Bolling v. Sharpe Brief for Amici Curiae

    BRIEF FOR AMICI CURIAE

Oj h * / r

IN THE

Supreme Court of tf>t Hmteb States
O c to b er  T e r m , 1952

No. 413

S p o ttsw o o d  T h o m a s  B o l l in g , e t  a l ., Petitioners

C . M e l v in  S h a r p e , e t  a l .

ON W R IT  OF CERTIORARI TO T H E  U NITED S T A T E S  COVET OF 
A PP E A L S  FOE T H E  D ISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

AMERICAN COUNCIL ON HUMAN 
RIGHTS

AMERICANS FOR DEMOCRATIC ACTION 
Washington Chapter

AMERICAN JEW ISH COMMITTEE 
W ashington  Chapter

AMERICAN JEW ISH CONGRESS COM­
MISSION ON LAW & SOCIAL ACTION 

W ashington  Chapter

CATHOLIC INTERRACIAL COUNCIL 
OF WASHINGTON

COMMISSION ON COMMUNITY LIFE OF 
THE WASHINGTON FEDERATION OF 
CHURCHES

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA INDUSTRIAL 
UNION COUNCIL, O.L0.

D. C. FEDERATION OF CIVIC 
ASSOCIATIONS, INC.

FRIENDS COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL 
LEGISLATION

JAPANESE AMERICAN CITIZENS 
LEAGUE

Washington  Chapter

JEW ISH COMMUNITY COUNCIL OF 
GREATER WASHINGTON

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE 
ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE 

D. C. B ranch

UNITARIAN FELLOWSHIP FOR 
SOCIAL JUSTICE 

W ashington  Chapter

WASHINGTON BAR ASSOCIATION

WASHINGTON ETHICAL SOCIETY

WASHINGTON FELLOWSHIP

WASHINGTON INTERRACIAL 
WORKSHOP

WASHINGTON URBAN LEAGUE

S . W a l t e r  S h i n e , 
T h eo d o r e  C . S o r e n s e n , 
S a n f o r d  H. B o lz , 
S a m u e l  B . G r o n e r , 

Counsel.

P hkss of B yhqn S . A dam s, W ashington. D . C.



INDEX.
Page

Interest of Amici Curiae .............................................  1
Statement of the C ase..................................................  2
The Questions to Which This Brief Is Addressed . . . .  3
Summary of Argument...................    4
Argument.......................................................................  5

I. Separation of School Children by Skin Color or 
Ancestry Has No Warrant in Twentieth Century 
Community Experience, Proper Legislative Pur­
pose, or Scientific Understanding and Is Therefore 
a Meaningless Classification Violative of the Fifth 
Amendment ...........................................................  5
A. Community experience demonstrates the in­

validity of racial segregation in the District of 
Columbia or anywhere in the United States . . .  7
1. Deterioration of patterns of segregation . . . .  7
2. The prophesied community resistance to

change ........................................................ 10
B. Declared legislative prohibitions against segre­

gation in other areas of activity in the District 
of Columbia demonstrate the further irration­
ality of school segregation................................  16

C. Present scientific understanding discredits tra­
ditional concepts of ‘‘race ” ............................... 17

II. The Fact That Congress Made Provision for the 
Establishment of Schools for Negro Children in the 
District of Columbia Before the Adoption of the 
Fourteenth Amendment Does Not Justify the 
Conclusion That the Fourteenth Amendment Was
Intended to Permit Eacial Segregation..............  18

Conclusion...................................................................... 24



11 Index Continued.

A p p e n d ix  P  a 8'e

Table I
List of Cities in Southern and Border States in 
Which Some Schools, Colleges and Universities 
Have Been Recently Integrated...........................  27

Table II
Schools, Colleges and Universities in the District 
of Columbia and Environs Which Will Accept
Both White and Negro Students .........................  28
A. Nursery, Elementary and High Schools.........  28
B. Colleges and Universities................................  28

Table III “ The School Doors Open Wide”
Examples of Recent Admission of Negroes to Edu­
cational Institutions in the South and Border
A reas....................................................................... 29
A. In the South ....................................................  29
B. In Southwestern, Border and Other Areas . . . .  33
Sources for information in Table I I I .................... 37

Table IV “ The Old Order Changeth”
(Representative Departures From Segregation 
Throughout the Nation) ........................................ 38
A. In Public Accommodations ............................. 38
B. In the Field of Education............................... 42
C. In Voluntary Associations ............................... 45
D. In Religious Bodies.........................................  49
E. In Employment...... .......................................... 50
F. In Entertainment and Athletics...................... 51
Sources for Table I V .............................................  54



Index Continued. in

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES.
Cases : Page

Adams v. Terry, 193 F. (2d) 600 ............................... I I
Baskin v. Brown, 174 F. (2d) 391............................. 14
Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U. S. 60, 81 (1917)............. 13
Butts v. Merchants and Miners Trans. Co., 230 U. S.

126 (1913)...............................................................  16
Carr v. Corning, 182 F. (2d) 14, 33 .........4,15,19, 20, 23
Chance v. Lambeth, 186 F. (2d) 879, 881, 882-883 . . . .  13
Chapman v. King, 154 F. (2d) 460, cert, denied, 327

U. S. 800 ............................................    14
Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3 (1883).......................  16
Davis v. Schnell, 81 F. Supp. 872, affirmed, 336 U. S.

933 ...........................................................................  14
Dean v. Thomas, 93 F. Supp. 129............................... 14
District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., 81

A. (2d) 249 ..............................................................  16
Draper v. St. Louis, 92 F. Supp. 546, 549 ................  12
Ex parte Endo, 323 U. S. 283 (1944) .......................  5
Grovy v. Townsend, 295 U. S. 45 (1935) ............ 14
Henderson v. United States, 339 U. S. 816 (1950)

12,13,14
Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81, 92, 100

(1943) ..................................................................... 5,18
Hurd v. Hodge, 334 U. S. 24 (1948) .......................  24
Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214, 220

(1944) .....................................................................5,10
McLaurin v. Oklahoma Board of Regents, 339 U. S.

637 (1950)............................................................ 8,9,13
Mitchell v. Wright, 154 F. (2d) 924, cert, denied, 329

U. S. 733 ..................................................................  14
Morgan v. Virginia, 328 U. S. 373 (1946)................  12
Nixon v. Condon, 286 U. S. 73 (1932).......................  14
Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536 (1927).................... 14
Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283, 470 (1849) ................  6
Perry v. Cyphers, 186 F. !(2d) 608.............................  14
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537 (1896) .................6, 24
Rice v. Elmore, 165 F. (2d) 387, cert, denied, 333

U. S. 975 ................................................................. 14
Schnell v. Davis, 336 U. S. 933 (1949) .................... 14
Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649 (1944) ................  14
Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U. S. 629 (1950)................ 8, 9,11,

13,14, 20



IV Index Continued.

Page
Terry v. Adams, 193 F. (2d) 600, cert, granted, No­

vember 12, 1952 ....................................................  14
Weems v. United States, 217 U. S. 349, 373-374, 378

(1910).......................................................................6,19
White v. Clements, 39 Ga. 232, 269 ..........................  13
Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25, 27 (1949)................  6

S t a t u t e s :

Act of April 16, 1862 (12 Stat. 376) .........................  22
Act of May 20, 1862 (12 Stat. 394) .......................... 22
Act of May 21, 1862 (12 Stat. 407) .......................... 22
Act of June 25, 1864 (13 Stat. 187, 191) ................ 20, 22
Act of March 3, 1865 (13 Stat, 536) ........................ 16
Act of April 9, 1866 (14 Stat. 27) .............................  24
Act of July 23, 1866 (14 Stat. 216)..........................  23
Act of July 28, 1866 (14 Stat. 343) ..........................  23
Act of May 31, 1870 (16 Stat. 140) ..........................  24
Act of June 22, 1874 (18 Stat. part 2) .................... 20
Act of March 1, 1875, “ Civil Rights Act of 1875”

(18 Stat. 335) ...................................................... 16,21
Art. 1661.1, Sec. 2, Vernon’s Statutes of Texas, An­

notated (1947) ...................................................... 5
M is c e l l a n e o u s  :

Benedict & Weltfish, Races of Mankind.................... 18
Boyd, Genetics and the Races of M an .....................  17
Bryan, History of the National Capital, Vol. II

(1916), pp. 137-138, 389, 524-528 ...........................  22
Civil Rights in the United States in 1951, pp. 18, 90

12,15
Comas, Racial Myths (UNESCO, 1951) ...............  18
Comment, 18 Univ. Chi. L. Rev. 769, 771-775, 781

(1951) ................................................................... 11,13
Cong. Globe, 37th Cong., 3d Sess. 1326-1327 (1863). . 22
Cong. Globe, 43rd Cong., 1st Sess., 4153 (1874), 

pp. 1326-1327 .........................................................
2 Cong. Record 4153 (1874) ...................................... 14
3 Cong. Record 981-982, 997, 1002 (1875) .................. 14
Flack, The Adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment

(1908) ............................................................ .20,23,24
Frank and Munro, The Original Understanding of 

“Equal Protection of the Laws,” 50 Col. L. Rev.
131, 153-162 (1950) ..............................................20,24



Index Continued. v

Page
Glass and Li, “ Report on the Dynamics of Racial 

Intermixture,” Annual Meeting of the American 
Institute of Biological Sciences at Cornell Univer­
sity, New York Times (September 8, 1952) 33:8. . 

Jackson, Luther P., “ Race and Suffrage in the 
South Since 1940,” New So-uth, Vol. 3, pp. 1-26
(1948) ................ . . . .......................... ...................  15

Klineherg, Characteristics of the American Negro. . 18
Krogman, An Anthropologist Looks at Race, 7 In-

tercultural Education News 1 (Nov. 1945)........... 17
LaFarge, The Race Question and the Negro ......... 17
Lewis, The Crisis That Never Came Off, The Re­

porter, 1:12 (Dec. 6, 1949) ..................................  13
Note, 61 Yale L. J. 730, 738-743 (1952) .................... 13
“ Opportunities in Interracial Colleges” , National 

Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro Students
(1951) ..............................................................• 35

Redfield, What We Do Know ah out Race, 57 Scien­
tific Monthly 193 (Sept. 1943) ..............................  17

Roche, Catholic Colleaes and the Negro Student
(1948) .................... .................. ...........................  35

Sorensen, “The School Doors Swing Open”, New
Republic, 127:13 (Dec. 15, 1952) ........................... 36

Special Report of the Commissioner of Education on 
the Condition and Improvement of Public Schools 
in the District of Columbia, p. 253, H, Rep., Ex.
Doc. No. 315, 41st Cong., 2d Sess. (1871) ............  22

“ Staff Monograph on Higher Education for Negroes 
in Texas” , Texas Legislature Council (1951)... . 35

“ Stakes Are Costly in Play for Texas,” New York
Times (Sept. 23, 1952) .........................................  15

Statement by Experts on Race Problems, UNESCO
(July 18, 1950) . . .  ._.............................. ............., 17

“ The American Negro in College”, 1949-1950, Crisis,
Vol. 57, No. 8, p. 488 ................. ..................; . 36

“ The American Negro in College, 1950-1951, Crisis,
Vol. 58, No. 7, p. 445 ............................................. 36

“ Toward Equality in Education”, N.A.I.R.O. (1952) 35
Washington Post, Nov. 29, 1952 ..............................  15
Wilkins, Roy, “ A Decade in Race Relations,” Amer­

ica (June 16, 1951), pp. 287-289 ........................... 15



IN THE

S u p re m e  C o u r t of tlje WnitzU S ta te s
O c to b er  T e r m , 1952

No. 413

S po ttsw o o d  T h o m a s  B o l l in g , e t  a l ., Petitioners
v.

C. M e l v in  S h a r p e , e t  a l .

ON W B IT  OF CERTIORARI TO T H E  UNITED ST A T E S  COURT OF 
A P P E A L S FOR TH E DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

BRIEF FOR AMICI CURIAE

INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE

This case deals with the question whether children 
in the public school system of the Nation’s Capital may, 
consistently with the Constitution and laws of the United 
States, be separated by groups solely on the basis of skin 
color or the origin of their ancestors.

The undersigned submit this brief because our organiza­
tions represent groups of Americans in the Washington



2

community and throughout the nation of many creeds and 
many races who are deeply committed to the preservation 
and extension of the democratic way of life and who reject 
as inimical to the welfare and progress of our country 
artificial barriers to the free and natural association of 
peoples, based on racial or creedal differences. We believe 
this to be of especial importance in the Nation’s Capital. 
We are united in the belief that every step taken to make 
such differences irrelevant in law, as they are in fact, will 
tend to cure one of our democracy’s conspicuous failures to 
practice the ideals we proclaim to the world, and to bring 
us closer to that peace and harmony with other peoples 
throughout the world for which we all strive.

We submit this brief out of a sense of urgency which 
compels us to speak out for great segments of the com­
munity on behalf of a good and just cause. We are con­
vinced that the great democratic principles of our Consti­
tution are denied when racism permeates and shapes the 
institutions in which the children of the Capital of the 
Nation receive their schooling.

We submit this brief, finally, in the knowledge that the 
progress and welfare of a democratic community and the 
best contributions of all its people toward enriching the 
life, the intellect, and the spirit of the community can be 
achieved only from the untrammeled association of fellow- 
citizens without the interposition, especially by government, 
of barriers based on race.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

This case is here on writ of certiorari to the United 
States Court, of Appeals for the District of Columbia Cir­
cuit, granted while the case was pending in that court on 
appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court 
for the District of Columbia granting a motion to dismiss 
the complaint. The petitioners are minors and their par­
ents, citizens of the United States and residents of the Dis­
trict of Columbia, are suing on behalf of themselves and



3

others similarly situated. The respondents here are mem­
bers of the school hoard and officials of the public school 
system of the District of Columbia.

