In 1954, Brown vs. Board of Education declared separate public schools for different races unconstitutional. It was more than 10 years later when a Dothan man said he put the reality of the federal ruling to test.
James Britt, 64, said he was one of the first two black students to attend Dothan High School in 1966, which was three years before all of Alabama schools were expected to integrate.
Britt said as far as he knew, he and James Huntington were the first black students who had even tried to be admitted into the high school instead of attending Carver High School in Dothan as other black students had.
Huntington was a sophomore at DHS in 1966. Britt was a senior.
“There was opposition. In fact, there were several dozens of robed Ku Klux Klansmen who showed up opening day. But in my heart I knew I was someone with the nerve to do what others dared not to do, and of course I didn’t expect an open-armed reception,” Britt said.
“I faced a lot of hostility in my first semester there and I transferred back to Carver, where I graduated and went on to George Wallace Junior College. But several other black students began attending Dothan High after then.”
While Britt said he was never physically assaulted at the school, he said his vehicle and his grades suffered some damage throughout the semester he attended.
Britt said the support of his mother, Addie Jewel, was what encouraged him to break the mold of segregation in Dothan’s schools.
Britt said he owned his own barber shop at the age of 17 but knew that greater opportunities would not be afforded to him or his eight siblings unless people took a stand.
“At the time in Dothan it was more or less that blacks and whites could go where they wanted to go and do what they wanted to do, but there were still a lot of places that Jim Crow still had effects, like entrances into restaurants and on buses. I knew that if we could integrate those type facilities, though, then surely we could integrate education,” he said.
Britt shrugs and smiles at the fact that he took even a small part in the transition from segregated schools in the South.
“It’s fulfilling, but nothing that I really did to prove anything more than myself. You discover what you’re made of when you stand up for what you believe,” he said.
“My mother was an excellent role model and Christian woman so we had something to guide us along the way by example. We learned that you believe in yourself, work hard and pay your dues, and then you enjoy the fruits of your labor.”
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