The story of how my mother integrated Hicks Memorial is quite an interesting little story to tell. She was staying with my great-grandparents while my grandmother was in Birmingham and then Chicago(where my mother eventually joined her).So, they got the letter in the mail asking if she wanted to stay at the colored school, Autaugaville, or if she wanted to take the opportunity to go to the white school(doesn't that sound like something from some game show....you have the opportunity to win a trip to Hawaii!...mhm). Well, my great-grandfather told her about the letter and asked her what she wanted to do. My mother says she was being sassy and smart and thought she was doing something big, so she told him "I'll go to the white school." That was at the beginning of the summer.

By the end, when it was time for her to go to school, she was reminded that she chose to go to Hicks Memorial. My mother said she had the biggest crying fit and threw herself upon the mercy of her grandfather to please not make her go to that school.Haha. He told her "You made your choice, and it's too late now, so you're gonna have to go." My mother tried to die. Haha! I believe her grandfather was for her what she is for me perhaps...the one who can do everything...even save her from going to the white school. Well, she was highly upset and dissappointed. Haha. Terribly funny. After that one year at Hicks Memorial, my mother then went to St. Michael's on the Northside of Chicago, where she graduated from. It was integrated---not so much Black and white as it was Latino, Black, Polish, Irish, and even Jewish(according to my mother). She also went to school there with my aunts Janice, Joyce, and Barbra, my fathers' sisters.