Sixty years ago this week, Vivian Malone Jones and James Hood became the first Black students to successfully enroll in courses at the University of Alabama.

Starting Sunday, June 11, the university will host a series of public events commemorating the 60th anniversary of their enrollment – a day that officials say “changed Alabama and the nation” and marked the beginning of desegregation efforts throughout the state.

Tell us — do you have a memory about desegregating an Alabama school or university in 1963? Email [email protected] to share your story.

On June 11, 1963, the two students, accompanied by a motorcade of federal marshals, arrived at Foster Auditorium, where they intended to register for classes. Blocking the way was Former Gov. George Wallace, who, just five months earlier, promised Alabamians that he would uphold segregation at all costs.

“By attending the University of Alabama, I had the privilege of representing all those who fought for simple justice,” Malone Jones said in a commencement speech in 2000, recalling the infamous Stand at the Schoolhouse Door.

Malone Jones’ and Hood’s enrollment came nearly a decade after a Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case that ruled school segregation unconstitutional. Throughout that time, other Black students attempted to integrate the University of Alabama, but none were successful.

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Autherine Lucy Foster and Polly Anne Myers first sought admission to the university in 1952. After a three-year legal battle, officials admitted Lucy Foster but rejected Myers on the grounds that she had a child before marriage.

Lucy Foster attended her first classes at the university on Feb. 3, 1956, a Friday. The following Monday, violent white mobs rioted outside the education building where she attended class, and pelted her with eggs and death threats as she escaped, face-down in a patrol car, to the safety of a nearby barbershop.

Officials expelled her that night, claiming it was for her own safety.

Read more: Autherine Lucy Foster, first Black student at University of Alabama, remembered before funeral

Malone Jones, a Mobile native, became the first Black student to graduate from the University of Alabama in 1965, earning her bachelor’s degree in business management. She later went on to become the director of civil rights, urban affairs and environmental justice for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency before retiring in 1996.

In 2000, she was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters from UA. Malone Jones died in 2005.

Hood left the university after only two months and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree at Wayne State University in Michigan, and a master’s degree from Michigan State University. He worked at Madison Area Technical College in Wisconsin for 26 years, retiring in 2002 as chairman of public safety services in charge of police and fire training.

Hood returned to Tuscaloosa in 1995 and earned a doctorate in interdisciplinary studies in 1997. He retired to Gadsden and died in January 2013 at the age of 70.

The University of Alabama dedicated a clock tower and plaza located near Foster Auditorium to Malone Jones, Hood, and Lucy Foster in 2010.

This weekend, the university will hold an observance at 213 Bryant Conference Center on June 11 at 11:30 a.m. The School of Music was scheduled to hold a concert that evening at 6 p.m. at Denny Chimes, but will postpone the event due to inclement weather.

On June 12, the film “Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment” documenting the events of June 11, 1963, will be shown at 1:30 p.m. in Foster Auditorium. John Giggie, director of the UA Summersell Center for the Study of the South, will lead a discussion following the film.

More events commemorating the 60th anniversary will be held throughout the year and will be announced at later dates.