ALABAMA #11

The twentieth Century was marked by the gradual increase in the ability of African Americans to  vote but was hard won.  Alabama played a key role in slowing down the process with Governor George Wallace refusing to desegregate schools until the John F Kennedy sent in the  National Guard.  How brave those people were who faced the ugly hatred of their white neighbors!

Vivian Malone Jones arrives to enroll in classes at the University of Alabama

Dr. Sonnie Hereford and his 6 year old son return home

after being turned away from Huntsville's Fifth Avenue School

on Sept. 3, 1963.  Six days later, Sonnie Hereford IV became the first

black child enrolled at a public school in Alabama.