Autherine Lucy-Foster Honored

by Glynn Wilson

HOMEWOOD, Ala., Sept. 14 - For a Civil Rights pioneer, Autherine Lucy-Foster is shy about making public appearances and reluctant to grant interviews.

But when she was honored by the Jefferson County Democratic Party with a standing ovation Thursday night at the first of its kind "Blue Dot Ball" in Homewood at the new SoHo Center, she seemed to come alive in the limelight.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

Autherine Lucy-Foster outside the Birmingham Blue Dot Ball

As an "intuitive person," she said, she has a strong feeling that another strong woman with Lucy in her name will beat the odds and become the next governor of Alabama.

"Lucy Baxley is going to win," she said - to a second standing ovation.

Now a retired educator living in Lipscomb, Alabama, near Bessemer, when she was 26 in the 1950s she was admitted to the University of Alabama when she first enrolled, but then denied the right to attend classes when administrators found out she was black.

So she hooked up with the NAACP, attorneys Arthur Shores, Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley, and Judge Helen Shores Lee, and sued, setting a precedent under the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 that helped break the back of legalized segregation in public education.

"There are people more deserving, but I could not say no when Judge Helen Shores Lee asked that I do this," Foster said in her humble way.

The state Senate honored Ms. Foster Thursday night with lifetime achievement resolution presented by Sen. E.B. McClain, D-Midfield.

"Autherine Lucy Foster's contribution was extremely important," McClain said. "Because of her, African-Americans now can very easily enroll in the University of Alabama. She contributed so much in hostile times to make things better for future generations."

When she first arrived in Tuscaloosa wanting to earn a master's degree in library science in 1956, she was shunned and advised to leave town for her own safety when mobs of racists descended on the Capstone. Yet she earned a place in history as the first black student to enroll at the University of Alabama.

She had earned a bachelor's in English from Miles College in Fairfield, and went on to marry the Rev. Hugh Foster and moved to Texas, where she taught for 17 years while raising four children.

But Ms. Foster did get to live her dream of graduating from the University of Alabama many years later.

In 1991, she enrolled along with her daughter, Grazia Kungu. They walked down the isle together in commencement exercises in the spring of 1992.

"I always dreamed of walking through the line to accept my diploma," Foster said.

She got her chance, and vowed to vote for Democrats for the rest of her life.

Photo by Glynn Wilson

The Jefferson County Democratic Party honored Civil Rights pioneer Autherine Lucy-Foster Thursday night at the first Blue Dot Ball in Homewood.