receiving an education and made sure that their children attended college. Each of Vivian Malone’s older brothers attended college at Tuskegee University.[3] Malone’s parents also stressed the importance of Civil Rights and often participated in local meetings, donations, and activities in the community that promoted equality and desegregation. As a teenager, Vivian 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.[3]

Malone attended Central High School, where she was a member of the National Honor Society.[4] In February 1961, Malone 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.[5] However, Malone had wanted to pursue a degree in accounting which was a field of study not offered by Alabama A&M at the time. Moreover, the Bachelor’s degree that Malone had received was issued to her before the University had been fully accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.[6] To earn an accredited degree in accounting, Malone would have to transfer to another university.

University of Alabama [edit]

See also: Stand in the Schoolhouse Door

In 1961, Malone had received word from a family friend that there had been a plan organized by the local Non-Partisan Voter League to desegregate the University of Alabama’s branch school in Mobile, The University of South Alabama.[7] Due to her exceptional performance in high school, Malone was one out of a number of local African-American students suggested by the organization to apply to the Mobile campus. At least 200 African students had applied to the university, only to have their applications rejected by admissions.[7] 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 being of required standards;[8] however it had become fairly understood by the community that the university would not admit the African-American students because of the resistance to school desegregation. African-American students who had applied to the university’s branch campus in Mobile were investigated by the university’s Department of Public Safety, including Malone herself.[9] After applying to the University of South 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.[3] 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.

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 degree in accounting.[3][10] The Legal Defense Fund had also been working closely with student, James Hood, to desegregate the University of Alabama [6] After two years of deliberation and court proceedings, she and James Hood were granted permission to enroll in the university by order of District Court Judge Harlan Grooms in 1963.[11] The district court had ruled that the University of Alabama’s practice of denying African-American students admission into their university was a violation of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education case in which the act of educating black children in schools separate from white students was charged as unconstitutional. Judge Grooms had also forbade Governor Wallace from interfering with the students’ registration.[11]

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.[12] 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”.[13] As Malone and Hood waited in a car, General Katzenbach and a small team of federal marshals confronted Wallace to demand that Malone and Hood be allowed entry by order of the state court and for Wallace to step aside.[10] 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 that “The unwelcomed, unwanted, unwarranted and force-induced intrusion upon the campus of the University of Alabama... of the might of the Central Government offers frightful example of the oppression of the rights, privileges and sovereignty of this State by officers of the Federal Government.” [14]

After seeing that Wallace would not step aside, Katzenbach had called upon the assistance of President John F. Kennedy to force Wallace to permit the black students’ entry into the university.[15][16] Katzenbach took Malone up to her dormitory and told her to see her room and eat lunch by herself in the dining room if she became hungry. Malone had went downstairs into the dining room, and instead of being harassed by other white students, she had in fact been joined by several of them to eat lunch with her.[17] Malone had remained in the dormitory until the situation was determined to have calmed down.[17]

President John F. Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard later the same day, which put them under the command of the President, rather than the Governor of Alabama. One hundred guardsmen escorted Malone and Hood from their dorms back to the auditorium, where Wallace moved aside at the request of General Henry Graham.[18] Malone and Hood then entered the building, albeit through another door.[19] Two years later, she received a Bachelor of Arts in business management and joined the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice.[20] As she and Hood entered the building, they were met with surprising applause from white supporters of integration.[18] They then entered the gym and registered as students of the university, with Malone being accepted into the University as a Junior.[21]

Malone’s time spent at the University of Alabama was relatively free of conflict and threats to her safety, with the exception of a spree of bombings that occurred in November 1963 by rioting whites possibly angry with the integration policy. After much deliberation between the U.S, Marshal and Katzenbach, it was decided that Malone would not be taken out of school or unenrolled because of the bombings.[22]

Two years later,in 1965, she received a Bachelor of Arts in business management and became the first African-American to graduate from the University of Alabama. She graduated with a B-plus average.[23]

Later life [edit]

