Profile
in
Black
and
White
A FRANK PORTRAIT
OF SOUTH CAROLINA
By Howard H. Quint
PUBLIC AFFAIRS PRESS, WASHINGTON, D. C.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
For the past eleven years Professor Howard H. Quint has been a member
of the faculty of the University of South Carolina where he specialized
in the teaching of American constitutional and intellectual history.
Because he believed that this book should be published but did not
wish to cause embarrassment to the University of South Carolina,
a state-supported institution, he resigned his position prior to
publication.
Professor Quint was graduated from Yale University in 1940 and was
awarded an M.A. degree from Stanford University and a Ph.D. degree from
The Johns Hopkins University. During World War II he was associated
with the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service as a propaganda
analyst and with the Office of Strategic Services as a political and
economic analyst. In 1954 he won second place in an American Historical
Association competition for the John H. Dunning Prize. In 1956 he
was Smith-Mundt lecturer in United States history at the National
University of Mexico.
Copyright, 1958, by Public Affairs Press
419 New Jersey Avenue, S. E., Washington 3, D. C.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 58-11889
INTRODUCTION
Although this book deals with South Carolina, it is in effect a study
of the Deep South. What is happening in the Palmetto State is fairly
typical of the situation in other Southern states where segregation,
bigotry and prejudice remain deeply entrenched.
To judge by what Prof. Quint points out in this highly discerning book,
the situation in South Carolina hasn’t improved materially since the
Supreme Court of the land ruled, in its historic decision of May 17,
1954, that students in publicly supported educational institutions
may not be segregated because of race, creed, or color. A worsening
rather than improving racial situation is indeed reflected by the views
expressed by officials, newspaper editors, voluntary organizations and
individual citizens, Negro and white, as cited in this book.
Although Prof. Quint handles his material with admirable restraint, the
reader, even if he is personally attached to the state,[1] is likely
to pronounce South Carolina’s record a melancholy one. Is the state
behaving responsibly when it denies the law of the land, busies itself
with contriving means of avoidance, threatens instead of addressing
itself to the manifest mandate? When it revives the plea of peculiarity
does it remember its own history of nullification and secession? Is it
never to reject the demagogue who proclaims exploded notions of race
and distorts the Constitution of the United States? In the interval
for reformation which the Supreme Court has wisely allowed must South
Carolina indulge bluster and vituperation in place of summoning candor
and courage? Have ignorance, poverty, and prejudice fed on each other
until the white community has sunk to second-rate capacity?
Consider the spectacle of an ancient commonwealth in delirium because a
black child knocks on a schoolhouse door. What are the causes of this
fury? They are many, but the chief is that the applicant for equal
opportunity is now in a superior legal and moral position. It is the
Negro who rests upon rights, to be claimed through orderly processes.
He leaves desperate remedies to those who refuse him. In the rap on the
door sound the measured tones of judges, the command of the President
of the United States and the voice of the nation. Echoes too the demand
of deprived peoples in many countries.
More solemn than all these is the call of conscience of South
Carolina. Immemorial wrongs are at length to be redressed--gradually,
painfully, surely. Some will say that the conscience of the state is
dead, that to invoke it is delusion. If that is true, no solution
offers except coercion, while we entertain the hope that prudent
acquiescence will substitute for more valorous self-correction. If
the white people of South Carolina furnish no worthy response in the
crisis, then humiliation and rehabilitation by other hands is their
portion.
In spite of the discouraging showing to date, one awaits a better
prospect. Patience, double patience, in the cure of long-standing ills
is the obvious counsel. Though South Carolina has had ample warning,
public opinion reflects a state of shock. Additional time (but how
long, oh Lord, how long?) for readjustment will bring the problem into
truer focus. Extravagant allegations still industriously pressed will
inevitably be discredited. Who can believe that the Supreme Court is
Communist-controlled or that segregation in the schools is the bulwark
of racial purity? As other states conform to the court decree and
their experience is that the heavens do not fall, fanciful terrors
will subside. New leaders will bid for support, persons not pledged to
fierce intolerance.
Healthy elements deserve to be nursed. Wholesale condemnation, besides
being inapplicable, will act to bring support to the violent, the
confused, the cruel. A state may not be disparaged into compliance.
The truly restorative ingredients are within. That they will be roused
and meet the nation’s demand there can be no doubt. Prof. Quint’s book
makes this amply evident.
Some may feel that the author is much too critical and outspoken. I
disagree. While I don’t go along with everything that Prof. Quint
says, I am inclined to feel that his book needed to be written;
too many things have been left unsaid too long. It’s time that
South Carolina--that, indeed, the entire South--face up, boldly
and realistically, to their problems. I commend this book to every
Southerner and to every American.
