(tranquil uplifting music) - [Narrator] Two men found themselves in an unlikely meeting on July 11th, 1963.

One was young, and the other much older.

Little did they know that soon they would be making history together.

(uplifting music continues) There's an area in Northwest Alabama that includes four cities, Florence, Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia.

Together, the area is known as the Shoals.

At first glance, these cities may look like typical small southern towns, but they are far from it.

Tuscumbia was the home of Helen Keller.

Frank Lloyd Wright built a home in Florence in the 1930s.

Florence was also the birthplace of W.C.

Handy, the father of the blues, and music became a stronghold of the area.

(cheerful guitar music) Fame Recording Studio was founded in 1959, and since then, huge stars have recorded in Muscle Shoals, including the Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Percy Sledge, Paul Simon, the Allman Brothers, Etta James, Wilson Pickett, Bob Dylan, and the list goes on and on.

- I grew up in Sheffield, over in Colbert County, went to Muscle Shoals High School, went to church in Tuscumbia, went to elementary school in Florence.

So I do feel like I'm a product of the Shoals.

Growing up, I had relationships with people that were different, different socioeconomic backgrounds, different races, different political affiliations.

I spent the night at their house, they spent the night at my house.

We played sports together.

We were in class together.

So I don't know if it's just the size of the Shoals and maybe the four communities kind of being distinct, but still very close.

I think this is really pretty unusual and pretty unique.

- Loved growing up in Florence, Alabama.

Was very proud of it.

Grew up in a lovely family.

My father had a couple of businesses on the main street, a lady's clothing and shoe store called The Bootery, and across the street, a children's and family shoe store called Kayes because no one could pronounce Klibanoff.

It was the very top of North Alabama.

And if I say looking down on the state, I mean looking south on the state, although many people though we up there were looking down on the rest of the state, which we weren't.

But we did have a view of the rest of the state and knew that we were very different, in a good way.

- I was raised on the north side of Florence, what is called North Florence.

And when I was six years old, my father had a house built in North Florence, Indiana Avenue, and we were one of the first Black families to move into this all-white neighborhood.

And being six, I didn't know anything about segregation, anything like that.

And we had the white kids still living there, girls and boys, and we were playing with them.

We didn't have no complications, no problems.

I never knew anything about that kind of stuff until you go downtown and go into a store, like a restaurant.

We could order food, but we couldn't sit down, and I thought that was the way it's supposed to be.

- I never though about segregation, although I read a lot.

We seemed to live a different life than what's in the book.

I put it that way.

We could go into any store.

We could try on any clothes.

They didn't have a separate room for us to try on shoes.

It seemed like the people were always cordial.

- This area was better than other areas.

We didn't have the fallout in Florence, Sheffield, Tuscumbia and Muscle Shoals like they did in Mississippi with James Meredith, and I think it was because the leaders, the Black leaders had laid the groundwork for cooperation.

- My own surmise is that it was different because of its history, it was different because of its economy.

The politics of Alabama, going back almost to its beginning in 1819, was a competition between South Alabama large landowners, the plantation owners as they became, and the dirt farmers of North Alabama.

And this was a competition that later on involved the question of race, because it was most of the Black folks in Alabama were the descendants of slaves, and most of the slaves were in the Black belt and in South Alabama.

So I think all of that, it meant that there was a different view about race, race relations, and about what democracy should be.

- Our Shoals community is a little different.

I mean, I've always thought, while we have conservative values, we're progressive when it comes to what I call doing the right thing.

(bright uplifting music) - [Narrator] The Shoals is also home to a legendary institution of higher education.

- We're the oldest four-year university in the state of Alabama, dating our history back to 1830.

Started as La Grange College on the other side of the Tennessee River in what's modern day Colbert County, and the college was there for about 25 years.

And then Florence was able to recruit the college to move it across the river.

And we've been through eight name changes in our 195-year history.

We know the date the college started, January 11th, 1830, and every year, we celebrate Founders Day on January 11th.

