Autherine Lucy Hall

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Autherine Lucy Hall, formerly Bibb Graves Hall and, briefly, Lucy-Graves Hall, is a 3-story brick-clad academic building which houses the University of Alabama College of Education at the corner of University Boulevard and Colonial Drive on the west side of The Quad, at the heart of the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa.

The 60,000 square-foot building was constructed in 1929 in order to house the College of Education. Professors John Rankin McLure and Ralph Cowart worked closely with architects Warren, Knight & Davis to design the building. The classically-styled facade, facing into the corner, is dressed with 6 full-height Ionic columns supporting a rectangular attic. At McLure's suggestion, a quotation from the 1787 "Northwest Ordinance" was inscribed on the attic panel: "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

The ground-level entrance breaks the pedestal base of the projecting portico. Rectangular pilasters carry the continuous entablature and divide the south and east facades into tall bays. The windows are capped by flat brick arches with projecting limestone keystones. Ground was broken in 1928. The project included an underground tunnel connecting the new building to the adjacent McLure Library, completed three years earlier.

The education building, dedicated on June 21, 1929 was originally named in honor of then-Governor Bibb Graves, who during his first term more than doubled the state's education budget to $25 million, and added a Division of Negro Education to oversee the operation of schools for Black students.

The north ell of the building was extended in 1939 with a square wing containing an auditorium. A major interior renovation was completed by Golden Construction in 2007.

On February 3, 2022 the University of Alabama Board of Trustees approved a recommendation from a committee to rename the building Lucy-Graves Hall, adding the name of Autherine Lucy Foster, whose admittance into the College of Education marked the official desegregation of the University in 1956. The decision was announced on the 66th anniversary of her enrollment.

Shortly after Lucy started classes, white students rioted across the campus and she was forced to shelter in the tunnel connecting the education building and library. On her third day of classes Lucy was suspended on the grounds that the school could not provide a safe environment, and she was later formally expelled for allegedly slandering the University. Her expulsion was overturned in 1988 and she returned to complete her master's degree in elementary education in 1992. The university added a historical marker outside the building honoring her in 2017. She was awarded an honorary doctorate two years later.

The choice to pair Lucy's name with Graves' prompted an immediate backlash. John England Jr, a former trustee who chaired the committee on names, admitted that it had been difficult to weigh the merits of Graves' record as a supporter of education with his former position as a leader of the Montgomery Ku Klux Klan. He said that Foster's family had been consulted during the process. The Crimson White criticized the move as, "a cowardly compromise that presents the illusion of forward momentum while clinging to a racist past." During a special meeting on February 11, the Trustees changed their decision and voted unanimously to re-name the building "Autherine Lucy Hall".

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