Anthony T. Lee

Can you imagine being a teenage Black boy trying to attend Sunday morning worship at a White church around 1962 in the Jim Crow South and being turned away? Anthony’s Civil Rights activist father, Detroit Lee, had Anthony engaged in the Protest Movement at an early age. Google “Anthony T. Lee” and you will find the case of Lee v Macon County Board of Education brought by famed Civil Rights attorney Fred Gray.  Our classmate was the lead plaintiff in the case against George Wallace, which essentially ended all segregation in Alabama public schools in 1964.

Anthony writes about traveling on the court-ordered school bus from Tuskegee to Notasulga High School with Secret Service Protection as a high school senior.  He writes of witnessing a news reporter who had sneaked on the bus being attacked.  

Resisting prejudice and discrimination often took an emotional and physical toll on the lives of everyday people who fought for freedom and equality. Anthony gives us an insight into how his Civil Rights leadership changed the trajectory of his professional and personal life.

After being one of the first three Black students to graduate from the school he had integrated in 1964, Notasulga High School, Anthony and his classmate, Willie B. Wyatt, enrolled in the all-White Auburn University.  Anthony became the first Black student who enrolled as a freshman to graduate from Auburn University.

Anthony’s Rutgers law School studies were interrupted by the Vietnam draft after Alabama authorities refused to send appropriate documents to allow him an exemption.  To Anthony, that seeming act of retribution for his lawsuit against George Wallace killed his dream to become a lawyer and altered the trajectory of his life.

His magnificent contribution to American society stands. Anthony continues to be involved in Civil Rights activities.