SRC Staff Report on Work Related to North Carolina

    SRC STAFF REPORT ON WORK RELATED TO NORTH CAROLINA

In a step toward assisting in the publication of a documented

history of involvement by the State of North Carolina in racial
discrinination, SRC has searched sone of its early research library
newsclip and materials fi1e. our focus is for the most on the

areas of voting and school d.esegregation. Although we are concentra-
ting on the period of the last two decades, w€ are also reaching

back to the late 1940fs period. our aim is to give a flavor of
the kinds of documentation that is available from the sources at hand.

One approach involves identification and documentation of the

notives of thenes and techniques of race discrimination that go

over tine and are even yet employed. we are presently exploring
several of these themes; they are briefly described in the para-

graphs below. Some of the kinds of documentation that have been

located in SRC research materials is attached. (This is, of course,

a very tentative identification of themes and techniques.)

1. Tokenism, the school desegregation device (also visible
inothffi)whichfornearLY_adecadepreservddttorth
carolinats image of moderation and compriance with the law
and protected it against court requirements of numerically
significant- or blanket desegregation, meanwhile holding the
numbers of black children in school with whites well belowother states of the mid-South.

?. - Llcal,OPtign and Other Vehicles Permitting or Encouraging
LOCar UrSCrrmlnatlon. rn rts purest usage the term locaL

tate policy that all6wed a loca1 school
district to desegregate or to close schools should school inte-gration be ordered. But there were other ways in which North
carolina threw decisions to localities so as to permit or
encourage racial discrimination; for present purposes we are
grouping them with "local option.', For example, in 1955, in
response to the School decision, the state decentralized



2

control of its public schools, passing all educational
decisions to 1ocal districts. Decentralization was generally
interpreted as a way of playing for time; it introduced the
necessity of district-by-district court challenges and
extensively burdened potential plaintiffs (as described below).
It also permitted local districts to discriminate and perpetuate
segregation (by means of pupil transfer policies, by
school boundary and attendance zone gerrymandering, etc.),
at the same time absenting the state from responsibility.
In a second example, the state has adopted policies on more
than one occasion that empower 1oca1 authorities to discrininate
and give them a mechanism with which to do so. Cases in point
include the N.C. Pupil Placernent Act of 1956 (which created a
set of 2Z points of pupil transfer criteria to be subjectively.
applied by 1ocal sch^ooi boards) and the N.C. litereffiest Eo;
voter registration (which required prospective registrants to
satisfy the local registrar with his or her reading of a section
of the state constitution.)
3. Policies that extensively burden and discourage those
seekin layed

cess by requiring placement decisions on
a pupil by pupil basis; the processes of seeking transfers
under the Act and or appealing trransfer refusals placed vast
burdens of time and money on those seeking transfer. Similarly,
as noted aboye, the decentralization of North Carolina schools
in 1955 meant that desegregation cases must henceforth be brought
district-by-disctrict, incurring exhorbitant costs and vast
expenditures of time. The potential for intimidation and other
pressures against plaintiffs was considerably increasedd by
such policies.
4. Policies and Actions Directed toward Deliberatel Creat in
a ClimEEe-of-o ].n1On tO promote reslstance o ].nt.esrat on an
promote racla scrl.m].na on and exclus].on.

5. Omission of Leadership to End segregatio
Racial

Four and Five are self-explanatory.

Documentation of the state's motives in followi.ng these policies

is sometimes available; it

ayoidance of reference to

is not abundant, of course, for the

race and the elimination of overtly



discriminatory policies were the centerpiece of the staters
policy, for the purpose of avoiding court orders producing wide-

spread desegregation or rights for blacks. Thus, public pronounce-

ments by state officials were as rare as were codified references

to motives of racial discrimination.

A few items we have unearthed (sone of them from outside

commentators; state officials) appear below.

1. The motives of Tokenism.

a. I'Kenneth Whitsett head of the pro-segregation-

ist Patriots of North Carolina, has stated that he was told by Colonel

Willian T. Joyner of the Governor's Committee on Schools that the

I'sacrifice of some children to mixed schools must be made so that

many other children will not similarly be subjected to the evils

of mixed schoo1s." This statement was appropos of forthcoming

voluntary integration, for the first time, in the schools in
Winston Salem, Charlotte, and Greensboro, N.C. in fa11, 1957, ad-

mitting a total of 11 black children to predominately white schools.