And this past January was very special because it brings us into our five-year run up to our bicentennial, and there's very few colleges or universities in the whole country that have celebrated a bicentennial, so that's huge.

(bright uplifting music continues) I began my work as president here in 2015, and had the opportunity to meet Wendell Gunn as a well-known alumnus of the university within my first year.

- I grew up in Tuscumbia, about seven miles from here.

My mom was the whirlwind that kept the family going, made sure that we all learned how to work.

I spent time in the cotton field, chopping cotton for three cents an hour.

We all grew up learning how to work, even as kids.

But I wasn't good at farm work because I knew that this was not gonna be my future.

I was working hard to get out of the cotton field.

- I knew Wendell and his siblings as children because I lived right around the corner and we walked to church together.

I grew up in this church, and Wendell and his family grew up in this church.

It had a great influence on Wendell's life and my life.

Wendell's parents were members of this congregation, the High Street Church of Christ.

Wendell's mother was a great leader here with my mother.

They started the ladies Bible class.

Wendell's father was a leader here.

He broke ground with other members for the building of this new church.

But it was from this platform and the home of Wendell Gunn that he developed his ideas.

And I describe it as his home, as my home, and this church were what the gymnasium is to the fighter.

These are the places where we were trained to compete, complete and compare with the other people of the world.

- My mother wanted me to be a preacher.

If mom had been a man, she would've been a preacher.

Finally, I decided that I would go to a church school that trained young preachers, Nashville Christian Institute.

I went there in the 10th grade.

My brother, who was three years older, went to Tennessee State.

So my big brother and I were in Nashville at the same time, and I did preach.

But mainly what I did while I was at Nashville Christian Institute was I used to go around to small churches around Nashville to teach music to the congregation, 'cause all the singing in our church was acapella, no musical instrument.

And I taught them to read music and to sing, 'cause this is something I've been doing all my life.

And so, after my brother graduated, then I graduated.

I graduated from Nashville Christian Institute.

I was in Nashville, so I applied to Tennessee State also, basically just following my brother.

(tranquil piano music) - [Narrator] Another important figure in this story is Dr.

E.B.

Norton.

Dr.

Norton was president of the school from 1948 until 1972.

- I'm a student of history, and so, I can speak reasonably well to most of the presidents here at the university, at least for the last half century, and President Norton really stands out.

- He was a very moral person, but he was also a man of the world.

He was a politician.

He ran a large public institution.

He ran it like a businessman.

He greatly expanded Florence State.

He turned it into a university.

He greatly improved and expanded the infrastructure.

He did it all under budget, on time, and I found that very interesting.

- He was the son of a Methodist minister, as I was, the daughter of a Methodist minister.

So I had a lot of respect for him just because I knew his heritage.

- Dr.

Norton, in my opinion, was a quiet man.

He knew his students.

You would see him walking around the campus and he would know your name, which, I mean, is just a miracle because I don't think most presidents of colleges and university know their students' name.

They might know the football players, but they don't know regular students.

But he did, he did.

He walked around.

He would stop and talk to you to ask how things were going.

And if you needed anything, he would let you know you could come to him and tell him what your problem was.

So in that he was a great man.

- He was the kindest, most gentle, most levelheaded, loving person you'd ever wanna know.

Most people called him Dr.

Norton, but I never heard him refer to himself using the doctor.

He just introduced himself as E.B.

Norton.

To his family and close friends, he was Albert.

To his nephews and nieces, he was Uncle Albert.

To me, he was just Daddy.

- He led this university with grace, with skill, during a very interesting time in the nation's history.

- This is what happened as Nicholas Katzenbach, accompanied by two federal marshals, left their car and approached Governor Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door.

(Nicholas drowned out by background noise) - [Nicholas] I have the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, and I have with me here a proclamation signed by the President of the United States, called upon you to cease destruction of justice in this state.

