Tuskegee Civil Rights and Historic Trail Marker System
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City of Tuskegee
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-Julius Rosenwald-
Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932) was a Jewish multimillionaire merchant and one of the founders (1906) of Sears, Roebuck, and Company, then the largest department store in the United States. Rosenwald was a member of the Tuskegee University Board of Trustees (1911-1932) and collaborated with Booker T. Washington on the development of a program to provide public education for rural southern Blacks. Known as “Rosenwald Schools,” this initiative existed from 1913 to 1948 and resulted in the construction of over 4,977 schools, 217 teachers' homes, and 163 shop buildings in 883 counties in 15 southern states. This fit well with Rosenwald’s philosophy to “Give while you live.” His benevolence resulted in the development of the Rosenwald Fund, which supported the creation of many black YMCAs, YWCAs, and grants that encouraged many of the 20th century’s greatest black artists and innovators. Approximately half of his charitable gifts went to African American communities.
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City of Tuskegee, Alabama, Tuskegee University,
Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation
Julius Rosenwald Marker - Tuskegee University
Julius Rosenwald
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The Tuskegee Institute Advancement League
The Tuskegee Institute Advancement League (TIAL) was a student-based organization started in 1963 and reorganized in 1965 during the school integration crises. It originally sought to gain a measure of academic freedom through input with the university's administration. Later, the organization's objectives expanded to include support of civil rights issues, such as voting rights in the Black Belt. TIAL activities included attending mass meetings and protests in Selma, Alabama and forming voter registration drives with the aid of high school students. Upon notification of the Selma to Montgomery march, TIAL mobilized students, faculty and community from Tuskegee to join them in their support. Several members continued to work in the civil rights movement after leaving TIAL. George Ware, a graduate student in biological chemistry, went on to work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) as the national campus coordinator. Gwen Patton, the first female SGA president at Tuskegee Institute (1965-66) helped to found the Alabama New South Coalition (1986).
City of Tuskegee, Tuskegee University
Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation
Marker in front of the Guzman home
Jessie Parkhurst Guzman
Jessie Parkhurst Guzman (1898-1996) was born in Savannah, Georgia, educated at Howard University (BA, 1919) and Columbia University (MA, 1924), and worked at Tuskegee University for over forty years. During Guzman's time at Tuskegee University, she served as director of the Department of Research and Records (now called the archives) and Dean of Women (1938-1944). In 1950, she was named Tuskegee's Woman of the Year, and in 1954, she sought public office with the Macon County Board of Education. This was the first attempt to run for office by a black citizen since Reconstruction. She was also the first black female to seek office in the state of Alabama. She was an active organizer in the civil rights movement and served as assistant secretary of the Southern Conference Educational Fund. Her book, Crusade for Civic Democracy: The Story of the Tuskegee Civic Association, 1941-1970 (1983), provides an in-depth look at civil rights work in Tuskegee. Guzman continued serving as a civil rights advocate throughout her retirement.
City of Tuskegee, Alabama, Tuskegee University,
Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation
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Amelia Boynton Robinson
Amelia Boynton Robinson (1911 2015) was a voting rights activist and civil rights icon. Born on August 18, 1911, in Savannah, Georgia, she received her bachelor's degree in home economics from Tuskegee University in 1927. In 1934, Mrs. Boynton Robinson became one of the few African American women registered to vote in Selma, Alabama. In 1964, she was both the first female Democratic candidate and the first African-American female to run for a seat in the U.S. Congress from the state of Alabama. The next year, she participated in the first of the Selma to Montgomery marches, commonly known as Bloody Sunday, when she was brutally beaten while trying to cross the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma. Regarding that event, she said, "I wasn't looking for notoriety. But if that's what it took, I didn't care how many licks I got." In 1990, she won the Martin Luther King, Jr. Medal of Freedom. She settled in Tuskegee in 1976 where she lived until she died on August 26, 2015.
City of Tuskegee, Alabama, Tuskegee University,
Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation
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William P. Mitchell
(1912-1986)
Following World War II, Tuskegee's black population began to grow, and many sought to register to vote. Perceiving a threat to their political power, white politicians tried to control the black vote through a variety of techniques. These actions included, but were not limited to, requiring blacks and whites to register in separate parts of the Macon County Courthouse and requiring black applicants to read and transcribe articles from the Constitution of the United States. In 1945, Veterans Administration Hospital employee and Tuskegee Civic Association activist William P. Mitchell sued the Board of Registrars for a Certificate of Registration. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama initially dismissed the case. The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which subsequently remanded it to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and they ruled in favor of the registrars. When Mitchell appealed, the registrars produced documents showing that his application had been approved several years earlier. Mitchell's attempt to vote, and ultimate success, was illustrative of the voting rights struggle.
