Dynamics of Desegregation; 15; With Some Deliberate Speed

The dynamics of desegregation. The dynamics of desegregation. All walls are crumbling inside and outside us and on May 17th 1954 it happened. The Supreme Court's decision about the public schools left no place from this time on for any form of legal segregation in our nation.

It did not come a day too soon. The world alarm clock was ringing. Now is the time it was warning us to take out of the demagogues hands forever a weapon too dangerous for this atomic age. Now is the time these words were written by Lillian Smith the noted seven novelist in 1955 and the Supreme Court of the United States agreed. Implementing its public school desegregation decision the court ruled in 1955 that states with school segregation must end such discrimination with all deliberate speed. This majestic phrase with all deliberate speed has a long legal history and its very vagueness was perhaps deemed a virtue by the nine unanimous justices since it allowed court control of desegregation to be guided by the unfolding events of the process itself. Yet the words deliberate speed have obvious dangers when applied to racial change in the South. For as this Dallas Morning News cartoon illustrates my native South is very deliberate in such matters but not conspicuous for its speed.

The pace of desegregation since 1954 might better be described as occurring with some deliberate speed. If we review these years carefully we can delineate five fairly distinct stages that the process has gone through. First from 1954 to 1955 there was the quiet before the storm. Next from 1955 till 1956 there was the build up of segregation resistance. A defiant year of violence and angry mobs marked the next period 1956 to 1957 and following this a reconsideration phase set in for the years 1957 through 1960. Finally the stage which is still unfolding began in 1961 a slow but definite beginning of the end.

Let's look at each of these periods. The year following the 1954 ruling the Supreme Court was a calm one throughout the South. This quiet before the storm was due in part to the South's wait and see attitude toward the court's implementation order which was not handed down until May of 1955. It was also due to the initially accepting posture assumed by most of the South's political leaders. It may be hard to remember now but the dominant tone of the politicians in 1954 is typified by this southern mayor. I want to say to the press at this time that this new court decision is now the supreme law of this land whether we agree with it or not we must obey it and our law abiding city will act accordingly. Many observers of the southern scene still feel that this reluctant but willing attitude would have continued in most of the South had the Supreme Court rendered a forceful implementation order in 1955.

Such an order might have set specific deadlines for the beginning and the completion of the racial desegregation of public schools. The order could have also requested the justice department always to act as amicus curiae as the friend of the court in all later desegregation litigation in federal courts. Had the court's implementation order contain these provisions we can see now in the wisdom of hindsight that the process might have been considerably smoother. These specific deadlines would have taken much of the pressure off of federal district court judges for as this Memphis commercial appeal cartoon indicates the district court judges were tossed the hot potato. These men white southerners and meshed in their home communities and subject to the direct pressures of local segregationists have had to bear most of the burden of executing the decision.

The consistent use of the justice department would have further aided these beleaguered district judges would have ensured enforcement aid from the executive branch of the government and it would have taken some of the litigation pressure off of the overtax legal staff of the NEACP. Instead the Supreme Court sought maximum flexibility with the dangerously vague formula of all deliberate speed. Many southern surrogations had feared the court would set firm deadlines and publicly breathe size of relief when the nebulous order came down. The court didn't really mean an after all contended many segregationists and this misconception was all they needed to initiate a massive build up of organized resistance. Kukuk's clients began to reappear and the white citizens councils quietly formed in Mississippi in 1954 suddenly began spreading throughout the deep south with a pseudo-respectable aura of manicured cluxism.

In 1955 and 1956 then southern segregationists organized themselves for a determined effort to demonstrate to all that deliberate speed would have to mean centuries. Following this build up of resistance the third of our five stages began the defiant year of 1956 to 1957. The more violent segregationists now boldly opposed court orders with physical and economic intimidation throughout much of the south. You remember the more publicized outbursts of the stage? During 1956 there was the mob of 3,000 which cursed and threw eggs, rocks and mud at Miss Arthurine Lucy as she unsuccessfully attempted to enter the University of Alabama. There were the mobs led by the later jail demagogue John Casper in Clinton, Tennessee.