(suspenseful music) - So 1963 is a huge year in Alabama.

We're seized up in the state over the issues of desegregation, and Florence just didn't make the headlines because we were not a point of contention.

- I think the reason nothing was done about it, it wasn't such a big thing, if we integrate the University of Alabama, or Ole Miss, or Georgia Tech, the politicians wanna become involved, and the two sides, the segregationists and the integrate, they wanna... At Florence State, nobody cared.

It's just a little college up in a little town.

- A couple of months after George Wallace has stood in the door down in Tuscaloosa, so I said, "Maybe that settled it for the state schools."

- Growing up, first eight years of my life, I spent a lot of time in the president's home at Florence State University, what is now UNA, until E.B.

retired in 1972.

- He was president here for a long time, and he had a sterling reputation when he became president.

- His first teaching job was at a little town called Pike Roads, little rural school, and that's where he met Mother.

- And he was an all-purpose mathematics, science teacher.

He coached basketball, football, baseball.

He was the coach.

And from there, he just excelled and he moved upwards and he moved into administration.

- Then he became the county superintendent of education in Andalusia.

- He was the last elected state superintendent of education in Alabama.

He was elected in 1936, and thereafter it became an appointed position.

- His opponent said that E.B.

Norton claimed to have been born in every city in North Alabama, and Daddy would say, "No, but as the son of a Methodist preacher, I lived in a lot of cities."

When daddy went to Japan, I was five years old, and I knew that my daddy was in Japan, but I didn't know where that was, and I knew it had something to do with the war and I wasn't too sure what that was.

He was now state superintendent of education and was sent on an education mission requested by General MacArthur of 25 educators that went to Japan to help modernize the school system.

- He was a deputy commissioner of education for the United States Education Commission, which was the forerunner of what we now know as the Department of Education.

- When I was in the second grade there in Virginia, the teacher discovered that most of the children didn't know what their daddies did for a living.

So our assignment one weekend was to find out what your daddy did and be ready to tell us about it on Monday.

So the other kids got up and said things like, "My daddy drives a truck and he delivers groceries."

"My daddy's a doctor and he helps sick people."

"My daddy works at a bank, he helps people."

I got up and I said, "My daddy is the Executive Secretary of the National Council of Chief State School Officers."

And I'm in second grade and it took me all weekend to learn to say that.

And when the teacher questioned me, "What did you say?"

I though I'd said it wrong, so I said it again real fast and jumbled up, "He's the Executive Secretary of the National Council of Chief State School Officers."

She said, "Well, what does he do?"

"I don't know.

He's the Executive Secretary of the National Council."

And I still don't know what he did, and this has been 75 years later.

I still don't know what he did.

- And he served in that role for four years, until he resigned and came back to Florence and became president of what was then Florence State Teachers College.

(bright uplifting music) (bright uplifting music continues) - Inertia kept me in Nashville, and I went to Tennessee State, and I worked while I was there.

I always worked.

I never not worked while I was going to school.

(uplifting music) I worked for a catering service.

The service provided pies to restaurants all around Nashville, and I used to drive to deliver those pies early in the morning before it was time to go to class, but I was always working.

I haven't told you about how I survived when I was in Nashville.

Sometimes I didn't have a place to stay, but I was always going to class.

When the weather was warm, I slept in the park sometimes, but I showed up for class.

My mom and my family never knew anything about that.

Even my sister, who I'm very close to, just learned about that part of it a few days ago, that I actually was still a full-time student, but without a place to stay.

Summer of '63, my summer ended.

I was out driving and wondering what I'm gonna do this fall because I know I'm going back to college, but I didn't feel like I had quite enough money to go back.

I came by down Irvine Avenue, saw a friend of mine sitting on the porch.

- I was sitting on the porch and he saw me.

He went two houses down, decided to back up and talk to me.

- We just talked for a while, and we went inside, and on the coffee table, there was a yearbook from Florence State College.

- My mother brought it home from work.

