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MONTGOMERY, Ala., Sept. 18 -- Alabama State University issued the following news release:
During a period of oppression, when racism and segregation plagued the nation, one young woman refused to be held back by the injustice.
Born in the 1920s, Dr. Mary Fair Burks began fighting for equality as a teenager. During the 1930s, the Montgomery native resisted the Jim Crow laws prevalent through the South. She later referred to her self-defiance as her "private guerilla warfare."
At the age of 18, Burks received her Bachelor of Arts in English literature from Alabama State Teachers College, which became Alabama State University in 1969. She went on to obtain her master's degree from the University of Michigan.
Burks returned to Montgomery to become an English...