City of Tuskegee, Alabama, Tuskegee University,
Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation
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Marker in front of the Gomillion home
Charles Goode Gomillion
Charles Goode Gomillion (1900-1995) was born on April 1, 1900, in Johnston, South Carolina. He joined the faculty at Tuskegee University in 1928, where he served as dean of students and chair of the social sciences department. He was president of the Tuskegee Civic Association when in 1957 he found out that members of the all-white city council were seeking to gerrymander the city limits in order to disenfranchise black votes. Gomillion and others alleged that the act violated the "due process" and "equal protection" clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The subsequent litigation, C. G. Gomillion, et.al. v. Phil M. Lightfoot, resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous decision on November 14, 1960, siding with Gomillion. This case prohibited states from passing laws depriving citizens of the right to vote and was instrumental in the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Gomillion retired from Tuskegee University in 1970 and died in Montgomery, Alabama.
City of Tuskegee, Alabama, Tuskegee University,
Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation
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Marker adjacent to Tuskegee High School
Tuskegee High School
In August of 1963, the United States District Court M. D. Alabama sided with the plaintiff in Lee v. Macon County Board of Education. This pivotal civil rights case involved the integration of, the all-white Tuskegee High School (located on this site) September 2, 1963, thirteen African American students attempted to attend the school on the first day of classes. The Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, ordered the school closed due to “safety concerns." The school reopened a week later. It ultimately closed, permanently, due to white students rapidly withdrawing. Because of these events and others, in March of 1967, a three-judge federal district court issued a blanket order for nation-wide desegregation of schools. The order was upheld later that year in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Wallace v. United States. The Supreme Court case, of which Lee v. Macon County was a part, went on to become a blueprint for school desegregation throughout the United States.
City Of Tuskegee, Tuskegee University,
Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation
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Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church
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Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church
Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church developed out of the Tuskegee Baptist Church, originally organized in 1842. Although both whites and blacks (slaves) initially worshipped at the same location, the white congregants built a new facility in 1858, leaving the blacks to worship in the existing structure. In 1872. the black congregation moved to a new location at Olive Hill, located approximately where the Tuskegee Fire Department now stands. In 1912, they relocated to the present site. Seven years later, 1919, a new facility was constructed and modeled after Tuskegee University's first chapel. Deacon C.H. Evans, head of Tuskegee University's Building Construction Department, along with Tuskegee students built the basic structure, a scaled-down version of the Tuskegee chapel. Mount Olive was remodeled with a brick-veneer and three-story annex in the 1950s. During the civil rights movement, the church held mass meetings for the Tuskegee Civic Association. Many important civil rights pioneers were members and are listed on the reverse.
City of Tuskegee, Alabama, Tuskegee University,
Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation
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Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church
(side 2)
Mt. Olive is the oldest black Missionary Baptist Church in Tuskegee, AL. Churches that grew out of Mt. Olive were Mt. Pleasant (1870), Greater St. Mark (1880), Bethel (1882), and Friendship Missionary Baptist Churches (1902).
