John Carroll High in Birmingham Honors Students Who Integrated School 60 Years Ago

The four John Carroll Trailblazers (Frederick Tyson, Diane Murphy, Madeliene Dobbins, and Robert Smith) sit between the keynote speakers, Former Birmingham Mayor William Bell and Thom Gossom, at the Integration 60th Anniversary Celebration. (Cody D. Short/cshort@al.com)
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By Cody D. Short | cshort@al.com

On Thursday, John Carroll Catholic High School honored the first four Black students who attended the school with a celebration of the 60th anniversary since the school became integrated.

Alabama schools were slow to integrate, after a series of dramatic incidents that shaped Birmingham in 1963. But Catholic schools paved the way for the state’s halting integration efforts.In 1964, Birmingham students Madeliene Humphrey Dobbins, Robert C. Smith, Frederick H. Tyson, and Diane Tucker Murphy, all transferred from the all-Black Immaculata High School to John Carroll.

Today, John Carroll recognizes them as the “Trailblazers.”They attended the previously all-white Catholic school after Archbishop Thomas Toolen ordered local Catholic schools to desegregate.According to Smith, the four Trailblazers were hand picked by the diocese and their parents to integrate John Carroll.

During the celebration, fellow alumni of the school, former Birmingham Mayor William Bell and Thom Gossom, who integrated both John Carroll’s and Auburn University’s football teams, spoke.

“If it wasn’t for these four people, I would not be standing here. If not for the four of you, there would be no me. You made it possible, and I thank all of you,” said Gossom, who began attending the school in 1966.

Bell spoke of a tale of two cities that existed in Birmingham.

Commemorative Plaque of the four John Carroll Trailblazers. (Cody D. Short/cshort@al.com)

“Being the first, being a pioneer, you’re being place under a microscope. You’re being examined from top to bottom. You’re being looked at, dissected, analyzed to make sure that you can beat those challenges that came about,” he said.

At the end of the ceremony, there was an unveiling of a commemorative plaque with pictures of the first four students.

The school also announced the creation of a Trailblazer scholarship for an incoming freshman to John Carroll, and an Endowed Scholarship to support an annual Trailblazers Award for a graduating senior.

John Carroll first opened its doors in Birmingham in 1946 and is currently ran by the school’s first Black principal Ronald Steele.

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