“Without Hysteria or Unnecessary Disturbance”: Desegregation at Spring Hill College, Mobile, Alabama, 1948–1954

Abstract

Spring Hill College is Alabama's oldest institution of higher learning, one year older than the University of Alabama. Founded in 1830 by Michael Portier, the Catholic bishop of Mobile, it has been run by the Jesuits since 1847. When it desegregated in September, 1954, the four-year liberal arts college claimed 1,000 students, including its evening division in downtown Mobile. The desegregation of Spring Hill College (SHC) came just before the increased Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and White Citizens Council activity which led the backlash to the Supreme Court'sBrown v. Board of Educationdecision. Although volumes have been written about resistance to desegregation in the Deep South, almost no published research exists on the peaceful desegregation of white southern colleges, which anticipated and complied with Supreme Court rulings. This essay will place SHC's unique story in the context of the desegregation of higher education in the South and of race relations in Mobile, Alabama, in the decade before massive resistance. It will examine models for desegregation of Catholic colleges before theBrowndecision and, finally, will detail SHC's desegregation as a gradual process that occurred between 1948 and 1954.