Tuskegee, Alabama: Living Black and White

for years. I'm Black professionals everywhere. The professors like people owning their own businesses. I didn't understand really that the world, the whole world of this United States was not like that. It was an island for some a refuge, a place of pride and possibilities for others assembled of character and accomplishment. An act of faith that courage and determination could still fashion reality from an honored but aging ideal. There were those who came to see it as an illusion. There were also those whose ancestors had attended its birth, but whose view of it was distorted by the distance across a great cultural divide.

These immense continental shifts took place between those two cultures in America, Tuskegee became a fault line, a testing ground for issues of race. This is a story of that struggle. It is also a story of individuals from both races and many backgrounds whose lives have intersected those events. Among them in a small way was my own. Victory land, the Macon County dog racing track in shorter Alabama. This county has been a land of political victory for the majority African American population, but all around the remnants of the once dominant plantation culture which defined the historical landscape. My name is Michael Letcher. I grew up here knowing black people only as servants and farm workers. During the civil

war centennial we lived in a rented and a bellum house and I imagined myself part of some distant romantic aristocracy. Ironically 15 miles away there was another aristocracy about which I knew almost nothing. A thriving black community with families who sent their children to eastern prep schools and lived rich intellectual and cultural lives. Diane Robinson grew up in that community and developed an entirely different view of the role of black people. I saw everybody that I knew was doing everything that other people in the world did. The best thing that Tuskegee did and probably still does for the people who were born here and brought up here is it makes us think that we can do anything. Life in the surrounding white community was remarkably similar. A world of Sunday school dresses and piano lessons, great old houses with high ceilings and hardwood floors, screened

porches and the sounds of crickets. It was the world of Mav Segris, the daughter of one of the town's most prominent families. It was a very pastoral setting and I mean everybody knew each other ages back it seemed like and you know it was a way of life that that had a certain amount of beauty and a certain amount, a certain kind of love in it that was shifted later on. But middle-class whites and blacks were often insulated from harsher realities. Francis Rush faced the problems of growing up in a poor farm family and the class consciousness of some Tuskegee whites. You felt separated on a part and you would just treat it mostly so you weren't there. And Johnny Ford, whose mother worked as a maid in the Tuskegee Institute neighborhood but lived in the working class district, remembers similar attitudes in the black community. You know a lot of people were snobbish you weren't invited to certain things I mean there was

a chasm in a sense that existed between this side of town and that side of town. Despite its cultural diversity for a hundred years power in Macon County had belonged to one race and class the white elite, the heirs of the planters. 25 years ago that changed. Today the city's image reflects its population. There are black owned businesses here too now and African-American professionals. Perhaps the most striking change is at the new city hall where proud representations of black culture line the route to the office of a man who himself has become something of a symbol. A mayor who is often enjoyed basking in the national spotlight. It is Johnny Ford who has stood both race and class on its head in Tuskegee. This is a more democratic city that is not to say it has escaped its problems. Some of those are

the same as in any Alabama town. Some like Tuskegee itself are the unique products of its history. They had come south in the early 1840s slaves had built their plantations in a town they named for the band of creeks who had lost this land less than 10 years before. When only 10 of the state's towns had a thousand people they established Tuskegee as the educational and cultural center of East Alabama with a population of over 1500 and nearly 50 private schools including what is now Huntington College. From the beginning their slaves had outnumbered them. As property they had been the largest capital asset in the economy worth considerably more than the land itself which even before the war was beginning to wear out. At war's end the loss of that asset along with other political and economic after effects violently upset the traditional social order

and triggered now well-known resentments that sometimes flared against the unionists, northerners and blacks who controlled most county and state offices during reconstruction. The old political establishment became increasingly willing to restore that order by any means necessary. They succeeded in 1874 when Tuskegee Planner Robert Ligon became Lieutenant Governor on a ticket with George Houston in a campaign marked by violence intimidation and vote stealing. In Tuskegee the new circuit judge sent the county's two black representatives to chain gangs forced the resignation of a white state senator and was later elected to a constitutional convention which disfranchised nearly all of the state's black voters. Well this is my great-great-grandfather Judge Cobb who he was an ex-confederate colonel veteran of Gettysburg and a forebearer of my friend Mab Sigrist. His name was James Edward Cobb. They had their own justifications about

