The University of Alabama has renamed Graves Hall – named after former Ku Klux Klan member and state Governor Bibb Graves – Lucy-Graves Hall, after the first African American student to attend the university.
The hall was renamed on Thursday, on the 66th anniversary of Autherine Lucy Foster’s enrolment at the university, the school’s newspaper reported. Lucy attended the university for three days before riots and protests led to her suspension, and the school would not see another black student until 1963.
However, Graves’ name remains on the hall. The Democrat served two terms as Alabama’s governor in the 1920s and 1930s. Graves was considered a progressive for his time, and met with opponents of racial segregation, yet had been Grand Cyclops of the Montgomery chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, and enjoyed the Klan’s secret endorsement during his 1926 election campaign.