The tried to prevent school desegregation finally had to be dispersed by over 700 police and national guardsmen. In short as this Norfolk and Guide cartoon shows the spirit of 56 was something less than the spirit of 76. All of this culminated in the tragic fall of 1957 when school desegregation met mob resistance in Nashville, Charlotte and of course Little Rock. In Nashville had he caught an elementary school one of those to be desegregated was dynamited. In Charlotte one courageous young girl, Miss Dorothy Counts was greeted with insults, tossed rocks and spittle as she attempted to register in a previously all white high school. And in Little Rock the whole world looked on with amazement as angry mobs opposed school desegregation behind the leadership of the governor of the state. As illustrated by these cartoons in the daily worker, communist propagandist had a field day that fall.

For all they had to do was accurately relate these racist activities to the colored peoples of the world and describe them as examples of American democracy in action. During this tragic period the dominant tone of the South's political leaders shifted into a posture almost as defined as that of the hate groups themselves. Listen to our mayor at this point. The Supreme Court had no right to pass such a law against us and we don't mean to accept it down here in our city. You just couldn't desegregate our schools without bloodshed. Our good citizens will not allow their rats to be trampled upon. As far as we're concerned nothing's changed here in race relations and nothing's going to change. Little Rock marked the crest of this type of hands on hips arrogance. And it swiftly led to a different mood among the science more influential business leaders.

A different mood that signaled the beginning of our fourth stage of reconsideration. Religious morality and concern for American democratic values undoubtedly motivated many of these influential southerners to reconsider. But frankly the principle motivation was economic. Little Rock lost money and lost opportunities for future industrial expansion. Quietly the self-style moderates of the South began to see that open and bitter resistance to the desegregation process was just too expensive to be allowed to continue. Behind the scenes these anxious businessmen began to put pressure on their political leaders and on their law enforcement officials. Now this is not to imply that this 1957 through 1960 period of reconsideration witnessed no violence. On the contrary there was a considerable though ever declining number of burning crosses bombs and beatings across the region. But at least token desegregation was increasingly being viewed as inevitable.

Now this growing feeling of inevitability was enhanced in February of 1959 when my native state, Virginia, had to reverse its previous plans of all out defiance and reopen most of its closed public schools. Senator Harry Bird's so-called massive resistance to the Supreme Court of the United States was forever buried in the coal-cold ground as portrayed by this cartoon from the St. Peter's Berg Times. Many doubts remained about the inevitability of the process. They were dispelled by the happenings of 1960 that closed this reconsideration phase. In February of 1960 the famous sit-ins began as a mass movement when four Negro college students protested at a segregated lunch counter of an F.W. Woolworth store in Greensboro. Within weeks this protest formed spread to seven other states, guided by the non-violent philosophy of our guest on this program, Dr. Martin Lucie King, unruffled by repeated rejections of service and thousands of arrests,

and supported by effective boycotts of the segregating merchants by whole Negro communities, these determined students soon accomplished extensive desegregation in over a hundred southern cities. On the school front, violence burst forth again in November of 1960 in New Orleans, ushering in our fifth and last period, the beginning of the end. Now those southerners who thought that a little rock could never happen in their city had to think twice. It had happened again, and with the same glare of world publicity in the same economic ill effects, reconsideration was over. A great majority of southern businessmen now are made up their minds to prevent those events from occurring in their cities. Only in Alabama and Mississippi did they remain aloof, still willing to risk violence to maintain segregation.

1961, the first year of this new phase witnessed three major breakthroughs. Without the snarling mobs of little rock in New Orleans, tokens, public school desegregation began in three of the region's largest cities of Atlanta, Dallas, and Memphis. 1961 was the year Freedom Rides carried direct non-violent protest into the states that believed the process would never touch them, Alabama and Mississippi. Testing the illegally segregated terminals of Greyhound and Trailways, these Freedom Riders faced a bus burning near Aniston, Alabama, mobs in Birmingham and Montgomery, and hundreds of arrests. Yet like the sit-inners, they achieved notable desegregation advances. Finally, two Negro students desegregated the University of Georgia in 1961, initiating state university desegregation in the deep south. James Meredith, an Air Force veteran and a Negro Mississippian, met violent resistance when he attempted to desegregate his states university in September of 1962.