BROADUS MITCHELL
[1] Mr. Mitchell is a graduate of the University of South Carolina, of
which his father, the late Samuel Chiles Mitchell, was president. His
mother was born in South Carolina, his father in Mississippi of South
Carolina (Richland and Abbeville districts) forbears. He is now John
Hay Whitney Visiting Professor of Economic History in Hofstra College,
Hempstead, Long Island.
PREFACE
This is a book about race relations in the sovereign state of South
Carolina. It gives particular attention to the lengths to which white
South Carolinians are willing to go to maintain a caste system of
society. And it shows why South Carolina, the prototype of every Deep
South state, is not likely to surrender without a catastrophic struggle
to accepting the proposition that the Negro is a free individual in
a free society with the same rights and privileges as every other
American.
In South Carolina, the race issue has always been emphasized in its
most exaggerated form and the Negro has helped to create what has
become a peculiar and almost unique state of mind. In many respects
the state’s history has been little less than a chronicle of the
white population’s reactions to the problems created by the presence
of a large number of Negroes--a case of the tail wagging the dog. In
1921 Professor Francis B. Simkins considered South Carolina’s failure
“to keep abreast of her sister states in non-partisan and classless
progress” as intelligible and explainable “only in the light of the
perennial fear of disturbing inter-racial harmony.” The state’s “proud
record in interracial harmony,” he noted, was based on a policy of
“absolute white supremacy.”[2] Similarly, the late W. W. Ball, the
Charleston champion of aristocratic conservatism, believed that
“socially and politically the presence of this race in majority” was
perhaps the ruling factor in the state’s progress or want of it.[3]
Summarizing the stand of South Carolina and the South on the decision
of the Supreme Court to end racial segregation in public schools, R.
Beverly Herbert, a Columbia attorney, expressed the same idea. “A deep
sense of race and race preservation,” he wrote, “has influenced and in
many cases controlled the South throughout her history.”[4]
* * * * *
I feel compelled to state at the outset certain basic assumptions upon
which this study is premised. I believe that the abolition of racial
segregation in public schools and public facilities is a desirable
end; that Southerners in defending such segregation in the 1950’s are
fighting the tide of history just as surely as their forefathers did
in defending human bondage a century ago; and that the Negro’s drive
to end this segregation will eventually be successful. I recognize
the tremendous difficulties presented by this problem due to long
established mores and realize that it cannot be solved quickly and
without a certain amount of social friction and resentment.
This investigation reveals a way of thinking that is in a sense foreign
to most non-Southerners and I ask of the latter patience, understanding
and tolerance. But I feel that constructive rather than obstructive
action must be taken and that compliance with rather than defiance of
the Supreme Court’s verdict must be the rule. I particularly deplore
the disrespect for federal law which is inherent in the official policy
of the State of South Carolina. In some ways this is the most ominous
development of the past few years. In all phases of this investigation
I have striven for objectivity and endeavored first and foremost to
allow South Carolinians, both white and Negro, to speak for themselves
and thereby to express the communal psychology of the state.
Since this study leans heavily on certain South Carolina newspapers, it
is appropriate to point out the following about these papers:
The _Charleston News and Courier_, the largest and probably the most
influential of those studied, reflects the sentiments of the most
extreme segregationists in the state. Conservative, if not downright
reactionary, not only on the race issue but in all political, economic
and social questions, the Charleston paper advocates resistance to the
Court decisions to the point of defiance of federal authority. The
editor of the paper is Thomas R. Waring.
While under the editorship of able Jack H. O’Dowd, the _Florence
Morning News_ was the most reasonable and constructive daily in the
state with regard to the segregation problem. An advocate of “militant
moderation” and an opponent of both white supremacists and the NAACP,
O’Dowd became the state’s most controversial editor, subject for the
wrath of ardent segregationists. Finally succumbing to pressures, he
resigned the editorship in August 1956. His successor, James A. Rogers,
is an “orthodox” segregationist.
Controlled by the same company that publishes the morning Columbia
_State_, the Columbia _Record_, an afternoon newspaper, accepts
prevailing views on the race issue, though in considerably less
extreme form than the _Charleston News and Courier_. Also staunchly
conservative, the _Record_ leans toward the Republican Party. As of
the beginning of this year, the _Record’s_ editor, George A. Buchanan,
became Dean of the University of South Carolina School of Journalism.