The complaint alleged that the minor petitioners applied 
for enrollment in the Sousa Junior High School of the Dis­
trict of Columbia and were denied enrollment solely be­
cause of their race or color and that they appropriately 
exhausted all administrative remedies for correction of that 
denial. It alleged inter alia that their exclusion from the 
school denied them due process of law, in violation of the 
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and 
Title 8, Sections 41 and 43 of the United States Code; and 
constituted a bill of attainder prohibited by Article 1, Sec­
tion 9, clause 3 of the Constitution. The complaint sought 
a declaratory judgment that the respondents had no right 
to exclude the minor petitioners from the Sousa School 
because of their race or color and an injunction restraining 
the respondents from such exclusion.

Bespondents, without denying any of the allegations of 
the complaint, filed a motion to dismiss which was granted 
by the District Court without an opinion.

THE QUESTIONS TO WHICH THIS BRIEF IS ADDRESSED

The undersigned amici curiae believe that racial segrega­
tion in the District of Columbia public schools is unconsti­
tutional. We refrain here from presenting such of our 
reasons as would parallel those presented in the brief of 
the petitioners already filed herein. We confine ourselves 
to the following two questions which we feel merit fuller 
discussion and on which we possess some special com­
petence :

1. Does separation of school children by skin color 
or ancestry have any warrant in twentieth century 
community experience, proper legislative purpose, or 
scientific understanding?

2. Does the fact that Congress made provision for 
the establishment of schools for Negro children in the



4

District of Columbia before the adoption of the Four­
teenth Amendment justify the conclusion that the 
Fourteenth Amendment was intended to permit racial 
segregation?

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

1. Facial classifications are not permissible in our de­
mocracy except only under the most dire of emergencies 
such as the “ crisis of war” . The conventional standards 
of “ reasonableness” to test legislative action do not come 
into play when racial criteria are involved. Nor, even if it 
were relevant, is there any reasonable basis for separating 
school children by skin color. Examination of community 
experience in the District of Columbia and throughout the 
country discloses vast areas of activity in which the mem­
bers of the public both voluntarily and by government ac­
tion have departed from patterns of segregation and asso­
ciate free of color restrictions. No rational basis exists to 
single out school children for racial separation.

The predictions of defiance of a decision invalidating 
racial segregation in schools or of difficulties resulting 
therefrom are neither novel nor warranted. They are not 
justified by community experience, history, morality, or 
law. To assert such factors implies that Constitutional 
rights, must await the consent of those who withhold them.

Present day scientific knowledge discredits traditional 
concepts of “ race.” Continued enforcement of legislative 
action based on assumed distinctions formerly attributed 
to such concepts is not rational.

2. In Carr v. Corning, 182 F. 2d 14, it was held that Con­
gress ’ establishment of public schools for Negroes before 
the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment “ conclu­
sively supports” the determination that the Amendment 
permitted segregation in schools. This misconceives the 
chronology of the events of that day and gives a completely 
distorted significance to the school statutes.



5

ARGUMENT
I.

SEPARATION OF SCHOOL CHILDREN BY SKIN COLOR OR 
ANCESTRY HAS NO WARRANT IN TWENTIETH CENTURY 
COMMUNITY EXPERIENCE, PROPER LEGISLATIVE PU R ­
POSE, OR SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING AND IS THERE­
FORE A MEANINGLESS CLASSIFICATION VIOLATIVE OF 
THE FIFTH  AMENDMENT

This brief documents what twentieth-century America 
knows: racial segregation is not—and never was—in­
tended to achieve any legitimate legislative goal hut is a 
continuing attempt to maintain some vestiges of the slave 
system of the nineteenth century.

Classification by “ race”1 has been permitted by this 
Court to sustain governmental action only during the major 
crisis of the twentieth century and then only after “ the 
most rigid scrutiny” had disclosed “ circumstances of dire 
emergency and peril” stemming from “ the crisis of war 
and threatened invasion.” 2

Though we do not suggest the propriety of even this lim­
ited impairment of the constitutional safeguards for the 
individual, we point out that these instances were occa­
sioned only by extreme cases of national peril. It is only 
at such times that racial designations may become the basis 
for governmental action. No conventional problems and 
no ordinary standard of “ reasonableness” may justify a 
transgression of the overriding principle that racial dis­
tinctions are odious.

1 We use the term “ race” only for simplicity of expression. We 
submit it has no meaning relevant to legal problems. See Section 
C, infra, p. Tf. For purposes of brevity we have also referred 
generally to "skin color” as the basis adopted for segregation. 
Analyzed carefully, the real basis for segregation of Negroes stem­
ming from the institution of slavery, lies in the birthland of the in­
dividual’s forebears (i.e., Africa) rather than in skin color alone. 
For these reasons many statutes refer generally to “ persons of 
African descent.”  Cf. Art. 1661.1, Sec. 2, Vernon’s Statutes of 
Texas, Annotated (1947).

2 Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81, 92 (1943), and 
Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214, 220 (1944). Cf. Ex  
parte Endo, 323 U. S. 283 (1944).



6

Moreover, governmental classification at any time must 
comport with what is fundamentally just. This is the es­
sence of due process, a term of no fixed content. The “ es­
sentials of fundamental rights” are not “ confined within 
a permanent catalogue,” for it “ is of the very nature of 
a free society to advance in its standards of what is deemed 
reasonable and right.” Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25, 27 
(1949). And the question whether a classification separat­
ing school children solely by race is constitutionally per­
missible today cannot be answered by looking backward to 
yesterday. Constitutional principles “ may acquire mean­
ing as public opinion becomes enlightened by a humane 
justice.” 3 For this reason, the “ boot-strap” arguments 
of the School Board in this case, as in all others which rely 
upon the authority of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, 
without reexamining its premises, cannot justify this 
Court’s failing to do so. Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283, 470 
(1849). We submit that the validity of continuing today 
to separate school children solely according to a skin-color

8 Weems v. United States, 217 U. S. 349 (1910):
pp. 373-374: “ Time works changes, brings into existence new 

conditions and purposes. Therefore a principle to be vital must 
be capable of wider application than the mischief which gave it 
birth. This is peculiarly true of constitutions. They are not 
ephemeral enactments, designed to meet passing occasions. * # * 
The future is their care and provision for events of good and bad 
tendencies of which no prophecy can be made. In the application 
of a constitution, therefore, our contemplation cannot be only of 
what has been but of what may be. Under any other rule a con­
stitution would indeed be as easy of application as it would be 
deficient in efficacy and power. Its general principles would have 
little value and be converted by precedent into impotent and life­
less formulas. Rights declared in words might be lost in reality. 
And this has been recognized. The meaning and vitality of the 
Constitution have developed against narrow and restrictive con­
struction. * * * The construction of the Fourteenth Amendment is 
# # an example for it is one of the limitations of the Constitu­
tion. ’ ’

p. 378: “ The clause of the Constitution in the opinion of the 
learned commentators may be therefore progressive, and is not 
fastened to the obsolete but may acquire meaning as public opinion 
becomes enlightened by a humane justice.”



7

classification must be tested in the light of today’s known 
community and social experience, declared legislative pur­
poses and present scientific understanding. Tested ac­
cordingly, separation of children in public schools on the 
basis of skin-color alone is completely without rational 
basis in the United States in the twentieth century.

A. Community experience demonstrates the invalidity of racial 
segregation in the District of Columbia or anywhere in 
the United States.

1. DETERIORATION OP PATTERN'S OF SEGREGATION.

As this community’s experience is examined, the lack of 
consistency and indeed of plain common sense involved in 
the erection of racial barriers between groups of school 
children is dramatically exposed. A brief glance at Table 
IV (Appendix, infra) shows the vast range of public ac­
tivity in which this city engages free of color restrictions. 
Washingtonians mingle today without regard to skin color 
in many restaurants, movies, hotels, libraries, swimming 
pools, golf courses, tennis courts, and playgrounds, in all 
legitimate theatres, streetcars and busses, art galleries, and 
music halls, and in every public building, and every audi­
torium in the city. They attend inter-racial nursery 
schools, parochial schools, colleges, law schools and medical 
schools. (Table II, Appendix, infra.)

On what basis, then, may they rationally be precluded 
from doing so in public schools? If people, young and old, 
can live next door to each other in apartment houses, can 
walk or ride together as far as school doors, and can enter 
together in private schools, what proper reason may be 
adduced to prevent them from entering those doors to 
studv together in public schools established in the interests 
of all the people, by a government dedicated to democracy?4

4 The President-elect has pledged himself to remove “ every 
vestige of segregation” in the Nation’s Capital to the extent of the 
means at his command. But this is a goal which, as this case 
proves, cannot he achieved by executive action alone.



8

Moreover, segregation in schools has been abandoned in 
practice in so great a portion of this country, including the 
South, as to make its continuation anywhere impossible to 
justify in principle. Compiled in the Appendix, infra, is a 
list of those communities, in the South and border areas, 
where Negro students have been recently admitted to 
formerly all-white schools. (Table I). This list, which is 
representative but by no means exhaustive, marks the 
unanimously successful integration, in varying degrees, of 
colored and white students in educational institutions in 
over 85 communities in such areas. (There is of course no 
need to detail the vast areas of the North where legal seg­
regation has never been practiced.)

These are developments of only the past several years, 
chiefly following this Court’s action in Sweatt v. Painter, 
339 U. S. 629 and McLaurin v. Oklahoma, 339 U. 8. 637, in 
1950. In that short time, one or more educational institu­
tions in practically every Southern, Southwestern and Bor­
der state have opened their doors to Negroes, who had pre­
viously been excluded altogether. For example, tax-sup­
ported colleges and universities have opened their doors 
to Negro students in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, 
Missouri, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, North 
Carolina, West Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. (Table 
III(A) (1) :(b), Appendix, infra).

Despite the continued insistence of those who urge 
the continuance of segregation on the ground that the 
country is “ not ready,” these changes have not been lim­
ited to public colleges which alone would be compelled by 
the enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment to open 
their doors. Non-public institutions have been far in the 
lead in the process of integration. Schools and colleges, 
both private and parochial, have removed racial barriers 
to admission in Alabama, Texas, Georgia, Missouri, Louisi­
ana, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, West 
Virginia, and as mentioned, the District of Columbia. 
(Table III (A) (2), Appendix, infra). This merits special



9

attention, for if segregation were as embedded in the 
“ usages, customs and traditions” of the South as it is 
alleged to be, none of these institutions would have de­
parted therefrom without compulsion. But freed of gov­
ernmental compulsion to segregate (or exclude) by the 
aftermath of this Court’s decisions in the Sweatt and Mc- 
Lcmrin cases which substantially destroyed segregation in 
public colleges, these non-public schools have dropped the 
color bars in numbers and with a speed and fervor5 which 
make it plain that it was only the barrier of the South’s 
government-required segregation which had earlier stood in 
their way—and not the South’s “ usages, customs and 
traditions. ’ ’

In addition to the colleges and universities in which seg­
regation has been abandoned, public elementary and high 
schools have successfully ended segregation in recent years 
in one or more communities in California, Arizona, New 
Mexico, Kansas, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Maryland, Dela­
ware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Public schools sup­
ported entirely by Federal funds have been integrated at 
Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Quantico, 
Virginia, Fort Knox, Kentucky and other southern military 
reservations.

The District of Columbia has been no laggard in this 
pattern of change. Only where law is interpreted to forbid 
departure from segregation (as the D. C. Board of Educa­
tion maintains is true here) has there been no correspond­
ing progress. Private schools, at all levels of study, have 
dropped the color bar. This is true of pre-nursery, nursery, 
elementary and high schools, as well as colleges and grad­
uate schools. (Table II, Appendix, infra).

5 The reactions of white students have been extremely favorable. 
They have welcomed the newly arrived Negroes with group demon­
strations of approval, have called for change at colleges refusing 
admission to Negroes, have written articles for the press, and have 
called on the President of the United States for assistance to end 
racial restrictions. Table IV (B) Appendix, infra.



10

Moreover, neither in the District nor in other places 
which have known segregation are these changes occurring 
only in schools. We have compiled in Table IV a wide 
variety of instances (which is only a sampling of thousands 
of similar cases) in which places of public accommodation, 
voluntary associations, religious bodies, employers, and the 
athletic and entertainment world have followed where en­
lightened public thinking has beckoned.

These developments have significance for our problem 
because everywhere one looks—in colleges and universities, 
in factories, in state legislatures and city councils, in 
theaters, in stadia, in restaurants, in swimming pools, and 
throughout our Armed Forces—there has developed an in­
creasing and cumulative mingling of people of different 
racial origins on a scale which makes ludicrous the con­
tinued separation of children in their formative years at 
school. Those who ride, play, and work, who fight and die 
together without strife may—nay, do—study together with­
out strife.

This, wide-ranging experience with integration, it should 
be added, is a judicial, not a legislative, consideration for 
it provides conclusive practical confirmation of the propo­
sitions that (1) separation based on race has no rational 
basis in our society and (2) integration presents nothing 
remotely like war-time “ dire emergency and peril” which 
alone might justify separation (Korematsu v. United 
States, supra, p. 220), but in fact proceeds peacefully.

2. T h e  p r o p h e s ie d  c o m m u n it y  r e s is t a n c e : to  c h a n g e .

Departures from segregation have been successful to a 
degree that surpasses even the most optimistic expectations 
of the proponents of such change. They continually refute 
the forecasts of those who on each and every such occasion 
predict violence, resistance, difficulties and, at very least, 
common dissatisfaction with the change.

If these predictions were made by those who previously 
had urged the removal of barriers toward equality they



11

might be listened to with good grace. But though the words 
are different the voice is the same. These are the last- 
ditch arguments of those who would still preserve some­
thing of their ancestors’ 19th Century class superiority, 
with its intolerable burdens on other human beings, while 
they also enjoy all the benefits of 20th Century society.

Furthermore, the mere assertion of such factors as 
worthy of consideration by this Court necessarily implies 
a belief that even if the Constitutional rights of an indi­
vidual—or thousands of individuals—are being violated 
justice shall be rendered them only if those who withhold 
those rights will consent. Such a belief our democracy 
rejects.

