To Obstruct and Resist: Paradise v. Allen, Integration Efforts, and the Alabama State Troopers

Abstract

This dissertation examines the integration of the Alabama State Troopers following the 1972 lawsuit NAACP v. Allen (later written as Paradise v. Allen). A federal court ordered the Alabama Department of Public Safety (DPS) to end its discriminatory hiring practices. From its creation in 1935 to 1972, the DPS never employed African Americans as State Troopers. In response to the state’s discriminatory hiring practices, Judge Frank M. Johnson issued a hiring quota which required the DPS to hire one Black for every one white hired as a State Trooper until the State Trooper force was 25% Black overall. In response to the affirmative action relief efforts, Alabama obstructed and resisted the integration orders. Under Governor George Wallace, the DPS experienced unauthorized hiring freezes, budgetary constraints, and departmental racism that restricted the number of Black State Troopers. These actions delayed the department from reaching the hiring quota, created a financial burden on the state, jeopardized public safety, and extended the lawsuit for twenty-three years. Numerous DPS appeals failed, including arguments presented to the United States Supreme Court. As Alabama resisted and obstructed, other lawsuits forced open the Trooper ranks to women and applicants disqualified under the department’s physical standards. Only when the economic pressures of industrial recruitment in the 1980s finally outweighed the political benefits of resisting integration did Alabama finally cooperate with the court orders. Alabama’s obstruction and resistance to integration ultimately failed, and by the 1990s, the Alabama State Troopers were the most racially diverse law enforcement body in the entire United States.