Decidedly anti-integrationist, the Anderson _Independent_ is less
concerned with the race issue than the other papers studied. This is
in part a reflection of its upcountry location. The _Independent_
represents to some degree the New-Fair Deal elements in the state and
is an outspoken advocate of loyalty to the national Democratic Party.
Editor of the paper is L. S. Embree.
These newspapers represent a cross section of the press in South
Carolina both geographically and ideologically. Moreover, a study of
additional newspapers would not change appreciably, if at all, the
basic patterns. (As far as I am aware, there is only one paper in South
Carolina which advocates compliance with the Supreme Court’s 1954
decision. This is the _Cheraw Chronicle_, edited and published by a
young and courageous North Carolinian, Andrew McDowd Secrest.)
Other sources, notably periodical literature, the proceedings of the
General Assembly of South Carolina, and the Columbia _State_ have been
used to a limited extent. For the sake of brevity the newspapers are
referred to throughout the text simply as the _News and Courier_, the
_Record_, the _Morning News_ and the _Independent_.
The author is a native of Connecticut who has lived over a decade in
South Carolina. But this book could not have been written without the
assistance of a young scholar who is a Southerner. Legitimately his
name should be on the title page but he desires for personal reasons
to remain anonymous. Both the research for and a preliminary draft
of a major portion of this study were done by him and I wish now to
acknowledge this fact and also my obligation to him.
HOWARD H. QUINT
_University of South Carolina
Columbia, South Carolina_
[2] Francis B. Simkins, “Race Legislation in South Carolina since
1865,” _South Atlantic Quarterly_, XX (June, 1921), 168.
[3] Anthony Harrigan (ed.), _The Editor and the Republic: Papers and
Addresses of William Watts Ball_ (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1954), p. 19.
[4] _The State_ (Columbia, S. C.), Oct. 30, 1955, p. 1-B.
CONTENTS
I
The Development of Race Relationships 1
II
The Case from Clarendon 12
III
The Emergence of Patterns 21
IV
The White Folks Fight Back 38
V
The Brotherhood of Segregated Men 55
VI
A Place in the Shade 71
VII
The New Nullification 92
VIII
Politics and Segregation 128
IX
Another War of Yankee Aggression 145
X
Collaborators, Eggheads, Do-Gooders, and Appeasers 167
XI
The Lost Cause Relost 181
References 187
Appendix (Text of Supreme Court decision on
desegregation, May 17, 1954) 206
Index 210
CHAPTER I
THE DEVELOPMENT OF RACE RELATIONSHIPS
Emancipation, itself, would not satisfy these
fanatics. That gained, the next step would be
to raise the Negroes to a social and political
equality with the whites.--_John C. Calhoun_
The present pattern of race relations for South Carolina was shaped
in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In 1877 at the end
of the Reconstruction period the mould of segregation had yet to be
rigidly defined. Only in the last decade of the century was absolute
segregation established. During the Reconstruction years public
schools were not integrated, although Negro students attended the
state university. In personal and social relationships segregation was
generally practiced but more on the basis of social custom than by
force of legislation. Largely if not entirely ignored was the Civil
Rights law which had been passed by the Reconstruction legislature.
This law, which remained on the statute books until 1889, prohibited
racial discrimination by “common carriers or by any person engaged in a
business, calling or pursuit” for which a federal, state or municipal
license was required.[5]
In the political area the establishing of Jim Crowism was slower though
no less effective and complete in its end result. Negroes voted until
the 1890’s and were influential in the local government of several
counties. South Carolina sent three Negro congressmen to Washington
after 1876; one served until 1896. In 1882 nine Negroes sat in the
state legislature, the last Negro member of that body being defeated
for reelection in 1902. Yet these were the exception and not the rule
for the Negro was in truth virtually eliminated as a factor in state
politics by the end of the 1880’s. With the restrictions on Negro
suffrage contained in the new state constitution of 1895 and the
adoption of the Democratic Party primary the following year, the Negro
was prevented from voting in the state. Yet, in spite of the Negro’s
all but complete disfranchisement, the fear that he might be used for
political purposes “prevented the whites from dividing into two parties
or from breaking out of the restrictions imposed by the Democratic
primary.”[6]
With the disfranchisement of the Negro, the repeal of the state Civil
Rights law and the establishment of absolute and legalized segregation,
a rigid system of caste based on race materialized as a means of race
control.[7] It was reflected in the segregation of schools, churches,
and other public and private organizations and institutions. The two
races seldom came into contact except in the relationship of employer
and laborer. In no sense was the concept of racial equality accepted by
the dominant whites.[8]
The maintenance of absolute segregation frequently necessitated resort
to either the threat or use of force or violence. The threat was ever
present in the personal, economic, and political relationships between
the races. Fear of slave insurrections was replaced by fear of a
“vague and unknown thing,” social equality. As the nineteenth century
ground to an end, application of violence was frequently approved by
“respectable” whites, especially if Negroes were suspected or charged
with murder or rape. The Charleston _News and Courier_, for example,
argued that the lynching of a suspected murderer was “not mob law.”