being more human and so more civilized and so more deserving of power and control absolutely. But there was nothing civil about any of that. It was about raw power. I mean to really have shifted from a slave system that was based on white supremacy to something more egalitarian which was part of what reconstruction was moving toward would have been a huge thing and Judge Cobb was one of those people who came in in a very raw way to re-institute it. Every time I feel the spirit only after the threat of emerging black political power had been virtually destroyed did white paternalism and the fear of losing the workforce return and make possible the birth of Tuskegee Institute. Built partly by student labor it opened in Tuskegee in July 1881 and like the already existing white educational institutions was a badly needed bolster for a sagging economy. Ultimately it had been that need which had overcome the strong traditional

white objections to the education of blacks. Economics was also critical to new school principal Booker T. Washington. His emphasis on education and material success as the key to black advancement soon made him the spokesman for one of two philosophies in a national debate which continues to echo today. The other W.E.B. Du Bois of Atlanta University saw immediate political participation as a necessity and objected to Washington's accommodation of the white power structure. White popularity did have practical rewards for Tuskegee Institute. It soon became the nation's best known black college due mostly to the money of northern philanthropists and the support of local politicians traded in return for a presumed acceptance of the status quo. It was the basis for a 40-year arrangement which according to city fathers made Tuskegee a model community for race relations. But as Washington understood in endorsing black education white set sown seeds of power that would eventually sprout. The beginnings of that political springtime arrived in

1923. The grandchildren of the planters had scarcely stopped celebrating the golden anniversary of the Confederacy when in Lincoln's capital the power of Tuskegee Institute was strong enough to influence the presidency itself. Washington's successor Robert Moton convinced Warren Harding to bring a new hospital for black world war one veterans to Tuskegee and when initially supportive local whites balked at the plan to hire a mostly black staff even the clan at its peak could not prevail. 1500 new employees quadrupled for black middle class and formed the roots of a power base economically independent from the local white power structure with its threat of retaliation and intimidation. The whites themselves did not miss the point. Sheriff Pat Evans spoke for many when he later told the political writer there ought to be a law against putting two big nigger things like that in one county. The university's reputation further flourished with that of George Washington Carver. Carver's nearly half century long career in agricultural research brought

attention to the problems of poor rural blacks and whites but it could not overcome the effects of the depression or the fact that locally administered relief programs often reflected an applicant's economic and racial status. Life for most southern blacks changed little. But 1941 changed everything. In Tuskegee it brought a new army training facility and a noble experiment to see if black people were smart enough to fly airplanes. They were. On their first day alone the 332nd fighter group flying in aerial combat over North Africa would shoot down a record 16 enemy aircraft. In the meantime at home the presence of 3,000 elite black troops further fueled the defensiveness of 1,000 white Tuskegeeans who were beginning to sense that whatever happened over there things back here would never be quite the same. The feeling in the black community was mutual and the man who would try to fulfill those soaring expectations

was waiting in the wings. He had been born with the new century 1900 in Johnson, South Carolina. His mother had instilled in him a strong sense of moral responsibility and frugality. From his father who had once in self-defense killed a drunken white intruder he had learned assertiveness. Armed with his new sociology degree the young Charles Gommillion had arrived to teach in Tuskegee in 1928 having been more disciple of Du Bois than Washington. And I told the folk in Johnson that Booker Washington had taught blacks how to make a living. Now I'm going to teach them how to live. See how conceited I was. Gommillion's ambitious vision was of an enlightened and responsible citizenry both black and white that would fully participate in what he called civic democracy to make it work. Everyone would have to have educational opportunities. And so throughout all of my adult life I felt that

necessary on my part to do whatever I could to improve the educational opportunities of folk. But Gommillion had soon become aware as head Washington of just how profoundly local political realities limited such a vision for blacks. And how ineffective had been the gentlemanly appeals to the white leadership by the black middle class Tuskegee Civic Association, the TCA. By 1935 Gommillion had assumed a leadership of TCA and had been prepared to launch it in a new direction. I took the position that there is only so much one has to take. And so I said let's let's begin to agitate for these names constitutionally. That meant the use of direct political power and political power ultimately meant voting. This was the new course of action that post-war

momentum would propel. It was a collision course with the old arrangement. To entitle a person to vote at any election by the people he shall have resided in the state politics due from him for the year 19 read and write any article of the constitution of the United States and the English language. Alabama's constitution contained several layers of defense against black suffrage. There was poll tax and the property and literacy requirements that were subject to enormous discretion by the local three member board of registrars. Macon County also added a voucher system requiring the applications of blacks to be supported by two white persons. But even that came to be limited. With so many good blacks showing up and being voucher the rule of the registrars became that a voucher white voucher could not know more than three Negroes of good character in one year. Now in 1945 from their upstairs office in the