But back by federal troops, he succeeded in spite of a bloody outburst which took two lives. This violent lesson was not lost on South Carolina, however. For a month later, Harvey Gant, a Negro South Carolinian, enrolled at state-supported Clemson College without disturbance. Despite the antics of Governor George Wallace, two more Negro students desegregated the University of Alabama in June of 1963. In 1963, we'll go down in history as the year of tragedy when the South's violent tradition flared up in its ugliest form. Meg Gorever, the NAACP leader in Mississippi, was shot from behind and killed in Jackson in June. And similarly, the late President Kennedy was shot from behind and killed in Dallas in November.

Nor did this mark all of the year's bloodshed. In September, a Negro church was bombed in Birmingham and four young girls were killed. This bombing followed months of tension in the city, months marked by then-police commissioner Bull Connor's fire hoses and police dogs unleashed upon Negro demonstrators. Now, these events have intensified the struggle to write Jim Crow's epitaph. They launched a full-scale Negro revolution throughout the nation, a new Negro insistence for full rights for all here and now. These events have also resulted in a major federal civil rights bill, which while not providing a definitive solution to all racial problems represents a giant step forward. And finally, outside of Alabama and Mississippi, a changed political climate is evolving. Listen to what our mayor is now saying.

My friends, I'm pleased to report we haven't had any of this race trouble in our fair and prospering city. Of course, our colored people did boycott our stores for a while, but now we've begun the desegregation of our schools and libraries and all of our interstate terminals. And I suppose soon we'll desegregate our public parks, but our good citizens didn't allow any mobs to form or trouble to start around these places. We're not like Little Rock or New Orleans. Our friend had gone full circle since 1954, had me. And so I had much of the influential size. As this beginning of the end phase continues on in the 60s, the inevitability of Jim Crow's demise becomes still more widely accepted, even in Alabama and Mississippi. Gaining this attitude of inevitability was the problem of the past decade. Now, tokenism is the problem of the present decade. For instance, the same business leaders who carefully avoided violence in Atlanta, Dallas and Memphis, also carefully avoided full-scale desegregation too.

Only nine Negro children were desegregated in Atlanta, 18 in Dallas and 13 in Memphis. These leaders are trying to prevent any decline in their business while at the same time holding the progress of desegregation to the absolute minimum. Most Southern businessmen have so far been able to do precisely this. On the average since 1954, each year an increase of only 1% of the potential Negro school population has been able to enter previously all white schools. And only about a third of the Southern school districts with both races have started any desegregation whatsoever. Moreover, even this minimum progress is concentrated in a few border states. The future pace of desegregation you see will be largely determined by three key factors.

The manner in which the federal courts handle these local plans of extreme gradualism, the consistent support given desegregation by the president and his administration in Washington. Finally, and most important of all, the determination of Negro southerners impressing the issue. Listen to how the symbol of the Negro's nonviolent protests, Dr. Martin Luther King interprets these factors and views the future. That can be no gain saying of the fact that that is a crisis and race relations today. This crisis has been precipitated to a great extent by the resistance of many reactionary elements in the south to the Supreme Court's momentous decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools. This resistance has risen to ominous proportions.

There are still legislative halls in the south ringing loud with such words as interposition and nullification. And all of these forces have conjoined to make for massive resistance. In spite of this massive and determined resistance, the objective observer must admit that the old south has passed away, never to return again. Many of the problems in the south today exist because there are still those individuals who are seeking to perpetuate a system of human values that came into being under a slave plantation system and which cannot survive in a day of democratic egalitarianism. Many forces are at work breaking down the old system. For instance, that is a great deal of industrialization going on in the south with a concomitant urbanization. As this industrialization takes place, it will inevitably break down the moreays of white supremacy.