According to the paper’s editorialist, “the brute placed himself
outside the pale of the law and was dealt with accordingly.”[9]
Segregation of the races in the state has been both a manifestation of
belief in racial superiority and a basic distrust of democracy. Ben
Tillman interpreted his election as governor as a triumph of “white
supremacy over mongrelism and anarchy.” In his inaugural address he
denied “without regard to color that ‘all men are created equal.’”
It was not true then and it was not true when Jefferson wrote it, he
thundered.[10] Carlyle McKinley, associate editor of the _News and
Courier_, wrote in the 1880’s that in “works of art, skill, science,
invention, literature, in the whole field of human enterprise,
endeavor, design and discovery, in every respect that can be named,
the Negro is far behind the lowliest families of the white race.”[11]
The late W. W. Ball, among other things editor of the _News and
Courier_ and Dean of the School of Journalism of the University of
South Carolina, declared that “every decent white man and woman” in the
state maintained and exercised the “right of treating all Negroes as
inferiors.” In one of his characteristic diatribes against democracy,
he wrote that “universal and unrestricted suffrage” was unthinkable.
Safety demanded that South Carolina “steer away from the infatuation
even of universal white democracy.”[12]
In 1944, twenty-five years after Ball made the above statement, the
state House of Representatives adopted a resolution which “indignantly
and vehemently” denounced all organizations seeking “the amalgamation
of the white and Negro races by co-mingling of the races on any
basis of equality.” Such were deemed “hostile to the existence and
preservation of the American Union of States.” Simultaneously, the
legislators reaffirmed their belief in and allegiance to “established
white supremacy,” and pledged “our lives and our sacred honor to
maintaining it, whatever the cost.”[13]
In no other area have South Carolinians been so sensitive to outside
criticism as on the race issue. After the end of Reconstruction
“outside agitation” on racial problems was infrequent. It became even
less so after the Supreme Court in 1896 gave official legal blessing
to racial segregation in the _Plessy v. Ferguson_ decision. However in
the 1930’s and during the Second World War, “agitation” was renewed
for more civil rights for the Southern Negro. This agitation inspired
passage of the above cited resolution by the state legislature. The
latter demanded, “firmly and unequivocally,” that “henceforth the
damned agitators of the North leave the South alone.”[14]
II
Elimination of the Negro from state politics became an article of
faith, a factor of transcendant importance in the preservation of white
supremacy. The instrumentality through which the Negro was effectively
excluded from the suffrage was the Democratic Party primary which was
adopted in 1896. Not until the late 1940’s was the Democratic primary
opened to Negro voters and then only by direction of the federal courts.
Up to the New Deal period the South Carolina white primary faced
little real “danger” either from “outside agitators” or homegrown
“radicals.”[15] Yet a disruptive force was at work. This was the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People which slowly
but relentlessly was seeking to break down the restrictions placed on
Negro suffrage. An initial breach, which did not directly affect South
Carolina, had come with the ruling by the Supreme Court in 1915 that
the “grandfather clause” was unconstitutional. South Carolina reacted
to these developments by strengthening its determination to maintain
and re-enforce the white primary. One venerable device in this effort
was the poll tax which, of course, not only disfranchised a mass of
Negro voters but many whites as well. White South Carolinians were
willing to pay this price, however, to guarantee the white primary.
Toward the same end other devices were resorted to as grounds for
disfranchisement such as lengthy residence requirements, discretionary
educational requirements, property qualifications and numerous petty
crimes, supposedly common among Negroes.
Lack of organized opposition made control of the Democratic primary
tantamount to control of the state government. Such control
traditionally resided in the hands of politicians whose defeats
resulted not in the extension of democracy but simply in the creation
of a new faction to direct state politics. With great effectiveness
politicians used fear of the Negro vote to forestall development of
an operative two party system. They contended that a two-party system
would split the white vote and thus allow the Negroes to hold the
balance of political power. In opposing the repeal of the poll tax, a
member of the 1944 state House of Representatives said that Negroes
were “trying to vote” and if the suffrage were made too easy a two
party system would surely result. To prevent both, he concluded, it was
imperative to keep the Democratic Party all powerful.[16] Nor did this
feeling end with the abolition of the white primary. In 1952 Governor
James F. Byrnes, taking note of the increasing registration of Negro
voters, lamented that there would always be white politicians in the
state “willing to enter into secret political trades” for Negro votes.