local credit union which they had established to further insulate blacks from white economic sanctions, Gommillion and the TCA fired the first shot in a battle that would eventually transform Tuskegee and make American legal history. To challenge the constitutionality of the voucher system they filed state and federal suits against the registrars for denying VA employee William Mitchell the right to vote. As expected the state court upheld vouchers. The surprise came in federal court when probate judge William Varner produced an approved voter application for Mitchell which he stated been lost and thereby made the constitutional question moot. It was a pattern of deception by local white government that would continue along with the legal battle for the next 15 years. Registrars resigned and were not replaced. Months would pass without a meeting. Those that did occur were often brief and secret. On at least one occasion they were discovered inside the probate judge's vault. But the election of populist governor Jim Folsom provided

a glimmer of hope. In 1948 Gommillion appealed to fairness in an open letter to the governor succeeded in appealing to Folsom's Jacksonian values. He responded by appointing to the board a notice Olga Hill country farmer and lay preacher with a seventh grade education who soon surprised blacks and whites alike with his beliefs in equality. I know I'm right said Herman Bentley because of the scripturized study. And besides he reasoned them folks out there got more sense than I got. How can I fail to register them? The first beneficiary of the 500 new black voters was 32 year old highway patrol officer Preston Hornspeak a fellow Hill country native who was running for sheriff against Pat Evans in 1950. Outspokenly racist Evans had been indicted by a federal grand jury for killing a black man in the course of an arrest and had been repeatedly accused of brutality against blacks in his custody. Hornspeak himself had been a witness. But he'd be

don't them all the time you know just slap him just because he looked like cause is black you know. Evans last minute appealed to a black constituency now comprising a third of the electorate proved futile and Hornspeak began a career which would span 40 years and a political revolution. But from that same election there sprung a counter revolution headquartered here and deceptively sleepy shorter. I knew him as the genial father of my childhood neighbor Harriet who we called Hattiboo. To the rest of the world he became a symbol of white resistance. Sam Engelhart was the head of the white citizens council and had come by his white supremacist attitudes honestly. He had grown up in and married into the planter and ability generations deep and had its convictions about the superiority of the ruling elite. He had also had the advantage of a

Washington and Lee education. He was a formidable force. In 1950 the force was brought to bear against incumbent state representative Henry Neal Sigrist a new deal progressive and member of the Tuskegee Institute Board of Trustees. Engelhart won by stressing that fact during the campaign while strongly declaring himself for segregation and white supremacy. Such were the goals of a flurry of legislative proposals after he took office. Among them were bills to end the public education of the Supreme Court outlawed segregation to abolish Macon County entirely and scatter its black population among surrounding counties and in perhaps the boldest instance to Jeremander the city limits of Tuskegee to exclude not only Tuskegee Institute but all except 12 of the city's 400 black voters. Public opinion in the white community was divided over the Jeremander but according to local surveys most thought the problems were a result of the failure of blacks to accept their own inferiority and they did not include blacks in their concept of democracy. Like their

Annabella Mancesters they were increasingly falling victim to a defensive single-minded conformity. One source told the Montgomery advertiser reporter either you agree with everything Sam Engelhart says or you're a nigger-loving communist. The people have gone crazy. On Valentine's Day 1958 Charles Gommillion is invited to Montgomery to appear before Engelhart's committee on the abolition of the county. He speaks eloquently of local black history of the belief in Washington's dream of the desire to contribute rather than to control. Again he appeals to fairness. His pleas are met with hostile questions. For the entire two hours he has not offered a seat. Even for a season to 30-year veteran of this struggle it is a bitter and shocking disillusionment. I feel more like crying when I think about it a minute.

Soon what they thought wouldn't matter. Inspired by the successful Montgomery bus boycott Gommillion now abandoned hope that whites would keep variant of the Booker Washington bargain and called for Tuskegee's own boycott of local merchants at a mass meeting for testing the Jeremander. Butler Chapel the birthplace of Tuskegee Institute overflowed. Formally complacent black professionals shocked that they had been treated no differently from the masses joined their ranks. Well some of the poor blacks were sort of glad because they told us you wouldn't say but we are. They don't make any distinction between you and me. As an economic weapon the campaign was a success. As a public opinion tool it was a masterpiece garnering widespread media attention and support from the national civil rights movement. We must say give us the ballot we are determined to have the ballot and we are determined to have it now.

