Harlan Hobart Grooms
Harlan Hobart Grooms | |
|---|---|
| Senior Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama | |
| In office February 3, 1969 – August 23, 1991 | |
| Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama | |
| In office August 3, 1953 – February 3, 1969 | |
| Appointed by | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
| Preceded by | Clarence H. Mullins |
| Succeeded by | Frank Hampton McFadden |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Harlan Hobart Grooms November 7, 1900 Montgomery County, Kentucky |
| Died | August 23, 1991 (aged 90) |
| Education | University of Kentucky College of Law (LL.B.) |
Harlan Hobart Grooms (November 7, 1900 – August 23, 1991) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. Grooms was an integral figure in the desegregation of the University of Alabama, having legally granted Vivian Malone Jones and James Hood the right to attend the university.
In a 1963 case filed by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund of Alabama, Grooms ruled that the college's practice of denying black students admission into their university was a violation of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education case, in which the act of educating black children in schools intentionally separated from white students was charged as unconstitutional. Judge Grooms also forbid Governor George Wallace from interfering with the students' registration, a warning which he infamously ignored.