And this aside, these assertions are unsound judged even 
by empirical standards rather than moral principle. 
In Sweatt v. Painter, supra (October Term, 1949, No. 
44), the appellees ‘warned that “ forced mixed schools” 
would “ cause large withdrawals from the public schools” 
(Appellees’ Brief, p. 175). The brief amicus filed by the 
Attorneys General of eleven states was even more direful 
(at p. 9), citing reports of impending disturbance at East 
St. Louis and Alton, Illinois, two southern Illinois cities 
where the schools were being desegregated under force by 
law, and of apparent trouble at desegregated swimming 
pools in Washington, D. C., and St. Louis, Missouri6:

6 The swimming pool incidents referred to by the Attorneys 
General refute rather than support their argument. In Washing­
ton, the disturbance was an isolated incident which has been fol­
lowed since 1950 by operation of pools under jurisdiction of the 
Interior Department without segregation and without the slightest 
difficulty. Comment, 18 Univ. Chi. L. Rev. 769, 773-775 (1951). 
And the attendance has shown a continuing increase. (Table IV, 
item (8) Appendix, infra.) The St. Louis experience was even more 
revealing. There the city officials reacted to an outbreak of violence 
by reversing their previously adopted decision to end segregation. A 
law suit was commenced to prevent segregation. Id. at 771-772. 
United States District Judge Hulen firmly rejected the argument 
that segregation should be retained to prevent disorder. Calling 
this “ a new and novel theory” , he ruled that “ The law permits of 
no such delay in the protection of plaintiffs ’ constitutional rights ’ ’.



12

The Southern States trust that this Court will not 
strike clown their power to keep peace, order, and sup­
port of the public schools by maintaining equal sepa­
rate facilities. If the States are shorn of this police 
power and physical conflict takes place, as in the St. 
Louis and Washington swimming pools, the States are 
left with no alternative but to close their schools for 
that reason.

Of course, no “ physical conflict” took place because of the 
decision which the Attorneys General feared. Instead, in 
less than two years the number of Negroes who have been 
peacefully integrated into Southern graduate and profes­
sional schools exceeds well over a thousand, and the tabu­
lation is no longer a matter of much interest since the point 
is proved beyond debate.

In the Henderson case, infra (October Term, 1949, No. 
25), the brief amicus filed by Rep. Sam Hobbs warned flatly 
that “ that to adopt the contention of Appellant would be 
the kiss of death to render operation of the railroad impos­
sible” (p. 5). In Morgans. Virginia, 328 IT. S. 373 (1946) 
(October Term, 1945, No. 704), the Commonwealth of Vir­
ginia, Appellee, warned that the statute which the Court 
subsequently invalidated was necessary to prevent violent 
altercations which would cause drivers to lose control of 
their busses (Appellee’s brief, p. 14). The effects of a re­
versal of the decision below were painted in lurid terms 
(Id. at pp. 18-20).

Again, no such evils resulted. In fact, the Court of Ap­
peals for the Fourth Circuit has had occasion to point out 
that no disorders occurred on the cars of a Virginia rail­
road which recently abandoned segregation to the extent it

Draper v. St. Louis, 92 F. Supp. 546, 549 (B.D. Mo., 1950). The 
following year, 1951, the pools were opened on a fully integrated 
basis. “ Civil Rights in the United States in 1951” , page 90. As 
indicated in the Appendix, both East St. Louis and Alton are 
examples of successful integration, rather than disturbance of any 
sort.



13

found convenient. Chance v. Lambeth, 186 F. 2d 879, 881, 
882-883 (C.A. 4th, 1951).

We are not so naive as to discount the possibility of some 
forms of resistance to a decision that racial segregation in 
public grade schools is unconstitutional. But the prophecy 
of violence has so often been shown to be without sub­
stance 7 that it is now made with little conviction. Of 
course, this Court conclusively answered what has been 
called the “ rhetoric of violence”8 when it squarely held 
that the preservation of the public peace cannot be ac­
complished by laws which violate the Constitution. Bu­
chanan v. Warley, 245 U. S. 60, 81 (1917).

It goes without saying* that to deny a constitutional right 
because the lawless element of a community dislikes its 
enforcement is to suggest that the Federal compact is no 
match for the lynch-law mob.

Recognition of these facts by those who still seek to up­
hold segregation leads to their more sophisticated sugges­
tion that the abolition of segregation at this time will (a) 
destroy public education in the South or (b) destroy the 
liberal or progressive movement in the South. The fact is 
that public education will no more be threatened by the 
Court’s action against segregation in these cases than it 
was by its action in the cases of Sweatt v. Painter, supra; 
McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, supra, and Hender­
son v. United States, 339 U. S. 816. At best such argu­
ments in effect only urge delay in the disposition of the 
constitutional question. But delay is more likely to aggra­
vate than to solve these alleged problems.9 Moreover,

7 Note, 61 Yale L. J. 730, 738-743 (1952); Lewis, The Crisis 
That Never Came Off, The Reporter, 1:12 (Dec. 6, 1949).

8 Comment, 18 Univ. Chi. L. Rev. 769, 781 (1951).
9 In the meantime the denial of constitutional rights is itself 

productive of disorder. As a Georgia court noted long ago, “ in 
the end, if those laws are unfair, unjust, unequal, they will 
breed discontent and disorder, and it is better for the peace and 
good order of society that all shall have equal rights,” White 
v. Clements, 39 Ga. 232, 269 (1869).



14

these arguments were not first urged upon this Court when 
the Sweatt and Henderson cases were argued; they were 
put forth over 75 years ago (Of. 2 Cong. Eecord 4153 
(1874); 3 Cong. Record 981-982, 997, 1002 (1875)).

Nor are these alleged problems peculiar to the South. 
The quality of individual prejudice is not governed solely 
by the residence of the individual. Integration proposals 
have brought prophecies of violent resistance in northern 
waterfront towns like Camden, N. J., no less than in Clar­
endon County, S. C., and of destruction of public education 
in Alton, Illinois no less than in Atlanta, Georgia. But 
Camden saw no violence and is fully integrated, and Alton, 
rather than give up the State’s monetary contribution to 
its public schools, gave up segregation. This was done 
grudgingly, but it was done—peacefully and completely.

We submit that if there is to be resistance, it 
will take the form not of destruction but of evasion. And 
the patterns of evasion are by this time familiar. Although 
the practice of excluding Negroes from the Democratic 
Party primary in the South was first condemned in 1927 
(Nixon v. Herndon, 273 U. S. 536) this Court was called on 
several times thereafter to consider the validity of at­
tempted evasions of that decision.10 Even after the last de­
cision there were further attempts—continuing to the pres­
ent day11—which were dealt with by the lower courts.12

10 Nixon v. Condon, 286 U. S. 73 (1932); Grovy v. Townsend, 
295 U. S. 45 (1935) ; Smith v. Allwright, 321 U. S. 649 (1944)'- 
Schnell v. Davis, 336 U. S. 933 (1949).

11 Terry v. Adams, 193 F. 2d 600 (C.A. 5th, 1952), cert, granted 
Nov. 12, 1952.

12 Chapman v. King, 154 F. 2d 460 (C.A. 5th, 1946), cert, de­
nied, 327 IT. S. 800; Mitchell v. Wright, 154 F. 2d 924 (C.A. 5th, 
1946), cert, denied, 329 IT. S. 733; Bice v. Elmore, 165 F. 2d 387 
(C.A. 4th, 1947), cert, denied, 333 U. S. 975; Baskin v. Brown, 
174 F. 2d 391 (C.A. 4th, 1949); Perry v. Cyphers, 186 F. 2d 608 
(C.A. 5th, 1951) ; Adams v. Terry, 193 F. 2d 600 (C.A. 5th, 1952) ; 
Davis v. Schnell, 81 F. Supp. 872 (D.C. S.D. Ala., 1949), aff’d 
without opinion, 336 U.S. 933 (1949) ; Dean v. Thomas, 93 F. 
Supp. 129 (D.C. B.D., L., 1950).



15

Ultimately the fight will be completely abandoned. Negroes 
are now voting in constantly increasing numbers in the 
Democratic primary and general elections in the South, and 
candidates make special efforts to win their support;.13

And so, while we may expect gerrymandering and possi­
bly so-called “ private” corporations operating the schools 
for one or a few of the States, we freely predict that in this 
day and age there will be neither real abandonment nor ed­
ucational deterioration of the public school system in the 
areas involved. Furthermore, in the District of Columbia 
community acceptance and respect for legal authority is 
obviously such that there can be no fear whatever that this 
Court’s order will be resisted here. As Judge Edgerton 
said in his dissent in Carr v. Corning, 182 F. 2d 14, 33: 
“ When United States courts order integration of District 
of Columbia schools they will he integrated” . (Emphasis 
supplied.).*

We know, too, that despite the urging of the prophets of 
doom this Court will not permit basic Constitutional rights 
to be reduced by the lowest pessimistic denominator.

13 Race and Suffrage in the South since 1940, Jackson, Luther P., 
New South, Vol. 3, pp. 1-26 (1948); Civil Rights in the United 
States in 1951, op. cit. supra, p. 18; A Decade in Race Relations, 
Wilkins, Roy, America, June 16, 1951, pp. 287-289; Stakes Are 
Costly in Play for Texas, N. Y. Times, Sept. 23, 1952.

* Only last week the Superintendent of Schools said the school 
system would not be unprepared for a decision ending segrega­
tion, Washington Post, Nov. 29, 1952. By contrast, we regard as 
particularly unfortunate the Court’s statement in the Carr case, 
supra, p. 16, that the problems with which it was dealing were 
1 ‘ insoluble by force of any sort. ’ ’ The same amount of ‘ ‘ force ’ ’ is 
exercised by segregated as by unsegregated schools. The present 
practices in the District of Columbia school system are just as 
“ forceful” to those who desire to associate with their fellows with­
out artificial racial barriers as an unsegregated system would be 
to those who wish to keep aloof.



16

B. Declared legislative prohibitions against segregation in 
other areas of activ ity  in the  District of Columbia demon­
strate the further irrationality of school segregation.

The classification of groups of children in the public 
schools by skin color alone must also be tested in the light 
of legislative action affecting other group relationships in 
the community.

As early as 1865,14 the Congress expressly forbade any 
street railway company in the District of Columbia to ex­
clude any person from any car, and since then there 
has been no “ Jim-Crow” transportation in the District. In 
1872 and 1873, the Legislative Assembly for the District 
enacted laws (referred to as the “ Equal Service Laws” ) 
forbidding the refusal to serve any well-behaved person in 
any eating place, barber shop or hotel.15 Thereafter, in 
1875, the Congress enacted the famed Civil Eights Act,18 
forbidding racial discrimination or exclusion in places of 
public accommodation throughout the country, including 
the District of Columbia.

This series of legislative measures, then, carved out vast 
areas for the free association of peoples in the District. 
As opposed to the direct prohibitions against segregation 
in these instances where Congress has clearly expressed its 
intention on the subject, no instance has been found where 
the Congress requires segregation. (It should be noted 
that the statutes relied upon here as establishing a segre­
gated school system are not mandatory in form—unlike 
school and other statutes in the South which explicitly re-

14 Section 5 of the Act of March 3, 1865, 13 Stat. 536.
15 The law of 1873 was recently held valid, and in force, in Dis­

trict of Columbia v. John B. Thompson Co., 81 A. (2d) 249 (D.C. 
Mun. App.). An appeal is now pending in the United States Court 
of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

18 Act of March 1, 1875, 18 Stat. 835. This Act was declared 
invalid as applied to the States (Civil Bights Cases, 109 IT. S. 3 
(1883)) and, only because the provisions were considered nonsep- 
arable, to steamships in coastwise trade {Butts v. Merchants and 
Miners Trams. Co., 230 U. S. 126 (1913).



17

quire segregation. See compilation in the Appendix to the 
Petitioners’ brief, herein.)

In this context, particularly in view of the other broad 
areas of present free community association mentioned in 
Section A, supra, it becomes impossible to accept as having 
rational foundation a legislative classification singling pub­
lic school children alone out of the entire community for 
governmental separation based solely on race.

C. Present scientific understanding discredits traditional 
concepts of "race".

Governmental classifications must also be tested in the 
light of present-day scientific understanding.

It seems hardly necessary at this late date to offer proof 
that conduct governed by assumed distinctions attributed 
to race is wholly arbitrary. Moreover, the concept of 
“ race”, which has been thought to have a scientific expla­
nation based on esoteric classifications used by physical 
anthropologists, have been demonstrated by mature stu­
dents of anthropology to be largely lacking even such a 
foundation, and they have shown that no significance what­
ever can be attached to skin color alone. Boyd, Genetics 
and the Races of Man (Little, Brown & Co., 1950), pp. 10- 
27, 184-207.17

Certainly in the Western World no nation is anything 
but a mixture of many kinds of racial groups. The term

17 ‘ ‘ The biological fact of race and the myth of ‘ race ’ should be 
distinguished. For all practical social purposes ‘race’ is not so 
much a biological phenomenon as a social myth. The myth of 
‘race’ has created an enormous amount of human and social dam­
age. * * * I t still prevents the normal development of millions of 
human beings and deprives civilization of the effective co-opera­
tion of productive minds. The biological differences between ethnic 
groups should be disregarded from the standpoint of social ac­
ceptance and social action.” Statement by Experts on Race 
Problems, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural 
Organization, .July 18, 1950. See also LaFarge, The Race Question 
and the Negro; Itedfield, What We Do Know About Race, 57 
Scientific Monthly 193 (Sept., 1943) ; Krogman, An Anthropologist 
Looks at Race, 7 Intercultural Education News 1 (Nov., 1945).



18

“ white” is racially meaningless as applied to almost all 
American or European whites. There are fair-haired, tall, 
long-headed North Europeans and dark-haired, less tall, 
round-headed South Europeans. And there are all those 
who run the gamut. They are all race mixtures. Benedict 
& Weltfish, Races of Mankind (Public Affairs Committee, 
1944). Even more certain is it that the American Negro 
is not a “ race” . Not only were the original African slaves 
members of different “ racial” groups (from different 
parts of Africa) but their cross-fertilization with “ white” 
Americans has been extensive. As early as 1920 at least 
15.9 per cent of the “ Negro” population was visibly mu­
latto. Klineberg, Characteristics of the American Negro 
(Harper, 1944), p. 268. And a recent study by John Hop­
kins and Pittsburgh University professors discloses that 
the Negro population in the United States is 30 per cent 
white in its ancestry. Glass and Li, Report on the Dynamics 
of Racial Intermixture, Annual Meeting of American In­
stitute of Biological Sciences at Cornell University (N. Y. 
Times, Sept. 8, 1952, 33:8); Comas, Racial Myths 
(UNESCO, 1951) pp. 1-26.

