The Negroes Act The State Vs. The Student:

If a cartoonist wished to exhibit the essentials of the current racial war in Alabama, he would only have to picture the actual scene that took place Tuesday morning, March 8, 1960, at the intersection of Thurman and Jackson streets where the campus of Alabama State College faces the city of Montgomery. On the city side of the street, lined up shoulder to shoulder, stood policemen with their pistols, clubs, cans of tear gas, etc. And behind them for a half block were state and county law enforcement agents with several types of guns and about thirty squad cars, motorcycles, a patrol wagon and a fire truck. High officials were in command.

On the opposite side of the street, the students of Alabama State College stood, some of them, with their books under their arms.

The police had just arrested some thirty odd of the collegians who, with their placards, had gotten about a half block from the campus on the way toward one of their mass meetings that was to be held in a neighborhood church. The police were massed to intercept any further advances of the students who were now pressed back on the campus which was state property. For a short while, the young people watched in grim silence, then burst forth with their s...