Autherine Lucy Foster: Yet Another Hidden Figure in American Library History

Abstract

When Autherine Lucy enrolled as a library science student at the University of Alabama, she became the first Black student admitted to that previously all-White institution. But once she arrived on campus in early January 1956, her presence quickly occasioned riots that threatened her life and those around her. Despite legal support for Lucy from Thurgood Marshall and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, however, the University of Alabama ultimately expelled Lucy in late February, less than two months after she had matriculated. Although events surrounding her efforts to get a library science degree were widely covered in the national media in the spring of 1956, the nation’s library community said, and did, nothing.