II

THE FACT THAT CONGRESS MADE PROVISION FOR THE 
ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS FOR NEGRO CHILDREN IN 
THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BEFORE THE ADOPTION OF 
THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT DOES NOT JUSTIFY THE 
CONCLUSION THAT THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT WAS 
INTENDED TO PERM IT RACIAL SEGREGATION.

Petitioners urge in this case that racial segregation in 
the schools operated by the District of Columbia govern­
ment is discriminatory per se and consequently prohibited 
by the Fifth Amendment. The argument rests on the firmly 
based principle that “ distinctions between citizens solely 
because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to 
a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doc­
trine of equality” . Hirdbayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 
81, 100 (1943).



19

It is urged, however, by those seeking to uphold school 
separation based on race alone that neither the Fifth nor 
the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, prohibits 
segregation.173- In this connection, reliance is placed on cer­
tain statutes enacted by the United States Congress for the 
education of Negro children in the District of Columbia 
at about the same time the Congress submitted the 
Fourteenth Amendment to the states for ratification. The 
theory suggested is that these statutes expressly provided 
for the establishment of segregated schools for Negro and 
white children and that, hence, the Congress of that period 
could not have viewed the constitutional principles em­
bodied in the Fourteenth Amendment as prohibiting racial 
■segregation.

This argument was given much weight by the majority 
opinion (Edgerton, J., dissenting) of the Court of Appeals 
for the District of Columbia Circuit in Carr v. Corning, 182 
F. 2d 14 (1950).18 Judge Prettyman’s opinion there re­
viewed the statutes in question and concluded that they 
“ conclusively support” the view that the Fourteenth 
Amendment does not prohibit segregation. Ibid, pp. 17-19.

We have already indicated our contention that the rea­
son or unreason of a classification such as separate racial 
schools must be judged on the basis of contemporary con­
ditions and current knowledge, and not governed by the 
dead hand of the past. Weems v. United States, 217 U .8. 
349, 373-374, 378 (1910). But because we wish to meet 
squarely the argument from history, just outlined, we turn 
now to an analysis of the past as it is involved therein.

17a Brief for Respondents herein, pp. 36-37; Brief for Appellees 
in Briggs v. Elliott, No. 101 this term, p. 15; Brief for Appellees 
in Davis v. County School Board, No. 191 this term, pp. 12-13.

18 The complaint in the Carr case, as in this one, challenged the 
constitutionality of segregation in the District of Columbia public 
schools. The Court of Appeals upheld segregation and no review 
of its decision was sought in this Court. In the instant case, the 
District Court in granting the motion to dismiss, stated in an oral 
opinion that it was bound by the Carr decision.



20

Such analysis shows that the conclusion on the part of the 
Court of Appeals in the Carr case was neither required 
nor justified in the light of the genesis of the local laws 
and of the Fourteenth Amendment. On the contrary, the 
conclusion that the Fourteenth Amendment was intended 
to prohibit segregation is fully documented in the pene­
trating study by Flack in his The Adoption of the Four­
teenth Amendment (1908), by the petitioner’s brief in 
Sweatt v. Painter, supra (pp. 54-62), by the amicus brief 
of the Committe of Law Teachers in that case (pp. 
5-19), and by the latest and perhaps most exhaustive study 
of all, Frank and Munro, The Original Understanding of 
“Equal Protection of the Laws,” 50 Col. L. Rev. 131,153-62 
(1940). We shall not repeat that presentation here.

This conclusion cannot be cavalierly swept aside simply 
by finding in isolated statutes, narrow and localized in scope 
and enacted years before the ratification of a constitutional 
amendment over which the entire nation seethed, a purpose 
completely at variance with the whole thrust of that amend­
ment as it was generally understood.

In the Carr case, Judge Prettyman cited six statutes. 
Only five of these are actually relevant.19 These five 
statutes were enacted between 1862 and 1866—and the 
dates are crucial, since the Court of Appeals inferred, from 
the fact that they were (1) contemporaneous with the pas­
sage by Congress of the proposed Fourteenth Amendment 
and (2) seemingly inconsistent with an anti-segregation in-

19 The reference in the Carr decision (pp. 17-18) to Sections 281, 
282, 294 and 304 of the revision of the D. C. Statutes (Act of June 
22, 1874, 18 Stat. part 2) appears erroneously to assume that these 
provisions were first enacted in that year. In fact, these are sec­
tions taken from the Act of June 25, 1864, 13 Stat. 187, 191, from 
which Judge Prettyman had already drawn significance, and no 
additional significance can be found in their inclusion in the 1874 
Revision, since that was merely part of a Congressional attempt 
to provide up-to-date compilations of existing law—one such com­
pilation for the District of Columbia, and another (U. S. Revised 
Statutes, 1872 and 1878) of the general laws of the United States. 
Certainly there is no suggestion that any consideration was given 
by Congress in 1874 to the determination of racial policy which is 
inherent in the inference drawn by Judge Prettyman.



21

terpretation of that Amendment, that the Amendment itself 
could not have been intended to abolish segregation.

But the inference is by no means either necessary or cor­
rect. It is based on a misconception of both the pertinency 
of the chronology and the purposes of the school statutes.

When the Fourteenth Amendment was proposed in June 
1866, its framers obviously had no means of knowing how- 
many years would elapse before its ratification by the 
states; in fact, it was not until July 1868, more than two 
years later, that it was declared ratified. The mere fact 
that the Amendment was proposed in 1866, at approxi­
mately the same time as the 1866 statutes, does not, as Judge 
Prettyman implies, necessarily impute to the Congress a 
purpose in that Amendment to perpetuate segregated 
schools.20 It may equally suggest a desire to deal with the 
problem on a national basis rather than a local one, just as 
the Congress later did, in the Civil Rights Act of 1875, when 
it prohibited discrimination of any kind in places of public 
accommodation anywhere in the United States, including 
the District of Columbia.21 We recognize that Congress, 
prior to the Fourteenth Amendment, was making provi­
sion for schools which, when they were finally established, 
were separate. But to conclude from this that Congress in­
tended to perpetuate this situation, come what may, is to 
fail to distinguish between mere recognition of the his­
torical fact of segregation and a mandate for segregation.

In fact, what the historical development of public educa­
tion for colored children does amply demonstrate is that 
the Congress was concerned in the 1860’s with obtaining 
education for those children, and further that Congress was 
never faced with the issue of granting or denying a request

20 Moreover, it should be recognized that there is significance in 
the fact that the path travelled through the Houses of Congress 
by the Bill dealing with District schools was obviously different 
from that taken by the Bill proposing the Fourteenth Amendment. 
The origin, committee consideration, and debates were totally dif­
ferent from the two matters.

21 Act of March 1, 1875, 18 Stat. 335.



22

that there should be “ integrated” education. At that time 
public education of any kind was still regarded in many 
quarters as invidious, and education for the Negro (who in 
many states was still forbidden to learn to read or write) 
had only a short while prior thereto been deemed wholly 
objectionable by some legislators.22

In 1862, only a few weeks after slaves were freed in the 
District of Columbia23 (and almost a year before the 
Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863) the Con­
gressional action was an attempt for the first time to pro­
vide “ free”24 public education for colored children. The 
Congress w'as concerned with that problem alone.

Similarly, in 1864,25 when Congress provided that the 
amount used to support schools for colored children should 
be appropriated from the general revenues of the cities of 
Washington and Georgetown in accordance with the ratio 
of colored children to the total number of children, Con­
gress was faced only with the problem whether (in view 
of the exceedingly small sums allotted by the authorities 
to the colored 'schools)28 they should continue to tax colored 
persons separately to support schools for colored chil­
dren.27

22 Of. 62 Cong. Globe, 37th Cong., 3d Sess. 1326-1327 (1863).
23 Act of April 16, 1862, 12 Stat. 376.
24 Act of May 20, 1862, 12 Stat. 394; Act of May 21, 1862, 12 

Stat. 407. In part, the purpose was to remedy the unjust dis­
crimination of the existing D. C. school system which, as a result 
of slavery days, denied admittance to colored children while col­
lecting taxes from their parents, forcing the latter to maintain 
their own schools. Bryan, History of the National Capital, Yol. 
II, (1916), pp. 137-38/389, 524-528.

25 Act of June 25, 1864, 13 Stat. 187, 191.
26 In 1862 nothing was paid over by Georgetown and only 

$8,256.25 by Washington. In 1863, Georgetown paid $69.72 and 
Washington $410.89. The need for additional funds was obvious. 
Special Report of the Commissioner of Education on the Condi­
tion and Improvement of Public Schools in the District of Colum­
bia, p. 253, H. Eep. Ex. Doc. No. 315, 41st Cong., 2d Sess. (1871).

27 The earlier Act of May 21, 1862, supra, n. 24, required the use 
of 10 percent of the taxes levied upon property of colored persons 
for the support of such schools.



23

So, too, when in 186628 Congress expressly ordered that 
the Act of 1864 he construed so as to require the cities of 
Washington and Georgetown to pay over the appropriated 
sums to the trustees of colored schools, Congress had not 
been requested to “ integrate” but was acting only to over­
come the continued reluctance of the municipal authorities 
to make any but the most completely inadequate provision 
for the education of colored children. And further, when 
the following week29 the Congress authorized the convey­
ance of certain lands of the United States to the trustees of 
colored schools it was again seeking to provide education 
for colored children; it was not determining a question of 
racial policy. Since at that very time Congress was debating 
the question whether segregation would be outlawed by the 
proposed Amendment,30 it may be supposed that Congress 
would have been astonished to be told that it was else­
where determining that very question—and by means of a 
localized statute, not a Constitutional Amendment of na­
tion-wide scope and interest.

In sum, the whole point is that the major portion of the 
period under analysis was prior to and not contemporane­
ous with the Fourteenth Amendment and (as the Cor­
poration Counsel has argued in another context)31 “ the 
laws setting up schools for colored were enacted at a time 
when members of that race were afforded no schooling 
whatsoever. The purpose of the laws was to give rather 
than to take away, was to afford opportunity rather than 
deny opportunity * *

Additional evidence of historical misconstruction in the 
Carr opinion is found in the fact that, contemporaneously 
with the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment by the 
Congress, there was also enacted the bitterly fought over

28 Act of July 23, 1866, 14 Stat. 216.
29 Act of July  28, 1866, 14 Stat. 343.
30 Flack, Adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment (1908), pp. 

77-82.
31 Brief for Appellees in Cogdell v. Sharpe, No. 11,019, in U. S. 

Court of Appeals for District of Columbia Circuit, October Term, 
1951, p. 58.



24

Civil Eights Bill of 1866.32 So significant was that Bill that 
the Amendment was ‘ ‘ sidetracked to give full sway to that 
important measure.” 33 This bill was generally understood 
to have the effect of opening white schools to Negroes.34 
But this very fact was believed to raise substantial doubts 
as to its validity on the ground that it was an exercise of the 
powers of the States. Accordingly, the first section of the 
Fourteenth Amendment was designed to meet this alleged 
Constitutional infirmity and to make secure the provisions 
of the Civil Rights Bill.36

Following the ratification of the Amendment, the Bill 
was re-enacted36 and has been enforced by this Court as 
recently as 1948, in Hurd v. Hodge, 334 U. S. 24.37

Thus it is plain that the conclusion reached in the Carr 
case not only ignores the time sequence of the statutes and 
the ratification of the Amendment, but also gives a com­
pletely distorted significance to the school legislation.

CONCLUSION

The advances commenced by the Civil War were 
slowed and almost halted by judicial gloss on the Four­
teenth Amendment. We trust that it is worth reminding 
the Court that segregation is not a Constitutional com­
mand. It was nothing more than a de facto social phenom­
enon until this Court itself gave it legal and Constitutional 
dignity by its majority decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. By

32 Act of April 9, 1866, 14 Stat. 27 (passed over veto). This is 
not the Act invalidated in the Civil Rights Cases.

33 Flack, op. cit., supra, p. 20.
34 Ibid, pp. 40-54; Frank and Munro, op. cit., supra, p. 160.
35 Ibid, p. 55.
36 Act of May 31, 1870, 16 Stat. 140.
37 The respondents argue that the failure to include schools 

within the coverage of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 indicates Con­
gressional intent to permit segregation. (Br. p. 37) The 
answer to this is two-fold: (1) It was not that Congress which pro- 
prosed the Fourteenth Amendment; and (2) the omission of schools 
was a purely political and practical matter, not negating the un­
derstanding that the Amendment (though obviously not self-exe- 
euting) did prohibit separate schools. Brief of the Committee of 
Law Teachers, op. cit., supra, pp. 14-16; Frank and Munro, op. 
cit., supra, pp. 156-162.



25

now it has become clear that “ separate” in practice is 
never “ equal” , and it now needs only this Court's deter­
mination to strip from segregation its spurious dignity, by 
holding with Mr. Justice Harlan that “ Our Constitution 
is color-blind.”

Respectfully submitted,
A m e r ic a n  C o u n c il , o n  H u m a n  R ig h t s  

By: Aubrey E. Robinson, Jr.
A m e r ic a n s  fo r  D em o c r a t ic  A c t io n  (Washington Chapter) 

By: Theodore C. Sorensen
A m e r ic a n  J e w is h  C o m m it t e e  (Washington Chapter)

By: William C. Koplovits
A m e r ic a n  J e w is h  C o n g r ess , C o m m is s io n  o n  L a w  & S o c ia l  

A c t io n  (Washington Chapter)
By: S. Walter Shine

C a t h o l ic  I n t e r r a c ia l  C o u n c il  o f  W a s h in g t o n  
By: John J. O’Connor

C o m m is s io n  o n  C o m m u n it y  L if e  o f  t h e  W a s h in g t o n  F e d ­
e r a t io n  o f  C h u r c h e s

By: L. Maynard Catching s
D is t r ic t  of C o l u m b ia  I n d u s t r ia l  U n io n  C o u n c il , C .L O . 