Mt. Olives past has been filled with many outstanding pastors, members, and leaders. It is significant to note that Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee University, was among its outstanding members. Mt. Olive's notable members also include: 1963, Detroit Lee, father of Anthony Lee, chief protagonist in pivotal court case Lee vs Macon County Alabama Board of Education 1967, Lucius Amerson, first black Sheriff (Macon County, Alabama) in the South since Reconstruction 1972, Johnny Ford, first black Mayor (Tuskegee, Alabama) 1981. Ora Manning, first black female Interim Superintendent of Macon County, Alabama 1986, Amelia Peterson, first black female appointed City Council member (Tuskegee, Alabama) 1994, Grethelyn Averhart, first black female Chief of Police (Tuskegee, Alabama)
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Area Churches That Hosted Important Civil Rights Meetings
Churches within the African American community played an important role during the civil rights movement. They were places beyond control of white power structure, as well as locations where people could express themselves without reprisal. They represented the freedom civil rights movement participants sought while meeting their congregant's spiritual needs. Churches also served as community bulletin boards. Several area churches hosted important civil rights meetings, like those of the Tuskegee Civic Association. These institutions permitted the use of their auditoriums, grounds, and infrastructure for these meetings without charge. Many important civil rights workers spoke at these churches, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Ralph David Abernathy, and John Lewis. Churches in the area that were instrumental in these meetings included:
Bethel Baptist, Butler Chapel AME Zion, Friendship Baptist, Greater St. Mark Missionary Baptist, Greenwood Missionary Baptist, Mount Olive Missionary Baptist, Solomon Chapel AME Zion, St. Andrew's Episcopal. Washington Chapel AME, Westminster Presbyterian
City of Tuskegee, Alabama, Tuskegee University,
Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation
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Trade With Your Friends
In 1957, local government officials in Tuskegee, Alabama sought to gerrymander the city's limits in an attempt to diminish the number of black votes in upcoming elections. Alabama state senator Sam Engelhardt sponsored Act 140, which transformed Tuskegee's boundaries into a twenty- eight-sided shape. This action disenfranchised the majority of the city's black voters in city elections. On June 25, over 3,000 black citizens met at Butler Chapel AME Zion Church in support of the Tuskegee Civic Association (TCA) and its proposed boycott of white owned businesses. Termed "trade with your friends," the boycott continued for four years until the United States Supreme Court ruled that the State of Alabama had violated the 15th Amendment (Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339 (1960)). The city's boundaries were then returned to their original positions in early 1961. The boycott proved economically devastating for white owned businesses that preferred to go out of business rather than give blacks the right to vote.
City of Tuskegee, Alabama, Tuskegee University,
Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation
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Tuskegee Civic Association
The Tuskegee Civic Association, whose offices were located here, started out of The Men’s Meeting of the 1920s and the Tuskegee Men’s Club of the 1930s. On April 13, 1941, in order to increase its effectiveness and to embrace all segments of the population, the club amended its constitution and changed its name to The Tuskegee Civic Association (TCA). The organization focused on civic education, voter registration, political education, community welfare and economic education. Consequently, due to Tuskegee’s all white city government’s attempt to disenfranchise black voters by gerrymandering the city limits, the TCA decided to initiate a city-wide selective buying campaign (Trade With Your Friends). This prompted an immediate response by State of Alabama officials to begin efforts to suppress it by discouraging and discrediting its members. By the end of July 1957, the state attorney-general (and future governor) John Patterson led multiple raids against the TCA offices. The TCA continued its successful boycott until 1960.
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City of Tuskegee, Alabama, Tuskegee University,
Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation
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Marker located in front of the former Standard Oil Gas Station
Samuel “Sammy” Leamon Younge, Jr.
Samuel "Sammy" Leamon Younge, Jr. (1944-1966), a civil rights and voting rights activist, was the first African American university student killed during the civil rights movement. A Tuskegee native, Younge was attending Tuskegee University when Standard Oil gas station attendant Marvin Segrest shot him as he was attempting to use a whites-only bathroom. He was an active member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and a leader of the Tuskegee Institute Advancement League (TIAL). He participated in the Selma-to-Montgomery Marches, and aided SNCC in voter registration drives in Mississippi in 1965. Along with 40 other civil rights martyrs slain between 1954 and 1968, he is honored on the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. SNCC subsequently joined the anti-war opposition stating: " The murder of Samuel (Younge) in Tuskegee, Alabama, is no different than the murder of peasants in Vietnam, for both (Younge) and the Vietnamese sought, and are seeking, to secure the rights guaranteed them by law."
City of Tuskegee, Alabama, Tuskegee University,
Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation
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Rosa Parks Historical Marker
Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (1913 – 2005) was an iconic activist during the mid twentieth century civil rights movement. Born in Tuskegee, Parks later moved with her mother to Pine Level located near Montgomery, Alabama. She was encouraged by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to challenge Alabama’s segregation laws through passive civil disobedience. On December 1, 1955, with the whites-only section filled, Parks rejected Montgomery bus driver James F. Blake’s demand to give up her seat to a white passenger. Her resistance led to a community-wide bus boycott, which lasted for over a year. When asked about her reluctance to give up her seat, she said that she “was tired of giving in.” The actions of Parks and others led to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama ruling, in Browder v. Gayle,that bus segregation is unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment protections for equal treatment. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually upheld this ruling, on November 13, 1956. Parks’ actions resulted in her receiving a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 and the Medal of Freedom in September 1996.