Now after 10 years of TCA requests the federal government took notice. Testimony by William Mitchell led to the law creating a civil rights division within the Justice Department. When it held hearings in Montgomery the next year the extent of the abuses so thoroughly documented by TCA helped provide the impetus for the civil rights bill of 1960 which for the first time gave the federal government the authority to sue states over voting rights. Two major legal decisions quickly followed. In the voting rights case federal judge Frank Johnson found six deliberate types of discrimination in Tuskegee and ruled an end to all. And the U.S. Supreme Court in Gommillion versus Lightfoot found the Jeremander so blatant that for the first time it overruled a state in such a case and established the precedent that led to the one man one vote revolution in Southern politics. The legal victory had been won. I felt good but I realized at the same time there was a whole lot more work to be done. The new decade brings optimism. John Kennedy's energy and glamour are infectious.

Political ideals propelled by the charisma resonating the emerging consciousness even of Southern white boys like me. In Tuskegee before the court decisions take effect white voters replace the old elite with white progressives who begin meeting with Gommillion and the TCA. Many liberals are merchants who have been badly hurt by the boycott and so are vulnerable to frequent charges of expediency. Some are also motivated by religious conviction and idealism. Henry Neal Sigrist whose Presbyterian beliefs included universal brotherhood was always too liberal to be trusted by the elite despite his family background. His continuing support of the rights of blacks included free legal services to his friend Charles Gommillion. Increasingly outspoken Francis Rush shared Sigrist convictions and because of her early experiences came to identify entirely with the black community. And Preston Hornsby did what he said was right in the eyes of the

Lord as well as in those of black voters when he appointed Alabama's first black deputy. And what amounted to the leadership of the liberal community fell to a member of an evangelical church that was open to blacks. He was the son of a Covington County sharecropper with little appreciation for black belt planter culture. And he was the new president of the Alabama exchange Jay Allen Parker would become increasingly visible in the coming decade but he had been quietly building bridges with the black community since coming to Tuskegee in 1941. He had often been the only white at the institute's annual brotherhood day and he was well aware that his new position could be a tool. People just don't jump on bank people like that they would jump on somebody else. There's always that feeling that I may need him sometime. Allen Parker did it out of conviction. He is my idea of a Southern intellectual

gentleman Christian. One Parker initiative was to recruit progressive Auburn newspaper publisher Neil Davis. With a loan from Parker Davis bought the reactionary Tuskegee news and carefully transformed it into a voice of the liberal community. Meanwhile as the court decisions took effect black voter registration mushroomed by 1964 they had enough voting strength to control city and county elections but in the interest of interracialism Gommillion and TCA resisted considerable pressure within the black community and endorsed an equal number of white and black candidates for 12 city and county offices including a white candidate for mayor. I knew what the shock waves would be they would put it off put it off just a little bit gradually and that was hard. But the coalition held all TCA candidates were elected including Allen Parker and Gommillion himself who now joined Francis Rush

on the school board. I always knew I had the idea of black and white working together the persons who were elected in that 64 election. I think they believed too in eventually an integrated or non-racial society. A statement by the new city council declared we shall work for a community composed of citizens whose hearts are united and brotherly love. Gommillion's dream now seemed real. There was real elation but the majority of the white people were upset still they didn't buy into the glorious tomorrow. Simple optimism would now prove naive as Camelot crumbled the illusion and the innocence

vanished when news of the shooting reached my classroom in shorter high school some of my classmates cheered that classroom would soon become a battleground and the complexities that surrounded it a lesson learned firsthand. The University of Alabama campus at Tuscaloosa is under a tight security guard of state police as governor George Wallace a few voting rights had been divisive school integration was volatile and George Wallace had been playing with matches his stand in the schoolhouse door had only succeeded in increasing the federal government's resolve but 10 years after the brown decision none of the state secondary schools were mixed and many Tuskegee whites assumed that its large black population would make the town exempt. When on August 13th 1963 judge Frank Johnson ruled in favor of a TCA suit and ordered integration of Tuskegee high in just three weeks most of the white community was in shock. Nevertheless in the interest of harmony the local school board