By: Ben Segal
D. C. F e d e r a t io n  o f  C iv ic  A s so c ia t io n s , I n c .

By: John B. Duncan
F r ie n d s  C o m m it t e e  o n  N a t io n a l  L e g is l a t io n  

By: E. Raymond Wilson
J a p a n e s e  A m e r ic a n  C it iz e n s  L ea g u e  

(Washington Chapter)
By: RiMo Kumagai

J e w is h  C o m m u n it y  C o u n c il  o f  G r e a t e r  W a s h in g t o n  
By: Isaac Franck

N a t io n a l  A s so c ia t io n  f o r  t h e  A d v a n c e m e n t  of C olored  
P e o p l e  (D. C . Branch)

By: Constance E. II. Daniel
U n it a r ia n  F e l l o w s h ip  fo r  S o c ia l  J u s t ic e  

(Washington Chapter)
By: Margery T. Ware



26

W a s h in g t o n  B a r  A s so c ia t io n
By: Joel D. Blackwell

W a s h in g t o n  E t h ic a l  S o c ie t y
By: Milton Chase

W a s h in g t o n  F e l l o w s h ip
By: Edwin B. Henderson

W a s h in g t o n  I n t e r r a c ia l  W o r k s h o p
By: Lillian Palenius

W a s h in g t o n  TJr b a n  L e a g u e  
B y :  L. K. Shivery

S . W a l t e r  S h i n e  
T h eo d o r e  0 .  S o r e n s o n  
S a n eo rd  H. B o lz  
S a m u e l  B . ( I r o n h r  

Counsel

December, 1952.



APPENDIX

The information in the following tables is culled from the files 
and resources of the organizations sponsoring this brief. I t  is 
intended to be only representative, not exhaustive, and it is believed 
to be accurate.



27
TABLE I

List of Cities in Southern and Border Slates in Which Some 
Schools, Colleges and Universities Have Been Recently Inte­
grated.
Alabama

Talladega

Arizona
Douglas
Duncan
Globe
Miami
Prescott
Tolleson
Tucson

Arkansas 
Fayetteville 
Little Rock 
Pine Bluff

California 
Contra Costa 

County
Imperial Valley 
Santa Ana County 
Mendota

D istrict of 
Columbia

Delaware
Claymont
Hockessin
Newark

Georgia
Decatur

I llinois
Alton
Argo
Cairo
East St. Louis
Edwardsville
Harrisburg
Madison
Metropolis

Illinois (continued) 
Sparta 
Tamms 
Ullin
Waukegan

I ndiana
Elkhart
Gary
Indianapolis 
New Albany 
South Bend

K ansas
Topeka
Lawrence

Kentucky 
Berea 
Fort Knox 
Lexington 
Louisville 
Nazareth 
Paducah

Louisiana 
Baton Rouge 
New Orleans

Maryland 
Annapolis 
Baltimore 
College Park 
W estminster

Missouri 
Columbia 
Kansas City 
St. Louis

New Mexico 
Alamogordo 
Albuquerque 
Carlsbad 
Santa Fe

North Carolina 
Asheville 
Camp Lejeune 
Chapel Hill 
Fort Bragg

Ohio
Allendale
Cincinnati
Glendale
Wilmington

Oklahoma
Norman
Stillwater

South Carolina 
Greenville

Tennessee 
Knoxville 
Mont Eagle

Texas 
Amarillo 
Austin 
Big Spring 
Corpus Christi 
Dallas 
Fort Worth 
Houston 
Plainview 
Wichita Falls

Virginia 
Alexandria 
Charlottesville 
Fort Quantico 
Richmond 
Williamsburg

West V irginia 
Buckhannon 
Morgantown



28

TABLE II

Schools, Colleges and Universities in the District of Colum­
bia and Environs Which Will Accept Both White and Negro 
Students.

A. Nursery, E lementary and H igh Schools:
All Catholic parochial, schools 
Arlington Unitarian Church Summer School 
Baker’s Dozen Youth Center 
Beauvoir Elementary School (1953)
Bethesda-Chevy Chase Nursery School 
Burgundy Farms Country Day School 
Community Nursery School 
Georgetown Day School 
Green Acres Day School
Hisacres New Thought Center Nursery School 
Kenilworth School (Mother’s Club, Nursery)
Lincoln Congregational Church Nursery School 
Raymond School (Mother’s Club, Nursery)
Rosedale School (Mother’s Club, Nursery)
Silver Spring Nursery School

B. Colleges and Universities :
American University 
Catholic University 
Dunbarton College of Holy Cross
Georgetown University (all but Foreign Service School) 
Howard University 
National Law School 
Trinity College



29

TABLE III

"The School Doors Open Wide"
Examples of Recent Admission of Negroes to Educational 

Institutions in the South and Border Areas

A. In the South

1. PUBLIC EDUCATION

a. E lementary and H igh School Level 
Delaware

Claymont—Negroes attend Claymont public school previously 
restricted to whites, for first time, under court order.1

Hockessin—Negroes admitted to Hoekessin white public school, 
as ordered by state court.2

Kentucky
Fort Knox—Base public school, supported entirely by Federal 

funds, admits both Negro and white students on equal 
basis.

Maryland
Baltimore—Negro boys admitted to Baltimore’s Polytechnic 

Institute (High School) although municipal ordi­
nance bars admission.8

North, Carolina
Camp Lejeune—Public school at Camp Lejeune, supported en­

tirely by Federal funds, has successfully integrated 
its white and Negro students.

Fort Bragg—Integrated public school at Fort Bragg, operated 
entirely with Federal funds, operated without fan­
fare or incident since September, 1951. Only one pa­
rental complaint, about Negro students, and teacher, 
soon ended.4

Virginia
Fort Quantico—Public school at Fort Quantieo operates with­

out segregation.

b. College and Graduate Level

Arkansas
Fayetteville—Several hundred Negro students have received a 

friendly acceptance for nearly 4 years in graduate 
and professional schools of University of Arkansas.5

Little Rock—Negroes accepted without incident in law, educa­
tion, and medical graduate schools of University of 
Arkansas, despite one local objection.6



30

Delaware
Newark—University of Delaware at Newark admits qualified 

Negroes to any course which is not provided at Dela­
ware State College for Negroes.7

Kentucky
Louisville—Louisville Municipal University and Negro College 

completely and successfully integrated at graduate 
and undergraduate levels, in classes, dormitories, 
cafeteria, and all student activities. “ A magnificent 
success,”  says Pres. Davidson.8

Lexington—University of Kentucky has successfully opened 
up graduate and professional schools to several hun­
dred Negro students, who face no segregation in such 
places as the cafeteria.9

Paducah—Under court order, a Negro applicant has been ac­
cepted at Paducah Junior College.10

Louisiana
Baton Rouge—Negro student accepted without incident at 

Louisiana State University.11
New Orleans—Louisiana State University graduate college is. 

open to Negro students.
Maryland

Annapolis—Negro graduates from U. S. Naval Academy at 
Annapolis.12

College Park—University of Maryland admits qualified 
Negroes to graduate and undergraduate schools. 
(Negroes have been admitted to the law school since 
1935.) Integration (including admission to dormi­
tory life) has been wholly successful.13

Missouri
Columbia—Negroes are being admitted to the University of 

Missouri after favorable action by students, adminis­
trators, and others, and without incident.14

St. Louis—Harris Teachers College, a municipal institution, 
admitted its first Negro under court order.15

North Carolina
Chapel Hill—Several Negroes attend University of North Car­

olina law school, as 2 graduates pass state bar exam­
ination. Other graduate schools also opened without 
incident.16

Oklahoma
Norman—Negro students have attended, and graduated from, 

various divisions of the University of Oklahoma since 
1948, with no trouble of any kind.17

Stillwater—Negroes admitted to Oklahoma A. & M., join white 
students in athletic and other similar activities, with­
out difficulty.18



31

Tennessee
Knoxville—Negroes have been admitted to some of the grad­

uate and professional schools of the University of 
Kentucky, without difficulty.19

Texas
Amarillo—Amarillo Junior College now admits Negro 

students.
Austin—Negroes enrolled successfully, despite widespread pro­

test, in September 1950, at University of Texas.21
Texas University admits first two Negroes to Dental 

Scbool.21a
Corpus Christi—Del Mar Municipal Junior College has opened 

its doors to qualified Negro residents of Corpus 
Christi.22

Big Spring—Howard Junior College, previously all white, has 
opened its doors to Negro students.23

Wichita Falls—Midwestern University ordered by Federal 
Court to admit colored students.24

Virginia
Charlottesville—Negroes admitted without incident to Univer­

sity of Virginia for first time in 1950.25

West Virginia
Morgantown—Negro students have been accepted into the Uni­

versity of West Virginia graduate, and more recently 
undergraduate, colleges successfully.26

2. PRIVATE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
Alabama

Talladega—Talladega College becomes Alabama’s first mixed 
educational institution by enrollment of a white stu­
dent (other than a child of a white faculty member).27

District of Columbia
Washington—All catholic and most of the other parochial 

schools, and most private schools, have begun to op­
erate in past several years on an interracial basis; so 
has the pre-nursery school program operated in coop­
eration with the District Recreation Department, 
youth centers, day-care centers, and other private in­
stitutions of an educational nature (See: Table II) 

Negroes have been accepted in Georgetown Univer­
sity, Catholic University, National Law School, Wash­
ington College of Law, Dumbarton College of Holy 
Cross, Trinity College, and American University.



32

Georgia
Decatur—Columbia Theological School now admits Negroes.28

Kentucky
Berea—Berea College, subject of a 1908 court case upholding 

segregation, has successfully integrated Negroes at 
all levels since 1950.29

Louisville—Negroes successfully admitted to undergraduate 
schools of Ursiline College, Louisville Theological 
Seminary, Nazareth College, the Nursing School of 
St. Joseph’s Infirmary, and Bellarmine College.30

Louisiana
New Orleans—Loyola University of this city and Southern 

Baptist Theological Seminary now admit Negro stu­
dents.31

Maryland
Annapolis—Negro graduates, as another enrolls, at St. John’s 

College in Annapolis.32
Baltimore—Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore has ad­

mitted Negroes each year since World War II.33
Westminster—Westminster Theological Seminary has opened 

its doors to Negroes.34
Missouri

St. Louis—Large numbers of Negro students have attended 
St. Louis University, where Negroes also serve on the 
faculty, since 1944. Washington University of St. 
Louis has admitted Negro students and has had Negro 
visiting professor, for some time. The St. Louis Col­
lege of Pharmacy and Allied Sciences began admit­
ting Negroes this year.85

St. Louis Catholic parochial schools have been in­
tegrated by order of the Catholic hierarchy, and have 
operated wholly without incident despite some paren­
tal protests.36

North Carolina
Asheville—Black Mountain College announces that its doors 

are opened to all persons regardless of color.37
Texas

Austin—The Austin Theological Seminary now admits Negro 
students.38

Dallas—Southern Methodist University has admitted 3 Negro 
students to its graduate school of theology.89

Forth Worth—Southwestern Baptist Seminary now accepts 
Negro students.40

Plainview—The local theological school, Wayland College, 
accepts Negroes.41



33

Virginia
Alexandria—Burgundy Farm Country Day School is a most 

successful example of interracial operation on both 
the student and faculty level.42

Biehmond—The Union Theological Seminary, and the Eich- 
mond Professional Institute, both admit Negroes now, 
though formerly open only to white students.43

Williamsburg—First Negro student is admitted to William 
and Mary College.44

West Virginia
Buckhannon—West Virginia Wesleyan has abolished segrega­

tion in its school entirely, after admitting Negroes to 
specific courses for some time.45

B. In Southwestern, Border and Other Areas.

1. PUBLIC EDUCATION

a. E lementary and H igh School Level 
Arizona

Douglas—Public schools have been integrated.
Duncan—Public School segregation of white and Negro stu­

dents ends as litigation is settled out of court.46
Globe—Globe public schools are integrated without incident.47
Miami—Segregation in the public schools ends here without 

difficulty of any sort.48
Prescott—Segregated schools end successfully in Prescott.49
Talleson—Segregation of pupils of latin descent is ended by 

Federal Court order.50
Tuscon—Segregated public schools ended in Tuseon with full 

integration of students, teachers and administrators 
in 1951. In spite of many advance protests, Superin­
tendent Morrow says system works well.51

(All the foregoing occurred following 1950 state referendum 
authorizing integration by School Boards)52

California
Imperial Valley—Kindergarten and elementary pupils and 

teachers have been integrated.
Contra Costa County—Segregation is ended in county schools 

by Federal Court order.53
Mendota—Integration of separate schools for Mexican and 

white children is highly successful.54
Santa Ana—Segregation of Mexican school children in the 

Westminster School District is ended by court order.55



34

Illinois
Alton—Long-standing segregation in public schools of Alton 

successfully ended, despite rumors of trouble and 
initial protests.

Argo—Segregation in public schools successfully ended.
Cairo—Despite violent objections, schools successfully main­

tain new policy of opening schools to all, and strife 
ceases.56

Bdwardsville—Segregation in public schools successfully 
ended.

Bast St. Louis—85 year policy of segregation ended without 
difficulty in 1950, despite rumors of trouble and stu­
dent strikes which did not occur.57

Harrisburg—Segregation in public schools ended without 
incident.

Tamms—Public schools successfully end segregation in 1951.88
Ullin—Schools here were integrated in 1951 without any dif­

ficulty.59
Waukegan—Public schools successfully integrated in 1951.60

Indiana
Gary—Protests and disorder successfully overcome as large 

Negro and white student bodies became completely 
integrated.81

Indianapolis—Despite agitation by the K.K.K., separate Negro 
and white schools at Indianapolis are. integrated 
without serious disruption.62

New Albany—Segregated school systems completely and suc­
cessfully integrated with respect to both teachers and 
students.

