Another Hero Of Montgomery – Librarian and Social Activist Juliette Morgan

The death of Rosa Parks brings to mind another death that took place almost 50 years ago. Juliette Morgan was a white woman who grew up in a position of privilege in Montgomery, Alabama. Unlike many of the Montgomery upper class Morgan used public transportation as a means of getting to her job as a librarian at the Montgomery public library.

She was outraged by the discrimination and denigration that she saw visited daily upon the black bus riders. Moved by her experience on the buses she started writing to the local newspapers. Her pointed questioning of the status quo led to pressure on the library to remove her from her position. A cross was burned on her lawn, patrons returned their library cards in protest of her position, and she was taunted and ostracized. Eventually, even her closest friends and family turned away from her. She resigned her position at the library and on the same day committed suicide. She was 43 years old when she died in 1957 – two years after Rosa Parks' arrest in 1955 and five years before the desegregation of the public libraries of Montgomery in 1962. In honor of her actions the Montgomery City-County Public Library board of trustees recently moved that the main branch of the public library in Montgomery be changed to the Juliette Hampton Morgan Library.
To learn more about Juliette Morgan see the Mongomery Advertiser article City Set to Honor Rights Advocate and the article Juliette Hampton Morgan: From Socialite to Social Activist, reprinted from the magazine Alabama Heritage.