Fannie Ernestine Motley (January 25, 1927 - May 8, 2016) was the first African-American graduate from Spring Hill College, a Jesuit institution in Mobile, Alabama. She entered the school in 1954.
Motley was raised in Monroeville, Alabama. She enrolled in college shortly after the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision.
Years before George Wallace attempted to block integration of the University of Alabama, Motley became the first black student to graduate from Spring Hill College, the Jesuit school in Mobile, Alabama, in 1956. The moment was documented in The New York Times, Jet and Time.[1]
Motley came to Cincinnati in 1963 when her husband was pastor of Peace Baptist Church. She taught for 24 years in the Cincinnati Public School system. In 1969 she earned a master's degree in guidance counseling from Xavier University.
She has a chair in her living room with a sign on it that says, "Martin Luther King Jr. sat in this chair at our house, October 10, 1964."
A scholarship has been created in her name at Spring Hill College.
Her husband was D. L. Motley Sr., a pastor. She has two sons who are pastors in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and Atlanta, Georgia.
When her husband died in 2001 she moved to Jeffersonville, Indiana. Motley died in Fairburn, Georgia, on Mother's Day 2016 and was interred at Vine Street Hill Cemetery in Cincinnati. Mrs. Motley's brother was minister and civil rights activist, the Rev. Nelson "Fireball" Smith.