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Interview With James Hood

James Hood, Judge Constance Baker Motley and Vivian Malone Jones reminisced in Tuscaloosa in 2003. They were celebrating the 40th anniversary of the enrollment of Hood and Jones at the University of Alabama.
Photo courtesy of DruidCityOnline.com.
James Hood, Judge Constance Baker Motley and Vivian Malone Jones reminisced in Tuscaloosa in 2003. They were celebrating the 40th anniversary of the enrollment of Hood and Jones at the University of Alabama.

By Butler Cain, Alabama Public Radio

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wual/local-wual-486212.mp3

Interview With James Hood

Tuscaloosa, AL – Dr. James Hood remembers Vivian Malone Jones, who died Thursday, October 13 in Atlanta.

As African American students trying to integrate the University of Alabama in 1963, Hood and Jones were at the center of a political firestorm.

Former Governor George Wallace made his infamous "stand in the schoolhouse door" to symbolically block their registration.

Hood left the University of Alabama after a few months but returned to earn a Doctorate in 1997. Jones, however, stayed. In 1965, she became the first African American to earn a degree from Alabama.

Dr. Hood spoke with Alabama Public Radio's Butler Cain.

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