She works at Florence State.

I said, "She's never bought one home before".

- And I just thumbed through the book and I said, "Well, this used to be Florence State Teachers College, but now it's a liberal arts school, and they've got chemistry and math," and that's what I wanted to try.

I said, "I think I'll go over there and see if I can get a catalog to see what they offer in my field."

- He had been in college up in Nashville for a couple of years, so he was a transfer student.

And by his own admission, he was out of money, because up there he was having to pay room and board.

If he's going to school here, he can live in Tuscumbia and drive across the river every day.

- Went to the registrar's office and said, "I'd like a catalog and an application."

And the young lady said, "For whom?"

(soft tense music) And I said, "For me."

She disappeared into the back room.

- [Narrator] After talking with several different people, each one moving him up to the next administrative level, Wendell ended up in President E.B.

Norton's office.

The story from there is fascinating.

- At the time, under state law, Wendell's admission, or application for admission, could not be considered by the university.

President Norton obviously wanted to see that changed, but he was president of a state university and having to operate under state law.

And so, he counsels Wendell.

"Young man, I'm unable to send your application forward under current state law unless there's a lawsuit, and here's how you do it," (laughs) and it was brilliant.

- It was a real act of courage.

Three days after the governor finally stepped away after his stand in the schoolhouse door, the University of Alabama in Huntsville had its first Black student.

So there was a precedent for that happening.

It was by court order.

And so, the whole notion of, well, if we can get a court order and I'm served with it, then it can happen.

- Ms.

Mattie Gunn knew a lawyer named Fred Gray, who was on the board at Nashville Christian Institute, civil rights lawyer in Alabama, the lawyer for Martin Luther King, the lawyer for Rosa Parks, and Ms.

Mattie Gunn knew this man.

- The big case in Alabama for school desegregation was called Lee versus Macon, Macon County School Board, and it was the big case because Fred Gray and the NAACP lawyers who worked with him went before the legendary Judge Frank Johnson of Winston County and said, "We are going to try to desegregate in one lawsuit every school in Alabama."

- The case of Lee v. Macon did a lot more for Blacks and whites.

I didn't start out trying to get a statewide order.

But when the court did what it did in this case, then it gave me an opportunity to say, "If you can do it with that, then you can do it to wipe the whole thing out."

- They were able to consolidate a case in which virtually all the school districts of Alabama were in one case, they could monitor them all through the Justice Department and through others, and they were able to speed up, in some places, mostly North Alabama, the whole process of desegregation.

It was a brilliant strategy, and it was one which happened in no other Southern state.

- After Gunn's conversation with the president, he sent a letter to Gunn, telling him in the letter that neither the governor of the state, the State Board of Education, neither superintendent of education, had authorized him as president of Florence State to accept Blacks.

So you have a clear cut case of the school's highest official saying that he didn't accept Gunn because of his race.

- I filed the application and things got stranger after my mom and I came over here and had a meeting with Dr.

Norton.

First I had told him that I had asked for my transcript from Tennessee State and he said, "Oh, we got your transcript yesterday.

If you want, we'll have somebody make a copy and give it to you and you use that to file your suit."

I said, "Why is he helping me?"

(laughs) - Dr.

Norton had a good reason to think that the judge was gonna make a pretty quick order of it.

And truth is, if you look at when the case was filed by Fred Gray, you would ordinarily have expected that that case would linger on the docket of a federal court for some time.

It was only a matter of weeks before Judge Grooms ordered the desegregation and ordered the admission.

- President Norton didn't break the law.

He operated within the law to help Wendell, to help his university that he loved very much, a university that he realized needed to change, and to do it all in a manner that kept the peace, and kept the harmony and kept the organization moving ahead, and that's leadership well-defined.

- The fact is, the federal judge, Judge Grooms, who ordered that Florence State admit its first Black student was the same judge who ordered the University of Alabama in Huntsville to admit its first Black student.

