Juliette Hampton Morgan. Courtesy of the Encyclopedia of Alabama.
Detail of Juliette Hampton Morgan's headstone.
Juliette Hampton Morgan
Montgomery Public Library's head librarian in the early 1950s, Juliette Hampton Morgan is an often overlooked figure in the fight for Civil Rights in Montgomery. Due to her inability to drive, she rode city buses. While riding, she witnessed the mistreatment African Americans experienced on the buses. In response to what she saw, not just on public transportation, but in daily life, Morgan participated in the Civil Rights Movement in a variety of ways, including by writing letters to the Montgomery Advertiser. Because of her vocal support of the Civil Rights Movement, including an endorsement by Martin Luther King Jr., she received multiple death threats. In 1957, she took her own life. In 2005 the City-County Library Board and the Montgomery County Commission renamed the main library of the Montgomery City-County Public Library the Juliette Hampton Morgan Memorial Library in her honor. [4]