The University of Alabama was desegregated as Governor George Wallace stepped aside after defiantly blocking the entrance to an auditorium (pictured).

The University of Alabama is a public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of Alabama is the oldest and largest of the public universities in Alabama as well as the University of Alabama System. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".

Facilities and services such as housing, healthcare, education, employment, and transportation have been systematically separated in the United States based on racial categorizations. Notably, racial segregation in the United States was the legally and/or socially enforced separation of African Americans from whites, as well as the separation of other ethnic minorities from majority communities. While mainly referring to the physical separation and provision of separate facilities, it can also refer to other manifestations such as prohibitions against interracial marriage, and the separation of roles within an institution. The U.S. Armed Forces were formally segregated until 1948, as black units were separated from white units but were still typically led by white officers.

George Corley Wallace Jr. was an American politician who was the 45th and longest-serving governor of Alabama, and the longest-serving governor from the Democratic Party. Wallace is remembered for his staunch segregationist and populist views, although in the late 1970s he moderated his views on race, renouncing his support for segregation. During Wallace's tenure as governor of Alabama, he promoted "industrial development, low taxes, and trade schools." Wallace unsuccessfully sought the United States presidency as a Democrat three times, and once with the American Independent Party, in which he carried five states in the 1968 election. Wallace opposed desegregation and supported the policies of "Jim Crow" during the Civil Rights Movement, declaring in his 1963 inaugural address that he stood for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever."