The State of Alabama is home to 14 HBCUs but Alabama was also home of the first Capitol of the Confederacy. Alabama was nicknamed the "Heart of Dixie" in the late 1940s early 1950s by the State's chamber of commerce to show the State's dedication to the south's way of life which included segregation and Jim Crow Laws. Meanwhile the State's HBCUs had quickly become the lifeblood for change and forward thinking in Alabama. Students and even staff members at these institutions were key in getting the Civil Rights Movement started but also served as meeting spots for rallies and marches.
Alabama State University resides in Montgomery which was the Original Capitol of The Confederacy. The First White House of The Confederacy is walking distance from the campus. Alabama State has played a major role in helping transform Alabama from "Heart of Dixie" to desegregation. Alabama State University was founded in 1867 as "Lincoln Normal School of Marion" in Marion, Alabama, until the white citizens of the town demanded the school be moved. The white people of Marion not only demanded that the school be moved but one day in 1887 they burned the school down. Thankfully Black residents of Montgomery funded the school’s move to Montgomery but the school faced the same issues. White residents of Montgomery sued the government to keep the school from achieving university status.
Through it all Alabama State found a way to not only thrive but a way to become the lifeblood of the movement during the 1950s and 60s. The Montgomery Bus boycott was birth on the campus of Alabama State On December 2, 1955, in the basement of Councill Hall. Rosa Park herself attended Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes until she was forced to withdraw due to the illness of her grandmother. Alabama State became the temporary home for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his family after his home was bombed on January 30, 1956.
Up in Birmingham, Miles College provided a key role in the road to freedom. Miles served as a key meeting place for many of the demonstrations that created the historic images from the Birmingham movement. In 1962 students at Miles College decided to start a boycott prominent businesses in Birmingham that practiced segregation. The movement was named the Selective Buying Campaign. The Campaign was spearheaded by SGA President Frank Dukes. Boycotting was outlawed by the state of Alabama after the Montgomery Bus Boycott so the students at Miles focused on "Selective Buying". The students at Miles College reached out to high school students in the area as well as students at nearby Birmingham-Southern to join the campaign as well. During the time the campaign started the department stores in Birmingham operated on about a 12-15% margin and black shoppers accounted for about 25% of sales. The campaign was meant to shut off the flow of African-American dollars to white merchants who refused to hire black sales clerks or to do away with segregated bathrooms and water fountains.
The “selective buying campaign” hit stores hard, with profits dropping as much as 40 percent. Some stores relented by desegregating their bathrooms and water fountains and dressing rooms, but they faced opposition from the city’s Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor and the City Commission that threatened them for violating city ordinances.
The “selective buying campaign,” however, demonstrated the power of non-violent protest and of Black dollars and prompted King to come to Birmingham the following year in 1963 to lead nonviolent demonstrations to end segregation.
In Huntsville, Alabama A&M and Oakwood students were active in evoking change in North Alabama an area which didn't garner the attention that Montgomery and Birmingham did. Alabama A&M University was established for Black students in 1873 but was not fully accredited until 1963. The delay in the University's full accreditation was steeped in racism seeing that the school was located in North Alabama which was overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly opposed to the school's mere existence. Huntsville was considered different than the rest of the deep south due to the number white families who relocated from the North to work at Redstone Arsenal. On Saturday January 6, 1962 an estimated 75 students entered white lunch counters and ordered food. Over time, dozens of students from A&M were arrested. These student protests were an important part of the strategy to bring attention to segregation in Huntsville which had widely gone ignored.
The protest continued through 1962 and gained more media attention as Oakwood joined the demonstrations in March after a visit from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Many Oakwood students were not aware of the movement due to the censoring of news and media at the school. The coalition between the college students and the black community members of Huntsville was called the Community Service Committee (CSC). As the sit-ins continued, a plan to boycott all segregated Huntsville clothing stores for the Easter of 1962. Instead of buying new suits and dresses, blacks would buy a new pair of jeans from out of town. Since Alabama law banned boycotts, demonstrators broadcasted the boycott by forming picket lines near stores and handing cards to black patrons.
The boycott had 90% compliance, and even white citizens bought less because those in labor unions refused to cross picket lines to shop. By Easter Sunday, April 1962, downtown stores lost over one million dollars of profit. On May 11, 1962 Huntsville became the first racially integrated city in the state of Alabama.
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