and some city officials had anticipated the ruling and were prepared to comply quickly. We had decided as a local school that we were going to integrate go to according to law and let this thing take place. From a field of 48 carefully selected by TCA exclusively from the black middle class the school board selected 13. School was set to open on September 2nd on Thursday August 29th the PTA meeting was called to reassure the parents. Hardline segregationists seized the moment. I can remember that we just absolutely lost control of the meeting and some they are on it. It was in the hands of people who were sent in to well just for that purpose just for the purpose of breaking up the meeting and causing chaos so that nothing could be accomplished. But neither the tone of the meeting or the presence of state troopers observing for Governor Wallace

led superintendent CA Pruitt to change his plans. Dawn September 2nd 1963 a state trooper knocks on Pruitt's door with a message from the governor executive order number nine delays the integration to prevent a disruption of the peace meanwhile 200 other troopers have surrounded the school to prevent students black or white from entering many believed that here as in Tuscaloosa Wallace had entered the fray for political reasons only and they found it bitterly ironic that a state's rights governor would have such little regard for local control. And when it happened we felt our rights were being violated not necessarily by the blacks but by Wallace and his group. After a week long chess game between state and federal officials the black students eventually enter a campus ringed by armed troops hostile crowds and the national media. It's almost like I was in another world during that time you know there were a lot of people around a lot of confusion and stuff but um I was going to school you know this is where I'm going to school that was it.

The image of those at the center of the storm seeming most isolated in their moment of success was for Mab Segrist a revelation. And I had this real sense of empathy with him. I look back to that moment is this kind of crack in the cosmic egg for me also that image of having eventually 200 armed men separating children from each other. It's like it really it got my curiosity I think at some deep level it's like there must be something there you know what would happen if we could get together that there's this much force trying to keep us apart. But by now the atmosphere had become so charged that all whites even the liberals withdrew their children at least temporarily. The State Department of Education then closed Tuskegee High but when the whites are transferred to the counties to remaining segregated schools judge Johnson simply orders the black students to follow. In Notasoga there is violent opposition. Racial slurs are painted on the high school building and the next night it burns to the ground. In shorter the reaction is peaceful but ultimately

no more successful. As before students and teachers meet in the morning in talk of acceptance in the evening parents vow to resist. Again whites would withdraw. This time I would be one of them. Wallace's rhetoric had both fueled and reflected the resistance. Now he would put money where his mouth was as an outspoken supporter for what would become a prototype for all white private schools. Wallace solicited contributions from state employees for the new make an academy and became one of its first commencement speakers. The school's first board president was a veteran of World War II aerial combat and a German POW camp. He was a man of intellect, determination and a long mistrust of government power. One of the town's few Republicans and its Eisenhower appointed postmaster. Whether or not like Wallace John Fletcher's

Seagrist used state's rights as a code word his credentials were more authentic. For his daughter my academy classmate the school issue was complex and confusing. We had a very well honed sense of white northern or western or whatever you know outside the South hypocrisy on issues of race but I had a growing sense of like what racism was about or white supremacy and it was clearly there was one strat I've made in academy that was very Confederate you know just you know just right down the line you know but and so I had all this questions. Most racism among students was not so overt more misinformed than malicious it was a conditioned reflex by we who had been insulated and nurtured by the culture. Some of us who simply acquiesced now also like to remember having conflicts of conscience about segregation. Watching black students seeing we shall overcome outside our math class window I remember the strangeness of being on the other side. I also remember thinking it was they who were right but I no longer

know if that is the truth or just my revision of it. I remember that we all sort of ignored it for the most part and didn't talk to one another very much about it. I think there was a sense of what was allowed publicly to say and what wasn't and a couple times when I crossed the line and got told to be quiet. It was my sense that the deeper reservations came not so much from oh my god one white child can't be with one black child but we are in the system has been going on for so long that has such systematic inequities in it that we really are in a position where we let go of our stuff we lose a lot. We do lose a lot. It was about privilege and how hard it was to make a shift from that kind of inequity I think. Day to day academy students were less concerned with politics than pep rallies. The same was true directly across the street at Tuskegee High after it reopened in the calmer days of September 1964. True to their word white progressives had returned intent on their earlier objective. We were very hopeful that we'd be able to make

integration work and I really think that we would have had we been given the chance that we thought we would have. There was a surprising degree of unity among the 59 whites and 14 blacks initially enrolled by the spring white enrollment doubled and when Richard Rush came in a year later the experience did nothing to tarnish the idealism which he already shared with his mother. I would say if anything it just confirmed what already knew that black people are the same as me inside. It was never a racial calculus for me there were whites I like there were whites I didn't like there were blacks I like there were blacks I didn't like it's just that simple. One of Rush's most enduring friendships developed with Tony Heygood having recently moved from Tuscaloosa where he had witnessed Wallace's stand Heygood's worst fears about an integrated environment soon proved unfounded. We found it to be totally open

