Autherine Lucy Foster joining Alabama Educator Hall of Fame

The first black person to attend the University of Alabama, Autherine Lucy Foster, is among four people who are being honored as the newest members of the university’s Alabama Educator Hall of Fame.

The group will be honored at a ceremony Saturday night at NorthRiver Yacht Club in Tuscaloosa.

Foster became the first black person to attend Alabama in 1956. Campus riots broke out and the university removed her. Foster’s expulsion was reversed in 1988, and she graduated from Alabama with a master’s degree in elementary education in 1992.

The other honorees are being inducted posthumously. They include former Alabama educator professor Adolph Crew; former state school board president Ethel Hall; and Judy Merritt, who was the first woman to serve as a college or university president in Alabama.