New Jersey
General—Nearly four dozen communities in New Jersey have 

seen their Negro and white schools integrated suc­
cessfully in the past several years. The few protests 
and withdrawals which arose were quietly ended by 
the finality of the decision. Segregation in a peace­
ful and successful manner was particularly . sig­
nificant in towns which evidenced strong prejudice, 
including populations of lower than average educa­
tional background, as well as those of intellectual and 
cultural pride, where both teachers and students were 
successfully integrated.

Communities in New Jersey where public schools 
have been integrated include: Freehold, Camden, 
Haddonfield, Burlington, Bordentown, Cape May, 
Egg Harbor, Fair Haven, Florence, Greenwich, Long 
Branch, Lower Penns Neck, Palmgra, Penns Grove, 
Pleasantville, Princeton, Princeton Township, Quin-



35

ton, Riverside, Salem, Shrewsbury, Woodstown, Tren­
ton, Asbnry Park, Mount Holly and Atlantic City.63

Princeton—In intellectually elite Princeton, installation of a 
Negro teacher in the newly-integrated school attended 
by children of both races caused a withdrawal of 
seven children to the exclusive private schools nearby; 
yet all but one returned before semester’s end.64

Salem—In Southern-like Salem, N. J., where over one-third 
of the students were colored, the white and Negro 
schools were completely integrated with a Negro 
principal remaining in charge of white teachers. 
There was no difficulty.65

New Mexico
Alamogordo—Segregation in public schools is abolished and 

Negro faculty member appointed.66
Albuquerque—Segregation of public school systems is ended 

in this large city of Southern traditions.
Carlsbad—Schools integrated for first time in 1951, after wel­

coming vote by students and faculty.67
Santa Pe—Racial segregation in public school system is 

ended.
Ohio

Glendale—Segregation in Glendale public schools ends on ad­
vice of County Attorney.88

Wilmington—Further desegregation of grade levels in ele­
mentary schools undertaken, high schools already 
being non-segregated.69

Pennsylvania
Carlisle—Segregation of Negro children eliminated from 

school system.70

b. College and Graduate Level

Note: Successful integration in these institutions outside of 
the South has been too widespread and universally 
accepted for recent developments to be regarded as 
significant.

For some examples and surveys see: National 
Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro Students, 
“ Opportunities in Interracial Colleges,” 1951 (over 
200 interracial colleges listed) ; Roche, “ Catholic 
Colleges and the Negro Student,”  1948 (overwhelm­
ing majority of Catholic colleges admit Negroes); 
Texas Legislature Council, “ Staff Monograph on 
Higher Education for Negroes in Texas,” 1951 (Ne­
groes at University of Texas and other Southern in­
stitutions, following Sweatt and other cases) ; Na-



36

tional Assn, of Intergroup Relations Officials, 
“ Toward Equality in Education,” 1952 (white stu­
dents enrolled at Southern Negro colleges, and more 
white colleges than listed here would welcome Negro 
students if enabled to do so) ; “ The American Negro 
in College, 1949-1950,” Crisis, Yol. 57, No. 8, p. 488; 
“ The American Negro in College, 1950-1951,” Crisis, 
Vol. 58, No. 7, p. 445. Sorensen, “ The School Doors 
Swing Open,” New Republic, 127 :13, Dec. 15, 1952.

2. PRIVATE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

Note: Successful integration in these institutions outside of 
the South has been too widespread and universally 
accepted for recent developments to be regarded as 
significant.



37

Sources for information in Table III are listed below. The 
abbreviations refer to the following publications:

B.S.—“ Civil Rights in the United States—A Balance Sheet 
of Group Relations,”  published jointly each year by 
the American Jewish Congress and the National As­
sociation for the Advancement of Colored People.

J.N.E.—Journal of Negro Education.
N.Y.T.—New York Times.
W.A.A.—Washington Afro-American.
W.D.N.—Washington Daily News.
W.E.S.—Washington Evening Star.
W.P.—Washington Post.

1 W .A.A., 4-5-52.
2 W .A.A., 4-5-52; N .Y.T., 8-29-52. 
3W .D .N ., 9-4-52.
4 W .P , 10-14-51.
5 N .Y.T., 10-23-50.
6 N .Y.T., 10-23-50; W.A.A.,

11-27-51.
7 1948 B.S., p. 24.8 New Republic, 7-21-52.
9 N .Y.T., 10-23-50.
10 1950 B.S., p. 44.
11 1950 B.S., p. 44; W .E.S.,

3-28-52.
12 W .E.S., 6-7-52.
13 1948 B.S., p. 24.
14 1950 B.S., p. 44.
15 1949 B.S., p. 32.
16 The Voice (A .N .P .), 9-18-52;

W .A.A., 5-1-51.
17 1950 B.S., p. 44.
18 1950 B .S., p. 45.
19 W .E.S., 1-12-52; N .Y.T., 10-23-52.
20 Am sterdam  News, 8-9-52.
21 N .Y .T., 10-23-50.
2la N .Y .T., 9-11-52, 38:8.
22 Am sterdam  News, 8-9-52.
23 Am sterdam  News, 8-9-52.
24 W .A.A., 1-52.
25 N.Y.T., 10-23-50.
26 N .Y .T., 10-23-52.
27 W .A.A., 1-52; N .Y.T., 2-4-52.
28 1951 B.S., p. 66.
29 N .Y.T., 10-23-50.
30 N .Y.T., 10-23-50; W .A.A., 1952;

Colored H arvest, 11-52; Crisis, 
No. 5, 1952. p. 594.

31 W .A.A., — , 1952.
32W .E.S., 7-10-52; N .Y.T., 1-2-49.
33 1951 B.S., p. 66.
34 W .A.A., — , 1952.

35 St. Louis Argus, 6-20-52;
N.Y.T., 10-23-50; 1951, B.S.,
p. 66.

36 Bose (ed .), Race P rejud ice  and
D iscrim ination (1951), p. 548.

37 W.A.A., 1952.
38 1951 B.S., p. 66.
39 1951 B.S., p. 66.
40 1951 B.S., p. 66.
41 1951 B.S., p. 66.
42 W .P., 7-19-52.
43 1951 B.S., pp. 66-67.
44 W .A.A., 5-18-51.
45 1949  B.S., p. 32.
46 1949 B.S., p. 33.
47 Nation, 4-28-51.
48 N ation, 4-28-51.
49 N ation, 4-28-51.
50 1951 B.S., p. 65.
51 Time, 10-8-51.
52 1951 B.S., p. 58.
53 W .A.A., 11-20-51.
54 Survey, 1951.
55 W estm inster.
56 Time, 2-18-52; N ation, 2-9-52;

N.Y.T., 9-7-52, 14:1.
57 N.Y.T., 12-22-49, 1-30-50.
58 W.A.A., 9-31-52.
69 W .A.A., 9-30-52.
60 W.A.A., 9-30-52.
61 N.Y.T., 6-7-47, 9-13-47.
62 The R eporter, 12-6-49.
63 N.Y.T., 6-5-48; J .N .E ., Summer,

1952.
64J.N.E., Summer 1952.
65 J .N .E ., Summer 1952.
66 The Voice (A .N .P .), 9-4-52.
67 N ation, 9-22-51.
68 W.A.A., 10-21-52.
69 1950 B.S., p. 49.
70 1948 B.S., p. 24.



38

T A B L E  IV

"The Old O rder Changelh"
(Representative Departures From Segregation Throughout

the Nation)
A. In Public Accommodations

Alabama
1. United Nations Week observed by inter-racial, inter-faith 

celebration in Birmingham (1951).
Arkansas

2. Little Rock Public Library ends entry ban against Ne­
groes (1951).

3. McRae Memorial Sanatorium opens near Little Rock with 
inter-racial surgical staff (1951).

Delaware
4. Six movie houses in Wilmington admit Negroes for the 

first time (1952).
District of Columbia

5. Refusal to carry Negroes on Potomac River’s Wilson Line 
excursion boat is ended by Interstate Commerce Commis­
sion order (1951).

6. Eating places in District of Columbia serving without dis­
crimination following efforts of “ Coordinating Commit­
tee for the Enforcement of D. C. Anti-Discrimination 
Laws of 1872-1873” are listed as follows:

1950
April—Greyhound Post House.
July—K ann’s Department Store.
July—Trailways Depot.
Sept.—G. C. Murphy & Co. (Park Road),

Wool worth & Co. (all stores),
F  & W Grand (all stores),
McCrory (all stores),
Goldenberg Department Store.

1951
Jan.—S. S. Kresge Co. (all stores).
April—McBride’s.
July—Neisner’s.
1952
Jan.—Hecht Co.
March—Lansburgh & Bro. Dept. Store.
Sept.—G. C. Murphy & Co. (F  St. store).
Also listed by the Committee are 27 other eating places 

as well as many hotel dining rooms (1952).



39

7. Recreation Board’s annual report reveals increase in at­
tendance at playgrounds, including integrated areas. 
Recreation. Dept, head reports integrated units operated 
much more fully than those on segregated basis (1951).

8. Attendance at inter-racial pools increased in 1951 by 
24% over 1950; no disturbances of any kind since 1949 
(1951). D. C. Recreation Board continues policy of grad­
ual abandonment of segregation. Pour more playgrounds 
declared “ open” after widespread community discussion 
and much opposition. No “ incidents” reported following 
change of designation of the playgrounds (1952).

9. Summer theatre for mixed audience opens at Meridian 
Hill Park; hailed as complete success (1949).

10. U. S. 0. canteen in District’s Lafayette Square opens as 
integrated center (1951).

11. Negro Wave is crowned carnival queen of U. S. O.’s inte­
grated Lafayette Square canteen, winning over eight 
white contestants (1952).

12. Eleven Howard University and two Meharry interns 
(Negro) join staff of District’s Gallinger Hospital, con­
tinuing a process commenced in May 1949 with “ no in­
cidents” (1951).

13. Inaugural Committee chairman announces policy of non­
segregation at Inaugural ceremonies, including ball, dur­
ing January, 1953; asks for relaxation of segregation by 
restaurants and hotels (1952).

Florida
14. Unsegregated audience of 7,000 sees “ Jazz at the Phil­

harmonic” concert in Miami (1951).
15. Miami opens new library to all persons, regardless of 

color (1952).
16. Negro Doctor is appointed to staff of white hospital in 

Miami Beach; first such appointment in the South (1952).
Kentucky

17. Louisville’s five public golf courses opened to Negroes by 
Mayor following Federal Court action (1952).

18. Negroes admitted for first time to all departments of 
main branch of Louisville Public Library (1948).

19. State Legislature passes hospital bill containing anti-dis­
crimination clause (1952).

Louisiana
20. New Orleans ends some segregation at Union Station 

(1951).



40

Maryland
21. Baltimore Marine Hospital now completely without seg­

regation in any of its facilities (1951).
22. State Legislature repeals law segregating Negroes on 

intrastate steamboats and railways (1951).
23. Baltimore Park Board ends segregation at 4 city golf 

courses, 20 tennis courts, baseball fields, playgrounds, and 
other facilities (1951).

24. Campers and counsellors are integrated at Senior High 
Conference and Junior High Camps at Colona, Md., op­
erated by the Board of Christian Education of the Pres­
byteries of Baltimore, Washington and New York (1952).

25. Baltimore’s Friendship International Airport agrees to 
serve all persons regardless of color in dining room and 
cocktail lounge (1952).

26. Gov. McKeldin calls racial bias in theatres “ offensive and 
illogical” (1952).

27. Ford Theatre in Baltimore drops segregation policy in ef­
fect since 1871 (1952).

28. Christ Child Home for Convalescent Children opens in 
Rockville for children of all races (1952).

Missouri
29. St. Louis municipal pools continue to operate on non- 

segregated basis in 1951; attendance closer to average of 
past years than in 1950, first year of non-segregation.

30. Kansas City Council ends segregation at public events in 
Municipal Auditorium, Municipal Air Terminal, and Mu­
nicipal Starlight Theatre (1951).

31. St. Louis County recreation park concessionaires comply 
with order to serve Negroes (1951).

32. Publishers attending St. Louis convention astonished 
when, for first time, all downtown hotels accept colored 
guests, thus expanding breaches in segregation pattern 
previously made in parks, swimming pools, municipal 
opera, airport facilities, and colleges (1952).

33. U. S. District Court bans segregation in publicly-owned 
swimming pools in Kansas City (1951).

New Jersey
34. Atlantic City Hospital accepts Negro doctors and nurses 

on staff for the first time (1950).
New Mexico

35. Albuquerque City Commission enacts strong anti-discrim­
ination ordinance for all places of public accommodation 
(1952).

36. La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe accepts Negro guest for first 
time in its history (1952).



41

North Carolina
37. First unsegregated radio audience in history of Charlotte 

meets for Town Meeting of Air program (1948).
Ohio

38. East Liverpool ends segregation in public swimming pools 
without difficulty (1951).

39. Eleven of fifteen public swimming pools in Cincinnati are 
operated on non-segregated basis (1951).

40. Airport restaurant agrees to ban discrimination against 
Negroes at Cincinnati airport (1951).

Oklahoma
41. Segregation in all forms for both interstate and intrastate 

riders is eliminated from Rock Island Railway by com­
pany order (1951).

Pennsylvania
42. Pennsylvania Railroad ends discrimination in reserving 

coach seats on travel destined for the South (1949).
Texas

43. Austin’s city council opens main branch of its public li­
brary to all citizens (1952).

44. Unsegregated audiences attend concert of “ Jazz at the 
Philharmonic”  troupe at El Paso and San Antonio 
(1952).

45. Winnie Street YWCA opens all-white dining room to col­
ored persons (1951).

46. Dallas’ Baker Hotel serves Negro luncheon guest for first 
time as one of winners of contest sponsored by Serra 
Club (1952).

Virginia
47. First non-segregated audience in history of Norfolk Mu- 

seum of Arts and Sciences attends exhibition and lec­
ture (1949).

48. White and Negro seamen mingle unrestrictedly in Nor­
folk’s new National Maritime Union Building (1949).

49. Manager of Charles Department Store in Richmond af­
firms non-segregation policy in lunch room1 and continued 
lack of friction (1951).