The "Governorrs Committee on Schools" was the Pearsall Committee,

the state advisory committee that designed N.C.'s laws related to

school desegregation. Joyner was its vice chairnan, dt least for
a time.

-SRC SPECIAL REPORT ON CHARLOTTE,

SALEM, N.C. 9/4/St. Pp. Z-3.

b. "Dr. Robert F. Durden, Duke

of History said token integration has

GREENSBORO, AND WINSTON-

Univers ity
been ca1led

Department

'a magnificent



device for evasionr. . ."
-SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS, August, 1959, p. 15.

c. Moderate North Carolina gubernatorial candidate

Terry Sanford, "contending tliat he is personally a segregationist

and that the Suprene Court is distasteful to him, says that court

orders under the (School) decision must be gbeyed. He argues that

North Carolina has had only linited desegregation by leaving the

issue up to local school districts. And Sanford contends the

statets course has also staved off arly desegregation in the black

belts of eastern North Carolina where the race issue is strongest...

-WASHINGT0N POST, 6/24/00. In 1960 campaign, Sanford

r€u1 against forner state Asst. Attorney General BeVerly

Lake, who vigorously attacked North Carolinafs token

integration as too Permissive of integration.

d. President of the State Bar Association Newe11

Edenfield called for repeal of all of Georgiars segregation laws,

saying that they hamper rather than help in the fight to preserve

segregation. Enphasizing that he was speaking as a segregationist,

he says that in states where segregation laws exist, there is no

conceivable_isituation in which a school board can win, but that in
North Carolina and Alabama, where there are no state segregation

laws, Negroes have consistently lost their appeals for blanket

relief. "Without segregation laws, plaintiffs cannot sue for



desegregation in a class action and because of this, he said,

defendants get 'fringe benefits' such as having to face only one

adversary at a time, and not having to start with a blanket federal

inj unction. "
- -S0UTHERN SCHO_OL NEWS, July, 1960, p. 9.

e. 'fIts (token integration's) intention is to placate

both law and community custom. Its success has caused some of the

old adherents of massive resistance to see it as an even more

effective nethod of avoiding the law."

Southern Rqgional Council: A REPORT 0N SCH0OL DESEGRE-

GATION FOR 1960-61. Dunbar et al. pp. 19-20.

f.. 'fAn unhappy handful of colored children, not to be

more and wanting out, is to be preferred over closing our schools."

Pro-segregation syndicated columnist John Temple Graves,

as quoted in A REPORT ON SCHOOL DESEGREGATION FOR 1960-61, cited above.

g. "If it (token integration) is forced on some of us

we should neither despair nor commit rash acts in our anger. . . If a

few Negro children are forced into scattered white schools, that

does not mean they will be there indefi.nitely. Once the pressure

groups find that massive integration, is being denied them by the

courts, their incentive will be dulled. It will become ever more

difficult to recruit Negro parents willing to let their children

become martyrs for a dubious cause..."

--Thomas Waring, pro-segregationist editor of the

Charleston News and Courier, quoted in source above.



h. "The term (tokenism) is generally used to describe

deliberate efforts to keep racial integration at a minimum.. . token

integration has essentially the same goal as massive resistance; it ::;.'-

seeks to preserve, in effect, the established pattern of segregation.

Thus it differs from gradual desgregat,ion which urges a slow pace

in the process of changing the segregated pattern, but which

at the same time envisions the elimination of segregation eventually..'."

--TOKEN DESEGREGATION AND BEYOND: Mor land, Kenneth.

S.R.C., June, 1965.

i. "...Tokel plans are 'designed to meet the demands

of the Supreme Court by allowing some integration while still
keeping the number of Negroes in school with Whites at such a Iow

1evel as to maintain de facto segregation. Token integration, then,

is an end to itself an end to which the established patterns of

segregation prevail.rr

- - rbid.



