Watchman Trivia

In anticipation of next week's blog symposium on Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman, I thought that I'd ask a trivia question related to the new novel.  There are some people and events who're referenced but not named -- I think one of them is a University of Alabama law professor who taught Alabama pleading.  I'm guessing that's based on a real person -- and believe me I have feelers out trying to figure out who that might be.  As yet, no definitive id.  But there's another reference to violence around the attempted integration of the Univeristy of Alabama back in the mid-1950s.  

Here's the passage I'm interested in: 

[Hester speaking] “Didn’t you read about those fancy professors asking those questions in that— that Convocation? Why, they’d’ve let her right in. If it hadn’t been for those fraternity boys. . . .”

[Jean Louise speaking] “Golly, Hester. I’ve been readin’ the wrong newspaper. One I read said the mob was from that tire factory—”

And now a question: what is this tire factory Jean Louise is referring to?  And perhaps you'd like to add who is the young woman who was integrating the University?

The image is the president's mansion at the University, which was a scene of some of the protest against integration.

Comments

[T-N Henderson]

The young woman has to be Autherine Lucy. I knew there were mobs, but didn't realize they were from the Goodyear tire factory (where, coincidentally, James Hood's father was a tractor operator) . . .

[Al Brophy]

You are exactly right, T-N. Nicely done.

I'm excited by the proposals for the Watchman symposium. We'll start posting on Monday. And if any other readers want to join us, we have space. In the meantime, here are some of my preliminary thoughts on the clash of constitutional visions in Watchman:
http://time.com/3967526/watchman-constitutional-conundrum/

[cm]

I think Hood’s father worked in the Goodyear plant in his hometown of Gadsden. I’m wondering if many of the segregationist tire plant employees came from the Tuscaloosa Goodrich plant where Imperial Wizard Bobby Shelton worked.

Fraternity boys were on hand too, even if most students told reporters they came out just to “watch.” Newspapers identified U of A students burning NAACP literature and waving Confederate flags. The college expelled at least one student—pre-law sophomore Leonard Wilson, then president of the West Alabama Citizens’ Council—who rallied crowds against integration and, perhaps more egregiously, the college administration. Some 24 others received (undisclosed) disciplinary action.

It seems that only three people (non-students) were charged with disorderly conduct—and that charge was based on the egging of Emmet Gribbin, chaplain of the church that sits across from Foster Auditorium. The NAACP accused college officials of conspiring with those three men-- and Birmingham truck driver Richard Chambliss--to foment a violent atmosphere that would make integrating the campus a public safety hazard. Chambliss, of course, eventually went to jail for the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing.

[T-N Henderson]

CM - Thanks for the correction! The Chambliss connection is fascinating.