On Monday, January 9, 1961, news reports of integration troubles in Georgia captured the attention of anxious white Alabamians. They learned that Hamilton E. Holmes, a sophomore pre-medicine major at Morehouse College in Atlanta, and Charlayne Hunter, a freshman studying journalism at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, were prepared to register for classes at the University of Georgia (UGA). Hunter and Holmes first applied to UGA in the summer of 1959, but the students’ applications had been rejected. Atlanta’s Committee for Cooperative Action (ACCA), a community-based civil rights group, hired lawyers and successfully challenged the university. Under the support of a federal court ruling by Judge William Bootle, the African American students arrived in Athens and readied for class.
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Becoming Alabama:
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