MonIand, Kenneth: TOKEN DESEGREGATIDN AND BEYOND. Southenn RegionaI
council and Anti-Defamation l:isl: [:-UI"'-l ,.:l_l:l .^1:l:i-1nur 

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/ Report of the North Car,oiina af,$isory Committee on Education, April 5 , lg
\.l|,- 1956, to the Govennor#General Assembly, State Board of Education,

p,o,*wZrYy u l-'pr?t\*Hfrj'af l

j S "Authors and advocates of o-t"+ o"o.irJr.,, io, token int3gration

tutional amendments providing for turtron grants and focaa oPtlon t
suspend hy majonity rrttg the op"r.ti.on of the egblic schools in that
:-::ga elnl '{.:i+q 'r fryi#EP '*+,iC.r,.+rr,FPi I

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irave made /t clear their hope that\such plans can prevent sizable
change. For example, consider the \anguments used in supPort of
North Carolinats Pupil Placement A"tt t of 1955, which,, including local- '--l- r ""-
option and tnansfen provisions, conltitutes a plan for/token integration.

and County and loca1 Schoo1 Boands of Nonth Canolina (at Vol. I' No. 3,
pp. 581-S-eO, Race Relations Law Reporter)1 @

-"The educational system of Nonth Canolina has been built on
the foundation stone of separation of the r:aces in the schooIs...
The decisions of the Supreme Court have destnoyed our foundation
on segregation required by law...defiance of the Supneme Count
would be foolhardy... -/A/tdLd{/V#/U{/
lA$/ld/6id/filnt ...rrAn administnative body lII{y well find
that unden local conditions it may not be feasible or best fon
a particulan child to go to a particular school with childnen
of arlQdher race. A color ban by dild law is one thing. A factual
Iocal Eondition ba::, even if color is one of the causes of the
condition, is a diffenent thing..-.We believe that membens'of
each race prefer to associateS"fii (LJ"t members of thein race
and that they will do so natur:ally unless they are prodded and
inflamed and controlled by outside pressure..." - \

---rrWe are of the unanimous opinion that the people of llo4rV
Canolina will not support mixed schooIs...The decision of the
Supneme Count of the United States,however much we dislike it,
is the declared law and is binding upon us. We think that the
deeision was enroneous; that it was a reversal of established
law...that it could cause more harm within the United States
than anything which has happened in fifty years...(but it must
stand) until there is a correcting constitutional amendment or
until the Court corrects its own erron...Defiance of the Supneme
Court would be foolhardy. Definance woul-d alienate those who may
be won to our thinkirg, that sepanateness of the races is natural
and best...We think it is...true that chiLdren do best when in
school with children of their own race. We think that in the
course of time that will be plain to everyone...Th ete ^s\/be recognized the fact that there is no Iegal compuJ-sfl'otr on
any one to mix the lraces . . . We arie pnopos ing the building of a

new school system on a new foundation--a foundation of no r^aciaI
segregation by Iaw, but assignemnt according to natunal racial
preference and t\" administnative determination of what is best

for the chiId.. ."
The Committee recommended that the Legislatune submit to a vote consti-
tutional amendments Droviding fon tuition grants and local- option to



;.
NOTE :

S ome additional quotes have been Iocated, in
file material.

Unfortunately, SRC newsclips fon the yean 1960 Md/Adtdtd/ tt{/
thnough the midlsixties do not include North Carolina {d{t/ news
p"p"o-. NonthCy' CArolina papers were discontinued duning this pe::iod
of-ti*.. Fon the tdtd/ years 1955-about 1958, however' we do
have *Idd/ Cdnd{dtd-/ lil/ newsclips f r.om l/,tlddl several Nonth Caro}ina
papers (because A these papens wene funnished us by ildtfl\/Cdt6/
staff members wh

a I -^ -r
Nonth Carolina natives)
vi!

fTon t 9,f those quotes, we wil-1 continue
;;;;-;;; i>p""" identifiei on {dtd/t/ pp. r and

tdi/ proceeding with Local Option, Polieies Bundening Those Seeking
Desegnegation, Creating a Climate to Disconuage and Prothote

istance to fntegration, and 0mission of Leadenship to EndistanCe tO IntegratlOn, anO Uml-SSlon or !eacleI'sIrIP L() rlru --}F>negation and l,!dld/Yldldildd DeaI !{ith Racial VioIen""g 06.y

<-- ' (/.t,
Addition"f)fitions of

of government-involvement
our report will deal with othen aspects

in nacial discnimination.

-\, h*''D-s'1,t-

Res