Charlayne Hunter-Gault and UGA history

Today I watched Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates on Public TV and Charlayne Hunter- Gault was one of the guests. As she traced her family history back to slavery time and beyond, I remembered when I was a junior at the University of Georgia and my sister was a freshman. Charlayne entered that year and she was the first black woman admitted to the college.She and a young man who had attended her high school in Atlanta, Hamilton Holmes, wanted to go to the best school for journalism so they applied to the University of Georgia. They were turned down. Still they would not give up. When they were backed by civil rights organizations they had clout behind them. A judge ruled that they were qualified and had the right to attend this school.

Looking at her tonight on this show and thinking about taunts, the horrible words said to her and all she endured to break the racial barriers of discrimination back in the sixties, I am glad I experienced the turmoil, was there to see first hand how people reacted.

The first night she stayed on campus, people from the town of Athens and elsewhere came and rioted around the freshman dorm where my sister also lived. I was so scared for all the girls in that dorm. I don't think Charlayne was still there as the windows were pelted with rocks and bottles. I imagine she had been whisked away and taken back to her home in Atlanta. What an ugly part of history that was!

"Hunter and Holmes arrived on the UGA campus on January 9, 1961, to register for classes. The new students were met with taunts and racial epithets. Two days later, after a basketball game, a crowd gathered outside Hunter's dormitory, smashing windows with bottles and bricks. The mob was finally dispersed by Athens police armed with tear gas. That night the Georgia State Patrol escorted the students back to their homes in Atlanta, and the University of Georgia suspended both Hunter and Holmes, supposedly for their own safety.

Hunter and Holmes at UGA

Days later, after a new court order was issued, the students returned to campus and resumed their classes. As the writer Calvin Trillin noted in his account of their experience, Hunter "attracted much more attention than Hamilton," who lived off campus and went home on weekends. Hunter was sometimes met with animosity from students who jeered at her while she crossed campus, but she formed several friendships, including one with Walter Stovall, a fellow journalism student. They married in 1961, had a daughter, and divorced a few years later."

I have a good friend who knew Walter Stovall and his family. She told me that his family disowned him when he married Charlayne Hunter. He was from a small town in South Georgia, like me, and his family must have been shocked and dismayed that he married a black girl. If they had not disowned him, they would have been ostracized by the community or maybe worse. Racism was huge in the area back then, and I am sorry to say, it still raises its ugly head today. My sister and I heard from the narrow minded people in our town simply because of an innocent comment made by my sister to a newspaper man who twisted her words when he printed what she said in answer to his question about Hunter going to school there.

I was young and never thought about what the future held for this brave young pioneer of the civil rights movement, but Charlayne was intelligent and proved herself even in high school. She evidently knew what she wanted for her career and went after it. I am happy that she has been successful as a journalist in this country and abroad. It was wrong to try to bar her from an education at the university. I think most people in the south realize that today. 

In spite of her difficulties at UGA, in 1988, she was the first black person to give a commencement address at the school.

You can read more about Charlayne Hunter-Gault and her accomplishments in life here. 

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