totally friendly. He had small groups of people who made remarks or who were negative or who you could tell didn't really care for you to be there. For the most part I think everyone made an extra effort to make it a comfortable place and make it a regular high school. Even while black enrollment steadily increased and the number of whites declined shared activities and growing familiarity continued to ease much of the awkwardness among students. When Richard Rush became Tuskegee's quarterback Tony Heygood was in the end we were Tuskegee had and we won it wasn't black it wasn't white we were the Indians of Tuskegee had and we were United team. I think we adjusted pretty rapidly to what was going on and but we would forget that when we go outside the schools we'd run in other different situations. There were pressures from all sides in other towns where integrated schools were still an alien novelty and at home not only from the white resistance but from elements in the black community who all along had questioned

the preference given to children of the black middle class and yet for the students adversity shared was also a bond and so it did pull us together and when you unite in common causes or have a common sense of unity as we did in high school and friendship then you respect each other and you come to love people and appreciate them for who they are regardless. I think I think the problem was other people's after we had done it it was like huh we done huh now you have to do it or it's a problem for you it's not a problem for us. Unfortunately the reality of Tuskegee at large did not support such optimism. Main Street separated not only two schools but symbolized multiple divisions emerging in an increasingly polarized community. Six days of rioting in an egro section of Los Angeles left behind scenes reminiscent of war torn cities. Events further away only served to expand those divisions not only did violence begin violence there was also a change in the terms of a debate over democracy the issue increasingly became one not only of race but of class.

College protest parallel the civil rights movement in that shift and began questioning economic inequities and the biases of what came to be called the establishment. For the students in Tuskegee the issue became more complex because you had two examinations that we had to deal contend with the black establishment as well as the white establishment. Gwen Patton had grown up in a civil rights family as student movement leader and student body president she valued the example of Tuskegee's professional class but was one of those most disturbed by the class consciousness of some of its members. I was stunned to go to the Negro pool the middle class kids swammed on Monday and Wednesdays and the poor and the working class kids

swammed in that same Negro pool on Tuesdays and Thursdays it was absurd. In Tanton bridging the gap the students formed the Tuskegee Institute advancement league which furthered TCA's original goals by registering 1,600 new black voters mostly from the rural working class but they also broke ranks by taking political action intended to test the community's international model. To go million according the white community through selectivity and gradualism served his ultimate end creating an example of a successfully integrated community. To the idealistic young it was not only an unacceptable compromise but a hypocritical and ultimately futile illusion pursued at the expense of real democracy. Challenging white commitment to interracialism students picketed Allen Parker's bank over hiring practices and attempted to integrate downtown churches and the generation gap in the black community was publicly exposed when during a city council meeting Charles Gommillion's leadership was openly challenged by a brash 21

year old who would soon unwittingly play a pivotal and tragic role in the disintegration of Gommillion's vision. Educated at Cornwall Academy in Massachusetts before a stint in the Navy semi-young was Tuskegee black aristocracy it was his family for whom Johnny Ford's mother had worked as a maid despite that background or perhaps because of it and like many affluent members of his generation young came to champion the cause of the working class regarded as a loose cannon by some in TCA he was respected by his peers. Sammy was a delight he was a very what do you call a happy go lucky you know and never he never got angry he could get hurt and he will be the one most hurt to exclude the poor people. On the night of January 3rd 1966 young left the local SNCC headquarters stopped at a local service station and asked to use the restroom apparently directed to a segregated facility he became engaged in a confrontation with 67-year-old attendant Marvin

Sigrist with whom he had reportedly had previous disagreements. Young grand etched a golf club from the nearby bus station but only after Sigrist had pulled a revolver two shots were fired the second struck young in the head and killed him instantly when an all white jury acquitted Sigrist steadily growing tensions exploded fully fragmenting the community along its already delicate fault lines 1500 students converged downtown in the early hours of morning a much smaller group through rocks and bottles broke store windows and looted a liquor store the face on the town's Confederate monument was painted black apparently to change its meaning and to the slogan honor the brave was added black power this would be the peak of violent protest in Tuskegee with no more than relatively minor property damage it was by the standards of the period remarkably restrained but among other factors it would conjure feelings of fear in this trust that would remain long after tempers had cooled for better or worse the coalition would now crumble