Despite earning high academic achievements from the university, she never received a single job in Alabama.[18] She later joined the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington D.C. and served as a research analyst [24] While in Washington, she attended George Washington University and pursued a Master's Degree in Public Administration. She also earned a job as an employee relations specialist for the Veteran's Administration central office [8] She earned a position as the Executive Director of the Voter Education Project and worked towards voter equality for minorities and assisted millions of African-Americans to register to vote.[8] She then became the Director of Civil Rights and Urban Affairs and Director of Environmental Justice for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.[8]

In 1996, she retired as director of civil rights and urban affairs and director of environmental justice for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In October 1996, she was chosen by the George Wallace Family Foundation to be the first recipient of its Lurleen B. Wallace Award of Courage. At the ceremony, Wallace said, "Vivian Malone Jones was at the center of the fight over states' rights and conducted herself with grace, strength and, above all, courage." In 2000, the University of Alabama bestowed on her a doctorate of humane letters.

Death [edit]

Jones died of stroke complications at the age of 63. Her funeral services were held at the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College. She was married to Mack Jones, a physician, who died in 2004. She is survived by a son, a daughter, three grandchildren, four sisters and three brothers. She was a faithful member of From the Heart Church Ministries of Atlanta where she served as an usher. Her brother-in-law was Eric Holder, the current U.S. Attorney General. Her nephew Jeff Malone was an All-America basketball student-athlete at Mississippi State and NBA standout for many years.

In popular culture [edit]

  • Malone is portrayed in a scene from the film Forrest Gump where the University of Alabama is desegregated. Jones walks toward the school door and drops her book, but she apparently does not notice. Forrest Gump sees this and picks it up and gives it to her, and then proceeds to follow her into the school.
  • On the American Dad episode "You Debt Your Life," one of Roger's flashbacks he sees before nearly getting hit by a bus is being one of the protestors against the racial integration of the University of Alabama and knocking the books out of Vivian Malone Jones' hands.

See also [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ Blaustein, Albert P. (1991), Civil Rights and African Americans: A Documentary History, Northwestern University Press, p. 483, ISBN 0-8101-0920-4 
  2. ^ Clark, E. Culpepper. "The Schoolhouse Door". Oxford University Press, 1993, p.175.
  3. ^ a b c d Culpepper 1993, p.175.
  4. ^ Martin, Douglas (October 14, 1995). "Vivian Malone Jones, 63, Dies; First Black Graduate of University of Alabama http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/14/national/14jones.html?_r=0". New York Times. Retrieved 8 March 2013. 
  5. ^ Bledsoe, Christena 1978. "Vivian Malone Jones and the VEP: From Integration to Voter Registration http://beck.library.emory.edu/southernchanges/article.php?id=sc01-2_003". Retrieved 9 March 2013. .
  6. ^ a b NY Times October 14, 2005.
  7. ^ a b Culpepper 1993, p. 176.
  8. ^ a b c d Bledsoe, 1978.
  9. ^ Culpepper 1993, p.176.
  10. ^ a b Bledsoe 1978.
  11. ^ a b Culpepper 1993.
  12. ^ Culpepper 1993. p. 225
  13. ^ Elliot, Debbie. Wallace in the Schoolhouse Door. NPR. June 11, 2003. Accessed February 19, 2009.
  14. ^ "Alabama Department of Archives and History, Governor George C. Wallace's School House Door Speech". Retrieved 9 March 2013. 
  15. ^ Bledsoe 1978
  16. ^ Culpepper 1993, p. 227.
  17. ^ a b Culpepper 1993, p. 228
  18. ^ a b c Culpepper 1993
  19. ^ Alabama segregation date approaches, USA Today, 2003-06-08, retrieved 2007-11-23 
  20. ^ Civil rights pioneer Vivian Jones dies, USA Today, 2005-10-13, retrieved 2007-11-23 
  21. ^ NY Times October 2005
  22. ^ Culpepper 1993, p. 248.
  23. ^ NY Times 2005
  24. ^ USA Today 2005

External links [edit]


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