50. Restaurant ordered by court to end racial segregation at 
Washington National Airport (1948).

51. Gov. Battle and Gov. Scott of North Carolina speak to 
unsegregated audience at the Mosque in Richmond (1951).

52 Historic Williamsburg Inn entertains first Negro guests 
(1952).

West Virginia , .
53. Airport restaurant in Charleston halts discrimination 

against Negroes after court order (1951).



42

B. In the Field of Education
South

54. Roper survey shows that 42 percent of persons in the 
South think that “ eventually children of all races and 
colors will go to the same public schools together every­
where, including the South” (1950).

55. 200 teachers from 116 Southern and border state colleges 
and universities, meeting at Atlanta University, on a 
non-segregated basis, call for removal of all laws requiring 
segregation in education (1950).

56. About 100 college presidents, deans, and other educators 
unanimously adopt recommendation to all institutions of 
higher learning to eliminate all forms of racial segregation 
and discrimination in admission (1949).

57. Southern Conference Educational Fund announces poll 
of 15,000 Southern college teachers shows 70% of those 
replying (3,375) favor admission of Negroes to profes­
sional and graduate schools (1949).

Alabama
58. Auburn Institute student newspaper calls for admission 

of Negroes to white colleges (1950). See items 67, 79 
below.

57. Talladega College (Birmingham) names first Negro presi­
dent (1952).

Arkansas
60. Negro law student at University of Arkansas is elected 

president of dormitory, most of whose residents are white 
(1952).

California
61. Woman teacher is first Negro appointed to Los Angeles 

Board of Education (1952).
District of Columbia

62. Student newspaper at George Washington University 
urges university officials to permit admission of Negro 
students (1949).

63. Howard and Fisk Universities are first two Negro insti­
tutions admitted to Phi Beta Kappa (1952).

64. Superintendent of Schools announces abandonment of 
rule that Negroes and whites cannot appear together dur­
ing school hours at any school building (1952).

Florida
65. The state-wide Florida Student Government Association 

adopts resolution opposing segregation (1951).



43

Georgia
66. Georgia University Regents reject $10,000 gift from J. W. 

Pew to distribute book favoring segregation and white 
supremacy (1951).

67. Three Negroes win high awards at Atlanta University’s 
annual art exhibition (1951).

68. Negro elected to Augusta’s Board of Education, first time 
since Reconstruction days any Negro has held public of­
fice in Richmond County (1952).

67. Emory University student publication calls for admission 
of Negroes to white graduate schools and colleges (1950).

70. Students at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta vote, 
234 to 13, in favor of admitting Negroes (1950).

71. Students and faculty at Piedmont College attack the in­
stitution’s acceptance of gift from anti-Negro propa­
gandist (1951).

Indiana
72. All opposition to Negroes has broken down in clubs, dor­

mitory life and classes at Notre Dame and St. Mary’s 
College for Women (1949).

Kentucky
73. Catholic Committee of the South recommends all institu­

tions of higher learning admit Negroes without discrimi­
nation (1949).

Louisiana
74. Non-segregated audience of elementary and high school 

teachers meets in New Orleans school building for first 
time to discuss joint educational problems (1952).

Maryland
75. Baltimore witnesses first inter-racial summer vacation 

school for children, sponsored by Baltimore’s Catholic 
Inter-racial Council (1952).

76. Governor McKeldin appoints Negroes to state and county 
boards of education (1951).

77. Co-ordinating Council of School P. T. A .’s of Baltimore, 
having small number of Negroes, chooses Negro man for 
vice-president over white woman opponent. (1952).

Mississippi
78. Jefferson Military College (Natchez) refuses 50 million 

dollar endowment from Armstrong Texas Education As­
sociation conditioned on school limiting enrollment to 
“ white Christians” and proselytizing for “ white su­
premacy” (1949).

79. Student publication of University of Mississippi calls for 
“ admission of Negroes to white graduate schools,” con­
cluding that “ the pigment of a man’s skin should not 
make any difference.”  Student senate refuses to order 
editor’s discharge. Millsaps College publication echoes 
same view (1950).



44

Missouri
80. Students at Missouri University vote, 4,156 to 1,847, in 

favor of admitting Negroes. Curators of the university 
recommended legislation to admit Negroes to facilities not 
found at Lincoln University (1949).

New Jersey
81. First Negro is appointed to Jersey City Board of Edu­

cation (1950).
North Carolina

82. Negro doctor is first of his race to become member of 
North Carolina Board of Education (1949).

83. University of North Carolina’s “ tacit understanding”  to 
enforce segregation at all public meetings is denounced 
by the president of the student body and other campus 
leaders and in lead editorial of student newspaper (1950).

84. Order of University of North Carolina officials banning 
newly-admitted Negro students from cheering section at 
football games reversed after sharp criticism of, and pro­
test against, order by 14 student organizations (1951).

85. First Negro is appointed to Durham’s Board of Educa­
tion (1951).

Oklahoma
86. One thousand white students at Oklahoma State Univer­

sity burn copy of Fourteenth Amendment and mail ashes 
to President Truman to protest school’s segregation policy 
(1948).

South Carolina
87. Student at College of Charleston polls 152 fellow-students, 

126 of whom stated it would make no difference to them 
if Negroes were admitted to their classes and 91 said Ne­
groes had a “ moral and ethical” right to attend (1951).

Tennessee
88. Eight of nine faculty members resign in protest over de­

cision of trustees of University of the South (Sewanee) 
not to admit Negroes to the theological school (1952).

89. Members of the faculty of the third annual Cumberland 
Forest Music Festival cancel teaching and concert as 
protest against refusal of Sewanee to admit Negroes 
(1952).

90. First Negro educator named as supervisor of instruction 
for Nashville elementary and secondary schools (1952).

91. Dr. H, D. West is first Negro to head Meharry Medical 
College (1952).



45

Texas
92. University of Texas school newspaper commends Supreme 

Court’s Sweatt decision and declares: “ All over the South 
the new change is being accepted with good grace. No­
where has there been a suggestion that race relations have 
been injured, rather to the contrary” (1950).

Virginia
93. Ralph Bunche addresses mixed audience, largest in his­

tory of University of Virginia, despite segregation law
(1951) .

C. In Voluntary Associations 
1. DOCTORS

Alabama
94. 500 Negro and white doctors attend annual meeting at 

John A. Andrew Clinical Society (1951).
District of Columbia

95. D. C. Optometrie Association, by unanimous vote, admits 
first Negro (1952).

96. D. C. Medical Society admits five Negro physicians for 
first time after overwhelming approval by membership
(1952) .

Florida
97. Florida Medical Association admits Negroes for the first 

time (1950).
Georgia

98. Georgia Medical Association admits Negroes to scientific 
sessions (1952).

99. Fulton County Medical Association in Atlanta, by vote 
of 176 to 33, removes bar to membership of qualified 
Negro physicians (1952).

Kentucky
100. Kentucky Medical Association abandons race as a quali­

fication to membership (1951).
Missouri

101. Missouri Medical Association votes, 60 to 16, to change 
constitution and admit Negro doctors (1949).

102. St. Louis Dental Society votes almost 2 to 1 to unite Ne­
groes to membership (1951).

Oklahoma
103. Oklahoma Medical Association votes to invite Negro phy­

sicians to attend scientific sessions (1950).



46

Tennessee
104. ' Newly-elected president of Tennessee State Medical As­

sociation calls for removal of race bar.
Virginia

105. Delegates from Northern Virginia branch of Medical So­
ciety of Virginia to vote to change society’s color bar 
(1951).

2. NURSES
106. National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses dis­

bands, having achieved its purpose of integrating Negro 
nurses into nursing profession.

107. American Nurses Association approves full Negro role 
in all activities (1950).

Alabama
108. Alabama Nurses Association votes to admit Negroes to 

membership (1949).
Arkansas

109. Arkansas State Nurses Association votes unanimously to 
admit Negroes to full membership (1949).

District of Columbia
110. D. C. Graduate Nurses Association removes bar to Negro 

membership; 25 admitted by end of first year.
North Carolina

111. North Carolina Association of Registered Nurses votes 
unanimously to dissolve, following by nine months the 
vote of North Carolina State Nurses Association to give 
full membership to Negro nurses.

Ohio
112. Admit first Negro nurse to Ohio State Nurses Associa­

tion (1952).

8. LAWYERS
113. Twenty-five State Bar Associations are fully integrated

(1950).
Alabama

114. Alabama Bar Association, which admitted first Negro 
years ago, now has 7 Negro members (1950).

District of Columbia
115. Inter-racial Lawyers Committee starts Community Chest 

drive among lawyers.



47

Ohio
116. Cincinnati admits two Negro lawyers to Bar Association 

for the first time (1951).
Texas
117. Galveston County Bar Association amends constitution 

to remove barrier to Negro membership (1951).

4. EDUCATORS AND SCIENTISTS
Arkansas

118. Arkansas Education Association admits Negroes (1950).
District of Columbia

119. Prof. E. Franklin Frazier, elected President of American 
Sociological Society, is first Negro to be President of an 
American professional society not composed only of Ne­
groes (1948).

120. Washington Metropolitan Chapter of American Institute 
of Architects votes unanimously to admit members with­
out regard to color (1946).

Georgia
121. Georgia Teachers and Education Association becomes first 

Negro state group to affiliate with National Education As­
sociation after N. E. A. announces eligibility of Negro 
delegations (1951).

Louisiana
122. Segregation abandoned at New Orleans convention of Na­

tional Education Association.
Maryland

123. Maryland State Teachers Association votes 5 to 1 to elim­
inate “ white only” membership requirement and invites 
all teachers to participate in activities (1951).

North Carolina
124. North Carolina Science Academy votes with only one dis­

senter to admit Negroes to full membership (1951).
Ohio
125. Negro admitted to National Engineering Society (Tau 

Beta Pi) 22 years after election when admission barriers 
are removed.

Texas
126. Texas Social Welfare Association, in which Negroes are 

fully integrated, adopts resolution to meet only where Ne­
groes will not be “ Jim-Crowed” (Circa, 1947).



48

Washington
127. Convention of American Association of University Women 

at Seattle votes, 2,168 to 68, to admit Negroes to mem­
bership (1949).

South
128. State Library Associations in Oklahoma, Virginia, Ar­

kansas, Texas, and Kentucky are open to full Negro par­
ticipation, and have been for many years (1950).

5. SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS
129. Report on inter-racial advance shows all branches of 

YMCA are open to colored and white members alike in 
Detroit, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, San 
Francisco, Emporia, Kansas; Fort Wayne, Indiana; Kan­
sas City, Missouri (cafeteria only) ; Providence, Rhode 
Island; Paterson, New Jersey, Joliet, Illinois; Altoona, 
Pennsylvania; Canton, Ohio, and Colorado Springs, Colo­
rado (1951).

District of Columbia
130. National Symphony Orchestra Association removes racial 

barriers to membership (1952).
Illinois

131. Illinois State American Legion convention unanimously 
approves resolution to admit Negro, Filipino, and Jap­
anese veterans to all divisions (1952).

Kentucky
132. First Negro appointed director of Louisville Community 

Chest.
North Carolina

133. Colored Girl Scout represents entire State at National 
encampment (1949).

Tennessee
134. American Red Cross removes racial designations in blood 

collecting program. Memphis Chapter balks. Citizens of 
Memphis in turn rebel at refusal to accept the National 
ruling (1952).

Virginia
135. Thirty young white persons holding N.C.C.J. seminar m 

Norfolk decide to invite colored representatives to meet­
ing next year (1952).

New York .
136. International Geneva Association, a society of chefs, head- 

waiters, and hotel and restaurant managers, revokes 75- 
year-old ban on Negro membership (1952).



49

D. In Religious Bodies
South

137. Southern branch of Presbyterian Church in the United 
States after 91 years votes to dissolve its one Negro synod 
and to absorb it into the general organization (1951).

General
138. National Council of Churches of Christ in the U. S. A. re­

nounces all patterns of segregation based on color (1952).
California
139. Methodists at quadrennial general conference vote to per­

mit changes in segregation practices by member churches 
(1952).

140. Two San Francisco Presbyterian congregations, one en­
tirely Negro, the other entirely white, merge as a single 
church under a Negro pastor (1951).

District of Columbia
141. Secretary for Social Action of Board of Social Missions 

of United Lutheran Church urges end of color bar to mem­
bership.

142. First Washington Negro pastor appointed to head mixed 
parish in Northwest section.

Louisiana
143. Archbishop Rummel issues pastoral letter in New Orleans 

calling on all Catholics to break down segregation in 
“ education, industry, and opportunity” as well as in 
“ social and civic relationships” and “ in the seating ac­
commodations, at the confessional, at the communion rail, 
and in the general reception of sacraments and saera- 
mentals of the Church”  (1951).

Missouri
144. Lutheran Church, Western District of Missouri Synod, to 

admit Negro congregations for first time (1949).
145. Report discloses 30 Catholic parishes in St. Louis have 

integrated congregations (1951).
New York

146. St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brooklyn be­
comes first integrated Lutheran church in America
(1951).

147. First Negro is elected chairman of Executive Committee 
of Congregational Christian Churches (1950).

North Carolina
148. Presbyterians end segregation at church resort at Mon­

treat, North Carolina (1951).



50

Ohio
149. World Baptist Congress in resolution adopted at conven­

tion calls on all associated organizations to abandon seg­
regation and discrimination (1950).

South Carolina
150. Negro Baptist churches in Columbia agree to drop color 

bar and admit whites (1951).
Virginia
151. Norfolk Ministers’ Association abolishes segregation at 

United Preaching Mission.
152. White Norfolk pastor challenges his congregation to 

admit Negroes to membership.
153. Augusta County Ministerial Association in Staunton, Va., 

and Ministerial Association of Clifton Forge, Va., both 
inter-racial, are now headed by Negro presidents. The 
pattern had long ago been developed by the Ministers’ 
Inter-racial Group of Lynchburg, Ya. (1952).