when Robert Kennedy spoke at the University of Alabama five years after he as attorney general had enforced its desegregation there were a number of black students in his audience integration was well established here by 1968 as it was in many of the state's public high schools except in Tuskegee in the town of its birth public school integration was dying as epidemic quite flight bankrolled an impressive new campus for make an academy many otherwise it simply left town only the truly dedicated remained Francis Rush stayed with the public school until Richard sister Connie was virtually the last white at Tuskegee High Allen Parker would maintain close ties with the city government for many years but resigned from any official position in 1970 somewhat disillusioned about the dissension he could not overcome he stayed with the bank until retirement when he passed the presidency on to his young black protege although he remained closely aligned to the university Charles Gommillion left public office in 1969 he could identify with the young

but did not appreciate much of their rhetoric and resigned himself to the fact that he was no longer the man for the times yet he could not avoid being stung by the irony of his rejection after the success of his long term fight whatever the charge was I didn't bother about trying to defend myself at least I don't remember trying was it was it not a little hurtful or frustrating yeah it's very fun but if the goal of integration had faltered the cause of political democracy had not the grassroots had taken hold in Macon County and increasingly reshaped the political landscape in a landmark election for sheriff in 1966 the student working class coalition overcame both a white incumbent and a tca-backed challenger the victory of Lucius Amerson made the front page of the New York Times in 1970 the same forces broke the color line in the state house for the first time sensory construction Fred Gray and Thomas Reed also served George Wallace's native barber

county and so technically became his hometown representatives but in 1972 the chief executive officer of the city of Tuskegee was still white elected with the interracial council of 1964 Charles Kever had easily defeated a challenge by Thomas Reed in 1968 but his bid for a third term against two black opponents would split the electorate along now familiar lines many black professionals backed institute history professor Frank Tolland a 20 year member of tca the new comer was a 29 year old Tuskegee native who had returned after college and a stand in the presidential campaign of Robert Kennedy pledging to unite all classes and races Johnny Ford had an especially strong appeal among students after trailing Kever by 10 points in the August election Ford's campaign picked up the support of 500 returning collegians in the September runoff and claimed victory by a margin of a little over 100 votes eight out of 10 city and county office holders were now African American the highest percentage in the nation and one roughly

equal to the local population distribution the political transition was now complete a quarter of a century has passed in a political and economic equation with many variables Johnny Ford has remained the constant having been elected to six successive terms government representation continues to reflect the racial distribution of 23 elected officials 19 are African American as a percentage the black population has increased only incrementally in 25 years and continues to hover at about 86 percent indicating that as the population has declined blacks have left nearly as fast as whites that may be in part due to the fact that economic democracy has not matched the political a considerable influx of federal money produced the most tangible effects in the early days of the Johnny Ford administration mostly in the form of new infrastructure but also including programs such as Dianne Robinson's cultural affairs office

but like other small towns Tuskegee found it hard to balance subsequent declines in those sources by attracting new business and industry and it's not been helped by the traditional corporate reluctance to invest in predominantly black communities what successes there have been have not involved large payrolls and most businesses remain white owned we're recommending that the council authorize a budget of $50,000 annually to the YMCA as mayor Johnny Ford collected blame for the city's problems just as he've been credited with its successes opponents accused him of political favoritism fiscal mismanagement and ironically like his bourbon predecessors election irregularities no formal charges were ever brought or proven and Ford strongly denied the accusations two four six as they head on into the fire turn there still some locals also worry about the political influence of the gambling industry but few can deny the value of the rewards public

education has been the primary beneficiary the county system has used the dog trek funds to support teacher salaries and to construct and maintain its physical facilities the results by those standards are impressive especially is evidenced by the new flagship school Booker T. Washington High integration however has remained an elusive goal Booker Washington is 99 percent black meanwhile still all white despite having officially dropped its racial barriers make an academy itself has taken flight its enrollment having dwindled to 60 it recently moved to Montgomery County ironically if there is an integration success story it is in notisoga where in the ashes of bigotry a racially balanced student body listened in 1980 as assembly speaker Robert Kennedy Jr. called the school a place of noble purpose the mix has remained a stable 55 percent black 45 percent white and community support is high if what Tuskegee as a whole has symbolized is not

