Segregation is not nearly what it used to be at Auburn University, but its memory and lingering effects still haunt its first generation of integrated students.
Willie B. Wyatt Jr. and Anthony Lee, the first African-American students to graduate from Auburn University, came back to The Plains Tuesday, Oct. 1, for the first time since 1964 to remember what it was like, and remind us of where we still need to go.
"This is the first time that I've been back to Auburn," Wyatt said. "This is the first time being back on campus, and the first time I've ever been contacted by a representative of the University to come back and participate in any function. But I am glad to be here, thankful for the experience and I hope you guys get something out of what happened today."
The early days of integration were hectic, with White Flight, a school fire and other acts of terrorism eventually left only those six African-Americans left at Macon County High School, an experience Lee said was instrumental in bringing him to Auburn.
"I really wanted to be the first black undergraduate from Auburn, the first black student to come to Auburn period, but Harold Franklin beat me here," Lee said. "But I still had to persevere, because I knew it was all white, and I thought we needed more opportunities in higher education than just the predominantly black schools in the area."
Wyatt and Lee were accepted late in the summer to Auburn, but denied housing almost immediately, leading them to rent rooms with local businessman Ralph Foster and his wife Jean.
The Fosters, also African-American, provided the young students home-cooked meals, a safe place to sleep and a sense of community during the school year at a time when there were strict lines dividing whites and non-whites, both on campus and off.
"The roads at that time were dangerous," Wyatt said. "When we went to Notasulga as seniors we had U.S. Marshals protection every day for our bus, mainly because of the threats that were in the community and the Ku Klux Klan being a stronghold. Coming to Auburn 20 miles from Tuskegee every day would have been a real problem for us."
Though a segregated past may still linger in Auburn, and though diversity even at the lecture was still something to note, the occasion marks a new chapter of understanding and peace at the University.
"The community really saved us," Wyatt said. "You can't spend your life only in books."
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