He was also the federal judge who had ordered that the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa accept its first two Black students, and go as far back as 1955 when Autherine Lucy attempted to integrate the University of Alabama and had to be turned away because of student and outsider riots.

So Dr.

Norton had a good reason to think that the judge was gonna make a pretty quick order of it.

- It was a matter of economics to Gunn, not a matter of desegregating the school.

But when he got the letter, got it to me, sent it to me, I filed a lawsuit, attached a copy of that letter to it, and in a hearing that lasted all of about 20 minutes in federal court in Birmingham, the court entered an order directing that he be admitted to Florence State, and that was the beginning of his experience there.

I said many times, it was probably the easiest case I'd had because of the letter that the president wrote.

- The real testament to President Norton's leadership is not only that he was able to affect a path through which Wendell could be admitted to the university, but then he made sure that Wendell's matriculation here was successful.

And you look at so many of the other campuses across the country that went through desegregation struggles, and so many of the first students didn't stay long, or they didn't stay to graduate because there was so much trouble and friction on campus.

And I don't wanna sugarcoat it.

It was a difficult era, and Wendell can speak to that very well.

There were threats in the larger community, and there was certainly a sense of isolation.

But at the same time, I think it's abundantly clear that Wendell's overall experience here was infinitely better.

(bright uplifting music) - When Wendell got accepted to UNA, they told him that he could not park his car on campus because they were afraid that somebody would do something to his car.

My dad had a taxi company.

Dad told Wendell, "You can park your car behind the cab station and get in a cab.

They take you on campus where you want to be, and you would tell them what time to pick you up and where to pick you up at," and that's what he did.

- The Haney Cab Company took him or gave him a ride over there.

But what you may not know is they took different routes every day.

They took a different route to the school for his safety, so nobody could say, "We'll get out there, we'll get him on the way down."

- Daddy told the faculty and staff before registration, "If you are in charge of any group of students on this campus of two or more, you call my secretary and get it on schedule.

I want to meet with every student that I can."

And he said he talked to the football team, and the baseball team, and the basketball team, and he talked to the band, and the choir, and the journalism department, and the people that worked in the dining hall, the proctors at the, everybody, and some of 'em were in three or four of those groups.

But he more or less told 'em, "We will have a Black student on campus, we will have no problems.

You don't have to like him, you don't have to speak to him.

But if you do, it will be with respect and not in an jeering manner.

And if there's any kind of problem, any kind of problem, he is not the one that will be sent home.

You're dismissed," and that was the end of it.

- When Wendell first applied, I remember Wendell sitting in the front yard of my daddy's home and just common people, just workers, passed by and saw Wendell sitting there with my father and they were discussing education and going to Florence State.

And these men yelled out, "Go on, Wilkie, we're behind you," and that was the feeling of the community, unafraid.

Marshall Gunn received telephone calls about him going to the University of North Alabama, which was then Florence State.

Marshall, a brave man said, answered the phone, said, "My name is Marshall Gunn.

What is your name?

If you're not willing to give me your name, don't call me anymore."

But the crux of it, we were afraid for Wendell, but we were not afraid for ourselves.

And his mother was fired from her job as a cook because Wendell had applied to Florence State.

- She was a chef, but without the credential.

She could taste something and tell you all of the ingredients and seasonings in it, and duplicate it.

And she was in great demand as a cook.

And she was working at this restaurant.

Turns out that the customers in the restaurant knew that my mama was the cook there, and they complained to Mr.

Flagger, and finally he had to give in and come to mom and say, "Well, Mattie, I've gotta let you go.

My customers are having a problem with this."

And so, he fired her.

She got a job at another restaurant.

And pretty soon, all those customers were over there because they were following good food.

She was never out of work.

(uplifting music) - Florence State College was a very unique place.

I transferred there from another school, so I actually played football five years.

That was enough to last me for a lifetime.

But I really was fortunate to get to play ball and earn my degree playing ball.