America as a mixing pot it has also been seen in the alternative model as a cultural enclave in a diverse society a center of pride and identity a mecca certainly that continues to be true of the university but it is limited in the broader community by the very degree to which Washington's vision has succeeded for while there is black wealth in Tuskegee the old middle class neighborhoods are shrinking as many in the professional class moved to surrounding cities like Auburn or Montgomery in pursuit of amenities associated with a persistent American dream and perhaps indicating that the strongest identity is with the culture common to us all and yet the influence of Tuskegee remains profound to all who have been touched by it it has meant many things to many people for Johnny Ford who from his home on the lake can see the house that his mother left each morning to clean the homes of others it has meant the fulfillment of the American dream and a testament

to just how much can really change now in Tuskegee you can live wherever you want to live you go school wherever you want to go or should go you can own whatever you want to own you can be whatever you want to be right here in Tuskegee Alabama when I start talking about my life in terms of what we've been able to do in this city I'm proud of that Ford also remains optimistic about the question of race none of us have reached a point where we have clearly matured over racism and we need to do that racial pride is what we ought to promote and the fact that we are both proud people means that we have the ability to respect each other mayor Ford was defeated in 1996 but was elected to the state legislature two years later no longer in an official position Diane Robinson continues to be involved in the cultural life of Tuskegee for her it is still a

source of strength if no longer an island I think African Americans have found that all together you know we must look to our own culture for our strength we have an opportunity to go out and be involved in the broad society when you go out though you realize how important it is and how strong that for African Americans to have a basis a base that says this is who we are because that's very strong still here in Tuskegee Robinson now teaches dance at Auburn University where she stresses the appreciation for many cultural traditions to descendants of slaves and slave owners alike Alan Parker retired him at Gummer church and family activities now occupy most of his time while his idealism about integration survives he remains disappointed about Tuskegee human nature didn't adapt itself well to idealism I think it only

says that it's just more difficult than some of us out Francis Rush now lives near her daughter in a retirement home in South Carolina she speaks of the patience and perspective required to see incremental change and she remains as much an idealist as ever I'm still optimistic things have changed considerably and certainly not all for the worst I think it was worth it unlike so many others John Fletcher-Sigrist has remained in Tuskegee and has remained politically active he continues as the county chairman of the Republican Party some of his Republican friends are now black he has also managed to find common ground with his daughter despite strong political differences Mav Sigrist has spent most of her life struggling with the questions raised by her Tuskegee childhood after a doctorate on a brief stand as a college professor

she felt compelled to firmly confront those questions from Durham North Carolina she has spent the last two decades as an anticlan activist and a community organizer and has also written extensively on issues of race class and gender she now views her hometown with mixed feelings it gave me both a deep pessimism and a deep optimism about questions of race you know and the pessimism comes from how deeply they go in people I got a very profound sense of that from experiencing all the white resistance to political and social changes that were happening during the 50s and 60s on the other hand I got a great deal of hope in a lot of ways from the courage that brought those changes to the surface so I think that there's a lot up for grabs I think this country is going to be a white minority country in 50 years and Tuskegee has a lot of history and lessons to teach there about how white people can respond to that and what's going to happen there so it's

definitely a story that's in hand come yeah. Mav Sigrist laid his book as a personal journey through her own heritage it's called memoir of a race traitor in the summer of 1995 Charles Gommillion came home to Tuskegee where he had once been out of fashion he had now been rediscovered reflecting on his lifelong struggle he felt deeply disappointed with whites who had left and with blacks who had abandoned the cause of their poorer neighbors but his sense of hope remained and I think I agreed Robert Burns wasn't it who said that it's coming yet the world or brothers will be something like that I haven't quite abandoned that yet. On October 4th 1995 Charles Gommillion died officials and friends gathered to measure the value of his life his own standard like his most essential remedy for the divisions of race had to do with personal morality and individual relationships.

I don't know about hell that'd be scarred because of what folks say about it. What would concern me most is how well all the dogs get alone on this earth was my fellow citizens. You love your neighbor you'll be a good citizen you do what you're right. If there's a heaven you're entitled to it if there isn't you have missing. The difficulty of truly following that advice in the face of our ancient divisions was sadly evidenced by the congregations can speak he was absence of white faces but all of us who have been touched by Tuskegee find it more difficult perhaps than most to ignore the importance of the effort. I

want to be a man in my man in my man in my man in my man in my man in my man This is history's best on PBS. The Civil Rights movement in Tuskegee was important to the nation as both the embodiment of a political philosophy and as a birthplace of the legal principle of one man one vote. To purchase a copy of this story send a check or money order for $21 to

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