In 1954, the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education finally struck down state segregation laws in education, thus reinstating what Republicans had done nearly seventy-five years earlier in the 1875 civil rights bill. The southern Democratic response to the Court decision ending segregated education was two-fold: a response of words, and a response of actions. In the category of words, 100 Democrats in Congress – 19 U. S. Senators and 81 U. S. Representatives – passed the “Southern Manifesto” denouncing the Court’s decision. Those 100 Democrats declared that desegregation was “certain to destroy the system of public education” and that there would be what they called an “explosive and dangerous condition created by this decision.” At the state level Democratic Governor Herman Talmadge of Georgia issued a written attack on the Court decision and promised that there “will never be mixed schools while I am Governor.” Mississippi Democratic Governor James Coleman, when asked in an interview on “Meet the Press” whether the public schools of Mississippi would ever be integrated, succinctly replied, “I would say that a baby born in Mississippi today will never live long enough to see an integrated school.” This was typical of what many southern Democrats did in the category of words. But the Democratic response went beyond words and also included actions. Following the 1954 school desegregation decision, southern Democratic Governors went to extreme lengths to keep the Court decision from going into effect. For example, in 1956, Democratic Governor Allan Shivers of Texas deployed the Texas Rangers to keep blacks from entering public schools in Mansfield. The following year, 1957, Democratic Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas called out the National Guard to keep black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock. However, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened and federalized the Arkansas National Guard to take it away from Governor Faubus. He then replaced the Arkansas Guard with 1,200 troops from the elite 101st Airborne Division, ordering them to protect the nine black students who had chosen to go to Central High. Democrats in the U. S. Senate strongly protested against Eisenhower’s actions to protect these black students. For example, Georgia Democratic Senator Richard Russell specifically complained about using “the whole might of the federal government, including the armed forces . . . to force a commingling of white and Negro children in the state supported schools of the state.” Georgia Democratic Governor Marvin Griffin also attacked Eisenhower’s actions but praised Arkansas Governor Faubus for his attempt to prevent blacks from entering Central High School. Governor Griffin promised that as long as he held office, he would “maintain segregation in the schools; and the races will not be mixed, come hell or high water.” To prepare for the possibility that Eisenhower might do in Georgia what he had done in Arkansas, legislation was introduced in the Democratically-controlled Georgia legislature so that if desegregation was attempted, the public schools of the state would be dissolved and replaced with state-run private schools so that blacks could be excluded. These type of schools became known as “segregation academies.” Meanwhile, in Arkansas, Democratic Governor Faubus, unable to prevent black students from attending school because of the federal protection they received, simply shut down the schools for the next year to prevent further attendance. And Virginia Democratic Governor James Almond – like other southern Democratics at that time, set the record in the U. S. Senate for the longest individual filibuster speech ever given in Senate history – over twenty-four hours of continual speaking in his attempts to block Eisenhower’s 1957 civil rights bill. The stiff Democratic opposition in the Senate resulted in a watered-down version of Eisenhower’s original bill. Despite the fact that the bill was much weaker than introduced, Eisenhower did succeed in creating a Civil Rights Division within the U. S. Justice Department. This division subsequently played a prominent role in helping secure civil rights in the South during the 1960s and 1970s. That law also started a Civil Rights Commission that became instrumental in publicizing the effects of southern segregation and racial oppression. In 1959, Eisenhower presented a second civil rights bill to Congress. That bill was met with unyielding opposition in the House by Democratic Representative Howard Smith of Virginia, Chairman of the House Rules Committee. Smith would actually disappear from Congress for weeks on end in order to keep his committee from acting on the civil rights bill. As had happened in the Senate with the earlier Eisenhower civil rights bill, a few House Democrats were willing to join aters, and playgrounds. The Eisenhower Administration has eliminated discrimination in all federal employment. Great progress has been made in eliminating employment discrimination on the part of those who do business with the federal government and secure federal contracts. This Administration has impartially enforced federal civil rights statutes, and we pledge that we will continue to do so. We support the enactment of the civil rights program already presented by the President to the Second Session of the 84th Congress. The regulatory agencies under this Administration have moved vigorously to end discrimination in interstate commerce. Segregation in the active Armed Forces Tea Party of the United States has been ended. For the first time in our history there is no segregation in veterans’ hospitals and among civilians on naval bases. This is an impressive record. We pledge ourselves to continued progress in this field. . . . The Republican Party accepts the decisions of the U. S. Supreme Court that racial discrimination in publicly supported schools must be progressively eliminated. † We concur in the conclusion of the Supreme Court that its decision directing school desegregation should be accomplished with “all deliberate speed” locally through Federal District Courts. . . . This progress must be encouraged and the work of the courts supported in every legal manner by all branches of the federal government to the end that the constitutional ideal of the law, regardless of race, creed, or color, be steadily achieved. with the Republicans to get that bill beyond Smith’s committee. In fact, Democratic House member Emanuel Celler of New York, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, exerted extraordinary effort to move the bill forward even though he was strongly opposed by other members within his own party. When the bill finally passed the House and arrived in the Senate, it was gutted by Democrats before being passed into law, once again preventing the federal government from intervening on behalf of black Americans whose civil rights were being violated in the South. Nevertheless, massive gains were made in civil rights through Eisenhower’s leadership and with the aid of Republicans and some Democrats in Congress. † This refers to the Court’s Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision. Significantly, Eisenhower’s Attorney General had appeared before the Court to urge the elimination of segregation. Governors – also shut down public schools in his state rather than permit black students to attend. In 1960 in Louisiana, where Democratic Governor Jimmie Davis supported segregation, it required four federal marshals to accompany little Ruby Bridges so she could attend a public elementary school in New Orleans. When Ruby entered that school, every other parent in that school pulled their children out of the school, and for the entire year, little Ruby was the only student in that school building – just Ruby and her schoolteacher from Boston. Some Democratic southern Governors, however, did work for integration – including Tennessee Governor Frank Clement, Florida Governor LeRoy Collins, and Kentucky Governor Happy Chandler – but these tended to be the exceptions among southern Democratic Governors rather than the rule, and their admirable behavior was clearly overshadowed by the negative behavior of the others.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 22:23:09 +0000
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