James Hood

Who was James Hood?

James Alexander Hood was one of the first African Americans to enroll at the University of Alabama in 1963 and was made famous when Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked him from enrolling at the all-white university.

On June 11, 1963, in a ceremonial demonstration, Wallace stood in front of the university's Foster Auditorium. Hood arrived to pay his fees, accompanied by Vivian Malone and U.S. Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach. Wallace intended to keep true to his promise of upholding segregation in the state and stopping "integration at the schoolhouse door". As Malone and Hood waited in a car, Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach and a small team of federal marshals confronted Wallace to demand that Malone and Hood be allowed entry by order of the state court and for Wallace to step aside.