Lucy Arrives for Hearing: Autherine Lucy (center), 26-year-old black co-ed at the University of Alabama, arrives at U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama today for the hearing of her petition for an order requiring the school to re-admit her to classes. Mrs. Ruby Hurley (right), Regional Secretary for the NAACP, accompanied her. The other woman is unidentified.

Autherine Lucy (October 5, 1929 - present) was the first black student to attend the University of Alabama, in 1956. Her expulsion from the university led to President Oliver Carmichael's resignation.

On recto: typewritten title and date.

Wire photographs were originally transmitted over phonelines, then later, by satellite. They were first used in the early 1920s. Associated Press became a leader with this. After pigment touch-ups, etc., the print is put into a drum (like a drum scanner). The image gets converted into audio tones that are transmitted. The tones are received and beamed onto photo-sensitive paper. Wire photographs are copies without originals---they are hybrid, transmitted objects. (Britt Salvesen, Curator and Department Head, Photography Department, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, March 30-31, 2022)

This object has the following keywords:

• Autherine Lucy
• Autherine Lucy
• Birmingham
• Broken barriers
• Civil Rights Movements
• Desegregation
• Education
• Expulsion
• Female Portraits
• Hearings
• Injustice
• Mrs. Ruby Hurley
• National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
• Racial Discrimination
• Tuscaloosa
• U.S. District Courts
• University of Alabama

• Image Dimensions: 8 1/8 x 5 9/16 in. (20.64 x 14.13 cm) Measured by Hudson, Karen
• Sheet Dimensions: 8 9/16 x 7 in. (21.75 x 17.78 cm) Measured by Hudson, Karen