J. F. A. Mc Manus - Civil Rights Advocacy

Civil Rights Advocacy

An ardent advocate for civil rights, during his tenure at the University of Alabama in the '50s, McManus frequently travelled down to Tuskegee University from Birmingham to lecture during a time when helping black academia was a sometimes precarious undertaking. He was also responsible for the hiring and training of the first black medical lab technicians at the Birmingham Hospital.During his tenure as Dean at the University of South Carolina McManus also established a minority admission program and hired an old friend, Dr. Middleton Lambright, as the Dean of Minority Students. Here is an excerpt from a tribute to Dr. Lambright from the Congressional Record.

“He believed in taking chances and seeking new opportunities. In 1971, he was offered and accepted a position as Assistant Dean and Associate Professor of Surgery in the College of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina. He was quoted as saying: ‘My father would have been extremely pleased to know that his son had been invited to join the staff and faculty of an institution he could not have hoped to enter in any capacity.’ He was speaking to the racial segregation in the State of South Carolina.”