I have a degree in chemistry and biology.

Wound up selling insurance with that degree.

Dr.

Norton was a very unique individual.

He was a quiet gentleman, best I remember.

But when he spoke to you, he demanded attention.

I shall never forget, I learned a very important lesson from him.

He came to our football team and rather than say, "I'm the president of the college and you're gonna do this," his first words were, "Gentlemen, I need your help."

- Norton assembled the football team and said, "I got this court order and Wendell is coming, and I want you to see to it that nothing happens to embarrass this college."

In other words, he was telling them to organize themselves to be on the lookout for somebody that would do something that would embarrass the school.

- From then on, that was the way it was.

- One day when I was walking on the campus down through the amphitheater, I did hear somebody shout something.

It didn't sound pleasant.

- Some fellow hollered a racial slur from across the street.

- My strategy was just to ignore, because if I react to it, then I have to react to it.

But my best bet is just to go on about my business and not react.

- So Big Tackle said, "Come on," and we grabbed this young man under each arm and helped him across the street rather unceremoniously and put him against the bank there and said, and I still remember the words, this boy got right in his face, said, "Listen here, boy, we don't do things like that around here."

And "Yes, sir," was a term I remember him saying.

And to my knowledge, that was the only incident that I ever saw.

- And I think that goes right back to President Norton's leadership where he set a tone for how this would be handled with the campus community, and he insisted that everyone was going to treat this matter with greatest respect.

And so, within about a year, the campus had kinda gotten over the shock and acclimated, and Wendell was getting over his own shock and beginning to enter the mainstream of student life.

And the best testament to all of this is that he chose to stay.

- The bad part about it, I was in chemistry and biology and he messed up the curve.

He made A's in organic chemistry and physics all in the same semester.

That was impossible.

So we had a term for him, he was bad smart.

(laughs) - He was good.

Nothing but A's.

And he took all the hard subjects, nothing but A's.

And he could sing, he could play the piano, and he could do a lot of marvelous things.

(bright uplifting music) - Toward the end of my first year, there was something called Honors Day where different people, the best student and this, that and the other, and that's what happened.

And I was sitting in the audience and he announced the Physics Achievement Award.

I didn't even know it existed, but he described it and I just wondered who, because I didn't know anybody else in the class.

And he called my name and it shocked me, and the shock showed.

I was suppose to stand up to go get it.

And the rest of the students and faculties out here at these amphitheater outside, they started immediately to applaud.

And within a few seconds, they were all on their feet, cheering and applauding.

And I lost it.

I lost it.

I cried.

(laughs) I cried because this is just unbelievable.

- After the event, people were coming up to him and speaking to him.

He was standing on the sidewalk in front of the amphitheater and a lot of students came and spoke to him.

- Students and faculty gathered around me to congratulate me.

- I forget about this 'cause I came along later, but our white students didn't really quite know how to act either, and he thought they didn't like him at first.

And then later, all the other students cheered and clapped, and he said it brought him to tears.

He said it was then that he realized they were as in unfamiliar territory as he was, but they then accepted him and he knew that these barriers could come down.

- I concluded that, when they weren't talking to me during the months coming up to that, it wasn't because they really wished I was someplace else, but they didn't know what to say to me and I didn't know what to say.

But this just gave 'em a chance to say hello, or welcome, or something.

But I just lost it.

- I think it was just part of the daily process of living that people accepted him and he was just part of the student body.

- My life on the campus turned around in that moment.

The way I expressed it, I said, "Maybe not everybody white is out to get me."

(laughs) But that was an understatement.

But I'll never forget that.

I feel the same emotion right now that I felt when they shocked me with that standing ovation.

- And it's cathartic for Wendell, it's cathartic for the university, but what a great story, and then what Wendell does beyond the university.

The university prepared him extraordinarily well for his career.

- I was convinced that within a few years, the difference between Black and white would be no more significant than the difference between tall, short, and so forth, that it would be irrelevant.

