Alumnae Story
Integrated Girl Scout Troop

By Audrey McDaniel

I had the first integrated Girl Scout troop in the association in a little town in Alabama that we had moved to. It was a small group with about six or seven white girls and five black girls.

We met in a corner basement room of a large, unused building, a dank, damp, dark place frequented by rats. It was shameful that the community had no other place. It didn't occur to me to fuss about it, as the business that owned the building kept the bathroom and open gas heat available.

You probably haven't known the joy I experienced as, at the end of the year, my troop attended the Junior Jamboree with these beautiful girls. When it was bedtime, bedrolls spread out on cots pushed together (their own doing) and the 10 or 12 girls of various hues bouncing around in baby doll pajamas to settle down after the lights were off . . . and we sang ourselves to sleep.