Also hopeful is the fact that many persons in the white south are coming to see that bigotry is costly and bad for business. That is also the rolling tide of world opinion. Within the last few years, many new independent nations have come into being in both Asia and Africa. And as these new independent nations come into being, the leaders and the people are saying that racism and colonialism must go and that they are making it clear that they will not respect any nation that will subject a segment of its citizens on the basis of race. And with this rolling tide of world opinion, the federal government will inevitably take a stronger and more forthright stand in breaking down the barriers of racial segregation. And I think that a very few southerners enjoy having the south lumped in the same category with the Union of South Africa as the last refuge of segregated power.

Also hopeful is the fact that many human relations agencies are coming into being and that are many persons in the white south who have a nag in conscience concerning this matter. And they are willing to work in many ways, sometimes in quiet and unpublicized ways, in order to implement the law of the land. But probably more than anything else, the determination of the Negro himself will break down the barriers of segregation and discrimination. For many years, the Negro passively accepted and adjusted to the conditions of segregation and discrimination. But today in many ways, thousands and thousands of Negroes are making it clear that they do not like segregation and they are willing to suffer and sacrifice in order to make integration a reality. This is the meaning of the student movement. This is the meaning of the numerous developments that are taken place all over the south. And I think with all of these forces working together, in the not too distant future, we will be able to see a desegregated society.

And certainly most of the major centers and major cities of the south will be desegregated in the not too distant future. And I am sure that after the desegregation process, we will move on to a thoroughly integrated society in the not too distant future. The speed with which the racial desegregation process will proceed is still an open question then. But its direction and inevitability are not. The south has chosen the 20th century and progress. When faced with a hard choice between ending its vaunted massive resistance to desegregation or closing its schools and universities, its choice has already been made. As in the cases of Virginia and Georgia, its surrenders its racism. And as Dr. King has just mentioned, the broad trends of history, the international pressures upon our nation and our own highest national and religious ideals are consistent with the process.

And so too are the major long-term forces within southern society itself. But you might well ask at this point, how can we be so sure that the south can adjust to these sweeping racial changes? Through its long tragic history, has the region preserved the necessary touch of humanity to ever achieve a truly harmonious pattern of racial relations? Well, let me indicate an answer to these questions, but telling you of an incident that occurred in the little lumber town of Crossett, Arkansas, in 1962. A heavy January snow had halted a through bus and the stranded passengers found that there was no bus station to help them. It was closed tight for Crossett lies in the Southeastern black belt of Arkansas has a long tradition of racial oppression and segregation and had angrily closed down its bus facilities rather than have them desegregated by federal court order.

The white passengers managed to get rooms at the local white hotels, but there was no Negro hotel. And the bus had two Negro passengers, Mrs. Melee, Johnston, and her two-year-old granddaughter. Consequently, the bus driver, Mr. C. C. Barlow, stayed on his bus throughout two below zero nights to keep it warm from Mrs. Johnston and the child. During the daytime, he helped them through the snow for meals at a Negro restaurant. The manager of a nearby radio station heard about the situation. He came and he visited the scene and then he broadcast the story. Calls of help flooded the station and dozens of white Negro people hurried to the bus with food and clothes and offers of hospitality, porting from both races. A white hotel invited Mrs. Johnston and a little girl to come take a room regardless.

A white mother offered her son's room at home. Mrs. Johnston, her granddaughter, and driver Barlow, weirdly trudged off to spend their third stranded night in comfort. Now, I think this little drama has deep significance for my native south. The rash, impulsive first reactions of the region, like cross its closing of its bus terminal, are just that rash and impulsive. But there nevertheless lies behind these initial acts, a sense of humanity that is not limited by skin color, a fifth column of decency that is betraying racism. Negro southerners have spent their cold lonely nights on the bus. There were always the white driver Barlow who suffered with them. Today, however, their story is broadcast afar, and the epitaph of Jim Crow is being inscribed busily. And after the first violent reactions we have been discussing, the basic humanity of the south will finally show itself unafraid.

The actor Bill Cadness. Epitaph for Jim Crow is a presentation of the Commission on Extension Courses, Hybrid University, in association with the Lower Institute Cooperative Broadcasting Council, WGBHTV Boston. Studio production costs were provided in part with the assistance of grants from the Anti-Defamation League of Naybrith, the Commonwealth School Boston, and the Claudia B. and Maurice L. Stone Foundation.

This is NET, National Educational Television.