(tranquil uplifting music) When I graduated, I went to work at Tennessee River Pulp & Company.

Then I went to Chicago and I worked for Nalco Chemical Company.

After Nalco Chemical Company, I quit and went full-time at the University of Chicago, where I got my MBA, and I graduated there in 1971, and I was recruited from there to Chase Manhattan Bank and I became a corporate lending officer there.

After that, I went to work at the White House.

- He had done some good work on a trade project, and probably because it was so precise, Wendell's name was mentioned early as someone that they wanted to be in the White House.

- When Reagan's transition team was put together, they kept calling me to ask me to come and join the administration.

I said, "No, I have no interest in the government, not at all."

Then one day, a guy who had tried to hire me in the private sector became his chief policy guy, and he called me and said, "Come down, let's talk about it."

I said, "Okay, I've never seen the inside of the White House, but the answer was no."

And I went and we met all the senior staff in the White House.

At the end of the day, I said, "Well, that was good.

See you later.

Answer's still no.

They said, "Well, we're at this point," walked me down the hall on the way out and into the Oval Office where the president was sitting at his desk.

The president got up, came around and said, "Welcome aboard," reached and got my hand.

And I said, "I know they pulled this trick before, but what could I do?"

The leader of the free world said, "Welcome aboard."

And in that moment I though, I said, "I don't care who the president is.

This is my country, and there's gonna be stuff going on in here that matters to the people I care about, and I've been asked to be in the fray."

All of this went (whooshing) and I said, "Thank you, sir."

And I turned to the guy who brought me in there and said, "You're a dead man."

(laughs) And so I became the Special Assistant the President for International Trade Policy.

- Getting to visit the White House while my dad was working for the Reagan administration was a really special experience.

I was about 14 years old at the time.

My brother and sister I think were eight and six.

So we were all very young, and we were thrilled to be going.

We got to go visit dad's office in the old executive office building.

Then we got ushered through the halls.

In the hallways, we met George Bush, who was the vice president at the time.

Then we got ushered through a few more halls and got brought into the Oval Office, and President Reagan was standing there and we got to meet him up close.

And I do remember one thing that struck me was how light his eyes were.

And he just had this great smile.

And he gave my sister a jar of jelly beans 'cause that was one of his favorite treats.

And it went really quickly, but it was just a thrilling experience.

And to see my dad standing there next to him was pretty great.

(uplifting music) - In addition to being famous for what he did here in 1963, Wendell Gunn is a national figure for what he did post-graduation, and President Norton's there at every point along the way, sending him notes of encouragement, opening doors.

So the leadership that we saw from President Norton during his entry continues for years after Wendell Gunn walks across the stage.

- Well, you know, after I graduated and pursued my career, every so often I'd get a promotion somewhere or job, I'd get a letter from him, handwritten.

He heard about it, and telling me how proud he was of me.

I never wrote him back, but it happened a number of times during that time.

And I wish I had saved those, and I wish I had written back to him.

I wish I had gone back to visit him, but I didn't.

(bright uplifting music) - [Narrator] Wendell Gunn has had an amazing career, with many personal accomplishments in finance, science, business, and politics.

In 2017, UNA awarded him an honorary doctorate, and the following year, the university named its commons building in honor of him.

- Wendell Gunn, of his own right, did great things at the university, was at the right place at the right time.

And by renaming that building, which Wendell said, "I really don't want that," I said, "But, Wendell, think what a great message this will send, that we are an inclusive university, that we do have the ability to change," knowing that we needed to open up, we needed to break these walls down for our African-American students at the time, and that led to Wendell agreeing to let us name the building.

- We had him speak for the commemoration of this building.

(uplifting music continues) When that event happened, I guess it gave a small group of us on the board enough of a personal connection to him to start getting excited about the fact that maybe we could get Wendell to serve on the board.

- I wanna thank President Kitts and the trustee members for allowing me the opportunity to stop in and recognize someone whose life testimony and example has left a lasting impact on the city of Florence.

