Here is a school, almost hidden by the oaks and hills of northwest Huntsville. The school's story has been hidden, too, mainly because no one at St. Joseph's Mission on Sept. 3, 1963, grasped the historical significance of 12 white students enrolling in an all-black Catholic school.
The school, now known as Holy Family, has no records of that day, a morning of high temperatures and higher racial tensions in Alabama. The former students and their parents have little memory of what happened around 8 a.m. that day, when the first white children passed the statue of St. Joseph and entered the brick building that had been built the previous year.
Many blacks say the significance of that day eluded them because they had seen white priests and nuns at the school since it was founded in 1956. Many whites say they were unmoved by St. Joseph's integration because their parents taught them tolerance in a time when there was little in Alabama.
| Continue Mike Marshall's Huntsville Times article "Black, white students learn tolerance back in the 1960s"
posted in articles on September 21, 2003 3:05 AM | t (0)
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