She, an intensely shy, dreamy child who loved reading and always trailed behind in the cotton fields, was unsure that she wanted to be part of a national struggle
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitask, the Supreme Court had ruled that public schools and colleges could not discriminate by race. But the deep South had dug in. By 1956 no African-American, male or female, had yet been admitted to any white public school or university in Alabama. She was the first, arriving just as a bus boycott by black passengers in Montgomery was putting the whole state on edge.
Her parents deeply disapproved of this campaign. Her father was a sharecropper, working hard to feed a brood of ten children by making axe handles and baskets as well as picking cotton. He told the newspapers that he had raised his youngest daughter to know better. He himself respected white people, and always went to the back door; he feared for her safety if she acted otherwise.
She was rescued, but the university now had good safety reasons to suspend her. It swiftly did so, and attempts to build a new case against it backfired so badly that she was expelled. This looked like the end of her academic career. She was now celebrated as a civil-rights pioneer, and for a few months she made speeches like an activist. But she was tired and disheartened, with no mind to dwell on hateful things.
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