One of my favorite honors as mayor is recognizing individuals who have made a difference in our community, and today I'd like to honor my friend, Wendell Gunn.

I'd ask him to step up, and you can't say no.

(attendees laughing) Today, as our honorary citizen and city ambassador, this key symbolizes the bestowal of the public's trust and the gratitude for your many, many contributions to both UNA and the Florence community.

(attendees applauding) (tranquil music) - The Wendell Gunn story has a happy ending.

Again, a young man who entered the university under less than ideal circumstances, went on to graduate, had a great career, had people here, including President Norton, working for him every step along the way, helping him get where he wanted to be today, by his own admission.

He carries this university in his heart.

It's a happy story.

It's a good story for any university to want to be able to tell, and I'm proud to be president of a university that has that story as part of its DNA.

- What President Norton did in Gunn's case was simply enforce the law as he knew it had been enforced at both the University of Alabama, and I also believe it was the Franklin case in Auburn.

- There was clearly an atmosphere and a circumstance which said to Dr.

Norton, "This is gonna up against the governor.

But it's been done before, right over in North Alabama, down the Tennessee River in Huntsville.

Got a judge who's issued these orders, and I've got a community truly different from what exists in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and in South Alabama, so I'm gonna try it."

He tried it and he made history.

- As a student of history and one who's become more familiar with President Norton's record here, I not only admire it from afar, but as someone that's had to manage this job as president for 10 years now, I find it instructive, and I often look back to the way he handled a difficult situation because we have our own share of difficult situations here.

And I was president of UNA when the country went through George Floyd back in 2020, and that was a very difficult time for the country.

It was a very difficult time for college campuses everywhere.

And more than once, when questions arose on this campus about our response, I found myself asking myself, and sometimes aloud, "What would President Norton do, and how do we move our campus ahead but do so in a way that's compliant with the law, that's respectful of all parties, and that is inclusive of as many voices as we can get into the equation?"

And we successfully navigated that, and in many ways, it was because of the example that President Norton had set.

- The long-term effects is that hundreds of minority students were able to be admitted.

- Wendell did a great thing when he integrated.

Many of us would not have gone to college.

We really would not because our parents could not afford to send us.

- Look what they missed for hundreds of years, how many Wendell Gunns they missed.

(tranquil uplifting music) - [Narrator] Wendell Gunn and E.B.

Norton made a lasting impact on the world, the people who knew them, and the countless others who benefited because of the changes they initiated.

During a chaotic time in American history, they quietly demonstrated how kindness and recognizing the need for fairness and equality can change people's hearts.

While the story focuses primarily on these two men, many others played important parts.

Fred Gray, students, faculty members, friends and families of those involved, and unknown others all played a part in creating this intriguing story.

- The Wendell Gunn story is important because it brings the university out of 1830 to where we are today, and in a very positive light.

It's a positive, healthy, beautiful, constructive story, made so because of people like Wendell Gunn, made so because of people like President E.B.

Norton and a lot of other people, nameless, faceless individuals who came together to make sure that this university was gonna live up to its ideals.

And we did so back in the 1960s, and we continue to do so today.

So we stand on their shoulders.

- The one disappointment that I have is that my forecast of 1965 didn't even come close.

There's some people who believe that the color lines are important.

They're not.

They're not.

And until we lose that silly notion, it's really silly, we're still gonna have problems.

(tranquil somber music) And I wish I had come back to see Dr.

Norton.

I wish I had, because he was a friend of my life.

He is an unspoken champion of the civil rights movement.

He played a part, an important part.

I wish I could tell him.

Maybe when we both get to heaven, I'll get to say, 'Appreciate you, doc."

(warm tranquil music) (warm tranquil music continues) (tranquil uplifting music) (tranquil uplifting music continues) (tranquil uplifting music continues) (tranquil uplifting music continues) (no audio) (no audio)