Most students at the University of Alabama in the 1960s will remember Carol Self. You couldn’t miss her.
She was highly visible as a cheerleader on the sidelines at UA football games in the heart of the Bear Bryant era.
She marched out front of the Million Dollar Band holding a bouquet of Crimson flowers. The prestigious role was variously called “Miss Alabama,” the “band sponsor” or “the flower girl.”
She then made a transition from student spirit to student activism. She had become an integral part of the student movement that boiled over in May 1970 with protests against the Vietnam War and arrests of students by the Tuscaloosa Police. She organized a rally of female students shortly after the killing of four Kent State University Students by Ohio National Guardsmen.
A vocal leader of the student movement was law student Jack Drake. He had been a stellar member of the UA debate team. He ran for Student Government Association president twice against the political “machine.” He lost. But he won the hand of Carol Self.
The courtship and wedding of the cheerleader and the campus progressive was a storybook romance. It could be a movie.
Dr. Carol Ann Self died August 12 in Hospice of West Alabama in Tuscaloosa after a brief illness at age 80. She had lived for decades in Mandeville, Louisiana, where she practiced psychology and tended a gorgeous garden. Her counsel will be missed there, but her garden will live on.
A memorial service will be held for Carol at 11 a.m. Monday, August 18, at Christ Episcopal Church, 605 Lurleen B. Wallace Blvd. N., Tuscaloosa, AL 35401.
Jim ‘Zig’ Zeigler’s beat is the colorful and positive about Alabama -- her people, places, events, groups and prominent deaths. He is a former Alabama Public Service Commissioner and State Auditor. You can reach him for comments at [email protected].
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