E. In Employment
South
154. Southern Regional Council reports 16 major Southern 

cities employ about 6,500 Negro municipal workers in 
more than 110 different kinds of jobs, including profes­
sional and managerial. Report asserts Negro city work­
ers accepted by the entire community “ as a matter-of- 
course,”  and that only reason hiring of Negroes is not 
stepped up seems to be “ fear of criticism for going too 
fast.” Sixteen cities surveyed were: Atlanta, Birming­
ham, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Jacksonville, Knox­
ville, Little Rock, Louisville, Miami, Nashville, New Or­
leans, Norfolk, Oklahoma City, Richmond, and San An­
tonio (1951).

District of Columbia
155. Peoples Drug Stores, largest chain pharmacy in District, 

hires three Negro pharmacists.
Florida

156. H. H. Arrington is first Negro member of the Florida 
bar.

Illinois
157. Chicago Association of Commerce reports development of, 

wide utilization of Negroes among its members, some of' 
whom had formerly resisted even legal action to compel 
employment (1952).



51

Maryland
158. Baltimore taxi company hires 14 Negro drivers as experi­

ment at beginning of 1951; ends up year with 161 drivers, 
and no “ incidents.”

159. Baltimore Transit Company employs 5 Negro bus drivers, 
first in company’s history.

Missouri
160. St. Louis Post-Dispatch announces hiring of Negro re­

porter, first in 40 years (1949).
New York

161. National Urban League reports 550 “ first” jobs were 
found for colored workers in 1951 and that significant 
improvements in racial situations were found in eleven 
cities, including Memphis, Tennessee, Phoenix, Arizona, 
and Baltimore, Maryland.

North Carolina
162. The Rocky Mount Sanitarium admits two Negro doctors 

to its staff with full privileges. They are the first to be 
thus accepted in a Southern hospital (1949).

Pennsylvania
163. Negroes promoted for first time to skilled jobs at Philco 

Philadelphia plant, thus ending a long-established depart­
mental segregation (1951).

Tennessee
164. Gov. Browning breaks precedent and appoints two Negro 

women to work in state employment service office (1952).
Virginia
165. First Negro fireman in history is employed by city of 

Richmond.

F. In Entertainment and Athletics
Arizona

166. Long Island University assured by University of Arizona 
of non-discrimination against Negro basketball players 
(1951).

167. University of Arizona will no longer play with teams 
which bar Negroes on opponents’ teams. Its teams are 
open to all, along with the following Border Conference 
teams: Texas Western (El Paso), West Texas (Canyon, 
Texas), Hardin-Simmons (Abilene), Arizona State (Tem­
ple), Arizona State (Flagstaff), New Mexico A. & M. (Las 
Cruces) (1951).



52

California
168. Precedent set when Professional Golfers’ Association 

changes rules and permits Negroes to compete in tourna­
ment at San Diego (1952).

District of Columbia
169. Washington Caps introduce mixed team in National Bas­

ketball Association Without incident.
Washington Lions purchase first Negro hockey player 
from Canadian team.
D. C. Golden Gloves tournament drops bar to Negro en­
trants.

170. Negro teams participate for first time in softball league 
sponsored by District Recreation Board (1952).

171. Dorothy Maynor is first Negro to perform commercially 
in D. A. R .’s Constitution Hall (1952).

172. Hamilton Bank sponsors high school musical talent con­
test open to all Washington pupils. Finals held at Con­
stitution Hall (1951).

173. Colored students accepted as matter of course on Ameri­
can and Catholic University teams (1951).

Florida
174. Miami holds mixed boxing matches with no difficulties, 

though the sports editor of Miami Daily News had warned 
“ I t ’s a backward step, loaded with dynamite”  (1952).

175. Tampa Smokers baseball team breaks precedent in Florida 
league with first Negro player (1952).

176. First colored jockey in Florida rides at Hialeah Park
(1952).

177. University of Miami breaks tradition; plays football 
against University of Pittsburgh and University of Iowa, 
both having Negroes on team (1952).

178. Marian Anderson sings before unsegregated audience in 
Miami (1952).

Georgia
179. Despite warning by Dr. Green, K. K. K. head, that 10,000 

will boycott Atlanta baseball games if Negroes play, ex­
hibition game is held between Brooklyn Dodgers and At­
lanta baseball club (1949).

180. Southern Association Baseball League officials state their 
view that colored players are acceptable to them and to 
the public; only remaining obstacle is Birmingham, Ala­
bama, ordinance barring mixed play (1952).

Louisiana
181. State Legislature defeats bill designed to prevent white 

and Negro athletes from playing opposite each other 
(1952).



53

New Jersey
182. Precedent set when swank Maplewood Country Club ac­

cepts two colored entrants to play in Eastern Veterans 
Championship tennis matches (1952).

New York
183. First Negro woman is accepted as entrant in National 

Amateur Tennis Championship (1950).
184. Negro team breaks precedent when allowed to compete in 

American Bridge Association national tournament (1951).
185. Amateur Fencers League of America votes to accept all 

members, regardless of color (1949).
186. Metropolitan Opera breaks precedent by having Negro 

ballet dancer Janet Collins and Negro singers in chorus 
(1951).

North Carolina
187. First Negro plays football in North Carolina against a 

Southern Conference team (1950).
Oklahoma

188. Negroes play for first time on Oklahoma College foot­
ball field in game against University of Tulsa (1948).

Tennessee
189. Negro singer Mary Robbs is first Negro ever to appear as 

soloist with Chattanooga Orchestra; mixed audience 
mingles freely (1951).

Texas
190. Dallas baseball team to use Negro players, first in Texas 

League. Ty Cobb, native Georgian, voices strong ap­
proval (1952).

Virginia
191. Ralph Thomas, Negro baritone, sings with all-white group 

in play at Salem, Va. (1952).



54

Sources for Table IV
1. W.A.A., 10-30-51.
2. N .Y.T., 1-14-51, 73:4.
3. W .A.A., 11-27-51.
4. N .Y.T., 3-10-52.
5. W .E.S., 11-13-51.
6. R eport of Committee Secretary,

11-52.
7. W .A.A., 9-22-51; W.A.A.,

7-3-51.
8. W .E.S., 9-6-51.
9. N .Y.T., 6-18-49, I I ,  1 :4 ;

N .Y.T., 9-11-49, I I ,  3 :8.
10. W .A.A., 12-1-51.
11. W .A.A., 7-1-52.
12. W .A.A., 7-5-51.
13. W .P., 11-52.
14. 1951 B.S., p. 96.
15. N .Y.T., 5-25-52, V II , 9, 30.
16. N .Y.T., 3-30-52, 60:5.
17. N .Y.T., 1-19-52, 19:1.
18. 1948 B.S., p. 17.
19. W .A.A., 2-26-52.
20. W .A.A., 10-30-51.
21. 1951 B.S., p. 91.
22. 1951 B.S., p. 85.
23. 1951 B.S., p. 89.
24. W .A.A., 7-5-52.
25. W.A.A., 4-5-52.
26. W .E.S., 1-4-52.
27. N .Y .T., 2-5-52, 23:8.
28. W .P., 5-11-52.
29. 1951 B.S., p. 90.
30. 1951 B.S., p. 88.
31. 1951 B.S., p. 89.
32. W .A.A., 6-24-52.
33. N .Y.T., 7-18-51.
34. N .Y.T., 5-25-50.
35. W .A.A., 2-26-52.
36. Crisis.
37. N .Y .T., 4-24-48, 7:3.
38. 1951 B.S., p. 89.
39. 1951 B.S., p. 89.
40. 1951 B.S., p. 92.
41. W .A.A., 4-10-51.
42. N .Y .T., 10-20-49, 31:5.
43. W .A.A., 1-52.
44. 1951 B.S., p. 96.
45. W .A.A., 10-30-51.
46. Colored H arvest, 9-52, p. 15.
47. N .Y .T., 5-49, 56:5.
48. N .Y.T., 5-15-49, 56:5.
49. Crisis, 8-9-51, p. 473.
50. 1948 B.S., p. 17.
51. W .A.A., 12-8-51.
52. W .A.A., 9-52.
53. 1951 B.S., p. 92.
54. L ife , 10-16-50.
55. 1950 B.S., p. 51.

56. 1949 B .S., p . 34.
57. 1949 B.S., p. 34.
58. 1950 B.S., p. 51.
59. W .A.A., 8-12-52.
60. W .E.S., 10-10-52.
61. W .A.A., 8-12-52.
62. 1949 B.S., p. 34.
63. N .Y.T., 9-6-52, 19:8.
64. W .P., 11-26-52.
65. 1951 B.S., p. 67.
66. N .Y .T., 9-13-51.
67. N .Y.T., 4-1-51, 34:1.
68. W .E.S., 1-5-52.
69. 1950 B.S., p. 51.
70. 1951 B.S., p. 68.
71. 1951 B.S., p. 68.
72. N .Y.T., 2-7-49, 17:1.
73. 1949 B.S., p. 34.
74. W .A.A., 2-19-52.
75. Colored H arvest, 9-52, p. 12.
76. 1951 B.S., p. 21.
77. W .A.A., 3-4-52.
78. 1949 B .S., p. 36.
79. 1950 B.S., p. 51.
80. 1949 B.S., p. 31.
81. N .Y.T., 8-25-50.
82. N .Y.T., 4-23-49, 9:8.
83. 1950 B.S., p. 51.
84. 1951 B.S., p. 68.
85. 1951 B.S., p. 21.
86. 1948 B.S., p. 23.
87. 1951 B.S., p. 68.
88. W .E.S., 11-6-52.
89. N.Y.T., 6-18-52, 31:4.
90. W .A.A., 9-52.
91. N .Y .T., 6-7-52, 15:3.
92. 1950 B.S., p . 51.
93. W .P., 3-2-51.
94. 1951 B.S., p. 108.
95. W .P., 10-16-52.
96. W .P., 9-24-52.
97. 5 New South (Ju ly , 1950),

p. 2.
98. N .Y.T., 5-15-52, 31:1.
99. W .A.A., 8-12-52.

100. W.A.A., 11-20-51.
101. N .Y.T., 3-29-49, 17:2.
102. 1951 B.S., p. 108.
103. 5 New South (Ju ly , 1950),

p. 3.
104.
105. W .E.S., 12-26-51.
106. N .Y .T., 1-27-51.
107. N .Y.T., 5-9-50.
108. 5 New South (Ju ly , 1950),

p. 4.
109. N .Y .T., 12-6-49, 33:7.
110. 1951 B.S., p. 105.



55
111. N .Y.T., 7-5-49, 19:3.
112. W .A.A., 1952.
113. W.A.A., 5-8-51.
114. 5 New South (Ju ly , 1950),

p. 2.
115. W .E.S., 10-10-52.
116. N .Y.T., 10-25-51.
117. 1951 B.S., p. 108.
118. N .Y.T., 3-31-50.
119. 1948 B.S., p. 25.
120. W .E.S., 10-52.
121. 1951 B.S., p. 109.
122.
123. W .A.A., 11-20-51.
124. N .Y.T., 5-5-51, 19:7.
125. N .Y.T., 11-17-49, 2:8.
126. 5 New South (Ju ly , 1950),

p. 4.
127. N .Y.T., 6-24-49, 1:6.
128. 5 New South (Ju ly , 1950),

p. 4.
129. W .A.A., 7-10-51.
130. W .A.A., 3-15-52.
131. W .A.A., 8-12-52.
132. W .A.A., 1952.
133. W .A.A., 3-11-52.
134. N .Y.T., 5-25-52, V II, 9, 30.
135. W .A.A., 9-6-52.
136. N .Y.T., 10-6-52, 33:7.
137. 1951 B.S., p. 110.
138. Official Statem ent and Resolu­

tion  adopted by General
B oard  of N. C. Q. C. in 
U. S. A., June  11, 1952.

139. N .Y.T., 5-3-52.
140. W .E.S., 4-26-51.
141. W .A.A., 3-15-52.
142. W .E.S., 9-2-52.
143. 1951 B.S., p. 110.
144. N .Y.T., 6-18-49, 14:5.
145. 1951 B.S., p. 110.
146. W .A.A., 6-26-51.
147. N .Y.T., 6-27-50.
148. N .Y.T., 6-24-51.
149. Crisis (Aug.-Sept., 1950), p.

510.

150. W .P., 11-27-51.
151. W .A.A., 2-19-52.
153. W .A.A., 6-10-52.
154. 1951 B.S., p. 52.
155. W .A.A., 6-30-51.
156. N.Y.T., 4-29-49, 14: 6.
157. W .A.A., 2-19-52.
158. N.Y.T., 5-25-52, V I , 9, 26.
159. W .A.A., 5-24-52.
160. 1949 B.S., p. 27.
161.
162. 1949 B.S., p. 27.
163. W.A.A., 6-3-51.
164. W .A.A., 7-22-52.
165. 1950 B.S., p. 39.
166. N.Y.T., 1-20-51, 11: 2.
167. W.A..A.
168. W.A.A., 1-19-52.
169.
170. W .A.A., 8-9-52.
171. N.Y.T., 2-18-52, 15:■A.
172. W .P., 5-18-51.
173. W .A.A., 11-10-51.
174. People Today, 2-4-152; N.Y.T.,

2-5-52, 32:1.
175. W.A.A., 4-8-52.
176. N.Y.T., 11-28-51; W.A.A.,

2-26-52.
177. N.Y.T., 5-25-52, V II, 9, 30.
178. W .E.S., 1-25-52.
179. N.Y.T., 4-9-49, 13:5
180. W .A.A., 2-12-52.
181. W .A.A., 6-25-52.
182. W .A.A., 8-9-52.
183. N.Y.T., 8-16-50.
184. W .A.A., 3-1-51.
185. N.Y.T., 12-9-49, 40 :3 ; 12-1-49,

47:4.
186. 1951 B.S., p. 54; P ittsb u rg h

Courier, 12-1-51.
187. N.Y.T., 10-1-50.
188. N.Y.T., 10-24-48, V , 6: 7.
189. N.Y.T., 3-29-51, 23::7.
190. W .E.S., 1-29-52.
191. W .A.A., 8-5-52.