James Hood - Telegraph Incensed, Hood wrote to the newspaper, and later received a reply from the academic, written on lavatory paper. During this period the civil rights movement was gaining momentum, as students initiated sit-ins and freedom rides across the American South in non-violent resistance to segregation. Hood, with the support of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, applied to study at Alabama University, in the knowledge that it was the sole public university left in America which admitted only white students. When declined a place on the basis of his race, Hood, supported by the NAACP, won a court ruling forcing the university to admit him. Wallace had campaigned for governor the previous year on a pledge to fight plans by the federal government to integrate Alabama's schools and state university, and had won by a landslide. In his inaugural address in January 1963 he had promised "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." In later years - after being paralysed in an assassination attempt - Wallace underwent a political transformation, and apologised for his actions that day. He and Hood forged an unlikely friendship, and Hood attended Wallace's funeral in 1998. Hood subsequently graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit and received a Master's degree in Criminal Justice from Michigan State University. He became deputy police chief in Detroit in the 1970s, before working at the Madison Area Technical College in Wisconsin for 26 years. In 1995 he returned to Alabama University and, two years later, received a doctorate in interdisciplinary skills. Wallace had wanted to award the degree to Hood himself, but was unable to do so owing to ill health. Hood moved back to Gadsden, his birthplace, before he died. Twice married and divorced, James Hood is survived by three sons and two daughters. James Hood, born November 10 1942, died January 17 2013