By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on February 28, 2025
An Editorial Opinion
I want to end Black History Month this year with a special tribute to my childhood friend, Arlam Carr, Jr. Arlam was born and raised in Montgomery, Alabama. Arlam was two years younger than me and was a close friend of my younger brother, James Watkins.
When the Montgomery public schools were first desegregated in 1964, they started with a handful of black students who integrated the 1st, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. At the time, Governor George Wallace’s daughter, Peggy Sue, was attending Lanier High School, which was located a few blocks from the Governor’s Mansion.
Arlam Carr, Jr., was a named plaintiff in the Montgomery public school desegregation case, along with his parents. His father, Arlam Carr, Sr., and mother, Johnnie Carr, were longtime civil rights activists in Montgomery.
The Carrs were the only black parents in Montgomery who were willing to list their names as plaintiffs on the lawsuit. Arlam was 13-years-old when the lawsuit was filed.
In 1964, the Carrs, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his wife Coretta, Rosa Parks, and E.D. Nixon were close personal friends of my parents, Levi and Lillian Watkins. These civil rights icons were regular visitors to our home (the President's Mansion on the campus of Alabama State University), which served as a refuge and safe place for them during the height of the Montgomery Movement.
As president of Alabama State University, my father commanded a small campus police force that was capable of keeping civil rights icons safe while they were guests in our home. Additionally, the civil rights activism of these icons was fully and openly supported by my parents, financially and otherwise.
Arlam Carr, Jr., attended the Alabama State University Laboratory School on campus. My siblings and I attended the Laboratory School, as well.
Arlam's family caught pure hell from many local whites in the Montgomery area for filing the school desegregation lawsuit. The death threats were non-stop. The highly-charged racial environment was "anti-woke" activism on steroids.
Most people in the local black community feared the Carrs would be killed in a drive-by shooting or a home bombing for filing the lawsuit. For this reason, many weak-kneed blacks in Montgomery steered clear of them. Our family embraced them.
When U.S. District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr. ruled in favor of the Carrs, Arlam was in the 9th grade at the Laboratory School. The first three black students desegregated Lanier High School in September of 1964. Arlam had to wait a year before he could attend Lanier as a 10th grade student in the Fall of 1965.
Lanier was the pride and joy of white Montgomery. Except for the janitorial staff, Lanier's students and faculty were all-white.
Gov. Wallace was aware that Arlam and his parents were extremely controversial figures in Montgomery's white community. Wallace was determined that no harm would happened to Arlam when he entered Lanier as a student.
Wallace made sure that Arlam was placed in the same classes with Peggy Sue because she had state trooper protection at all times. Wallace instructed the troopers who protected Peggy Sue to protect Arlam, as well.
Yet, nothing could stop the constant barrage of racial slurs and insults that were hurled at Arlam by fellow white students at Lanier on a daily basis.
Arlam gave those of us who remained at the Laboratory School daily reports of his treatment at Lanier. His bravery as a young teenager was inspirational. Arlam faced the "anti-DEI" crowd of his era with dignity, class, character, and tremendous courage.
Arlam graduated from Lanier in 1968. He attended college at the University of Texas at El Paso.
After graduating from college, Arlam joined the staff of WSFA TV in Montgomery. Arlam worked his way up in the Production Department at WSFA, beginning as a Stage Hand, then as a Master Control Operator, then as a Director of Newscasts. He directed the 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. newscasts for years before helping launch "Today in Alabama," as Director of that newscast.
Arlam Carr, Jr., died from throat cancer in 2013 at the age of 62.
Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace Made Sure Arlam Carr's Life was Protected During the Turbulent School Desegregation Era
I have always found it fascinating that Gov. George Wallace, who defiantly stood in the "school house door" at the University of Alabama in 1963 to block the admission of James Hood and Vivian Malone as students, privately made sure in 1965 that Arlam Carr, Jr. had the same trooper protection as his daughter Peggy Sue.
Furthermore, Wallace sent his son George, Jr., to Lanier while the high school was taking in more black students. George, Jr., graduated from Lanier in 1970.
Looking back on it today, George Wallace made a conscious decision to keep his children in the Montgomery public school system during the toughest times in the school desegregation era. He did not use Peggy Sue or George, Jr., to lead a political movement aimed at steering white students toward the many all-white private “Christian” academies that sprang up in the South during the 1960s.
Arlam Carr, Jr., and Gov. George Wallace had profound impacts on Alabama's image around the world. One was positive and the other was negative. My personal values aligned with those exhibited by Arlam Carr, Jr.
To this day, I still miss Arlam Carr, Jr., and his bravery!