Integration Now by William P. Hustwit

Author:William P. Hustwit [Hustwit, William P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Ethnic Studies, American, African American & Black Studies, Law, Civil Rights, Legal History
ISBN: 9781469648569
Google: bYGGDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Published: 2019-02-05T05:13:44+00:00

The court of public opinion in Mississippi was predictably dyspeptic. Jackson’s Clarion-Ledger ran a racially tinged headline: “Supreme Court Orders Immediate State Mix.” Alexander v. Holmes rudely awakened state officials. State Superintendent of Education Garvin H. Johnston was “very much surprised, amazed and appalled that the court would put such a requirement of school districts in the middle of the year.” James Eastland recovered Robert Finch’s doomsday scenario: “The decision spells disaster for public education in Mississippi and many parts of the South.” Back home in Yazoo City, a still-hopeful John Satterfield swore to file an appeal with the Supreme Court and fight on in the Fifth Circuit with objections to the ruling. Mississippi attorney general A. F. Summer promised state assistance to any school board that requested legal help. “All deliberate speed” meant “now,” he told WLBT, Jackson’s NBC affiliate. “God help” the school boards “as they try to implement this ruling.” The Memphis Commercial Appeal struck a more balanced tone and reported, “What happened this week spells the end of one social era and the beginning of another. Surely there will be pragmatic efforts at delay, further frustrations of the intent of the Supreme Court and its interpretation of the constitution. But the gauntlet appears to be down.”22

Hodding Carter, the liberal editor of Greenville’s Delta Democrat Times, regarded the Court’s ruling as an epochal event and braced his readers for integration:

The inevitability of school desegregation now stares white Southerners square in the face, and it is equally inevitable that many will seek to flee from it into private schools or away from their communities. Their reaction will not be something uniquely Southern, but typical of White Americans everywhere when faced with the prospect of large numbers of black Americans attending school with their children. … The demagogues will seek to capitalize on white fears, even if it means the destruction or serious weakening of the public school system—and consequently of their state’s future. Too many moderates will remain silent, although apprehensive about the possibility. For us, the court’s decision simply means that more money, more thought and more care must be directed into the public schools so that all our children, black and white, do not have to suffer needlessly because of their elders’ mistakes.23

Massive integration had finally dawned in the heart of Mississippi. On the ground in Holmes County, Hazel Brannon Smith urged her white neighbors to remain calm. The normally feisty editor appealed to their better angels: “What is needed now from all citizens is a great deal of wisdom, courage and an understanding of what must be done.” She dedicated a front-page editorial to the recent visit of the Reverend Hosea Williams, former confidant of the slain Martin Luther King Jr. While the Supreme Court had deliberated Alexander, Williams had presented Robert Clark with a civil rights award for becoming the state’s only black legislator since Reconstruction. Smith quoted Williams, who vaulted the people of Holmes to “the brink of history. You can become one of the first counties in America to help redeem its soul.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.