Such men had to be “watched” and those who were willing to deal with
Negro leaders had to be defeated.[17] In 1956 Governor George Bell
Timmerman, Jr., said that a two party system would bring South Carolina
“nothing but permanent strife and damage.” It had brought chaos to the
North “where minorities are pawns and politics is played with the lives
of small children for the sake of a vote,” asserted the governor. He
for one was “not prepared to turn the state Democratic Party over to
any radical element or other irresponsible group.”[18]
Increased “agitation” for Negro civil rights in the New Deal and
World War II periods eventuated in the end of the white primary. This
disaster was the result of several federal court decisions, notably
in the cases of _Smith v. Allwright_ (1944), _Rice v. Elmore_ (1947)
and _Brown v. Baskin_ (1948). The first and most important of these
was a Texas case in which the Supreme Court declared all suffrage
restrictions premised on race to be unconstitutional.[19]
Reaction of the white leaders of South Carolina to the _Smith v.
Allwright_ decision was instantaneous. Officials, public figures, and
private citizens lost no opportunity to condemn it. The late Senator
Burnet R. Maybank, aware that the decision was not an isolated incident
but part of the developing effort to break down white supremacy,
declared that regardless of any Supreme Court decision and any laws
that might be passed by Congress, South Carolinians would maintain
those political and social institutions which were “in the best
interest of our people.” White South Carolinians would “treat the Negro
fairly,” said the Senator, but they did “not intend for him to take
over our election system or attend our white schools.”[20]
The then Governor Olin D. Johnston, not to be outdone, called a
special session of the state legislature to meet the “emergency.” He
recommended that the legislators repeal all state laws dealing with
primary elections, thus giving the Democratic Party the status of a
private club. This maneuver, he believed, would put the party outside
the jurisdiction of federal courts. Should it prove inadequate, he
announced, South Carolinians would “use the necessary methods to
retain white supremacy in our primaries and to safeguard the homes and
happiness of our people.”[21] The legislature, following his advice,
completely divorced the state from all legal connections with the
Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party of South Carolina itself took action to nullify
the effects of the court decision. If Negroes could not be legally
barred from primary election, they would be excluded from party
membership. A state Democratic convention, held shortly after the
decision, adopted a rule which provided that to be eligible for
membership in the party, a person had to be a “white Democrat” who
subscribed to the principles of the Democratic Party of South Carolina
as declared by the state convention.[22]
In 1947 the newly enacted defenses for white supremacy in the
Democratic primary were tested in federal district court and found
wanting. George A. Elmore, under NAACP auspices, brought suit against
the Democratic Party. He claimed that its recent actions deprived him
of his right to vote. Federal District Judge J. Waties Waring[23]
agreed and ruled against the state of South Carolina and the Democratic
Party. In admonishing South Carolina to “rejoin the union,” he
declared racial discriminations illegal in the machinery that selected
the officers and lawmakers of the United States. All citizens were
entitled to cast a “free and untrammelled” vote in the election. If
“the only material and realistic elections” were “clothed with the name
‘primary,’” said the judge, they were no less equally entitled to vote
in them.[24]
In the face of the decision, the harrassed and beleaguered state
Democratic Party took two important steps to insure continuation of the
white primary. By the first a dual system of voting qualifications was
established which sought to disbar most Negro voters. Concomitantly
a lengthy oath, designed to discourage Negro voters and required
of all voters, was adopted. It compelled the voter to swear that
he understood, believed in, and supported “the principles of the
Democratic Party of South Carolina,” the “social, religious, and
educational separation of the races,” and “the principles of states
rights,” and was opposed to the “proposed federal so-called FEPC
law.”[25]
These restrictions were quickly brought to a court test. In a second
decision, in the case of _Brown v. Baskin_, Judge Waring invalidated
the white primary. In a pointed and sharply worded opinion he termed
the dual system of voting qualifications “a clear and flagrant evasion
of the law” as enunciated in earlier court rulings against suffrage
restrictions on the basis of race. He also branded the oath required
of all voters in the primary as a “flagrant disregard of the rights of
American citizens to exercise their own views and opinions.” The oath
was patently unconstitutional.[26] The United States Supreme Court
refused to review either of Judge Waring’s decisions, thus in effect
upholding them.[27]
Judge Waring, a prominent Charlestonian, was condemned on all sides by
white South Carolinians. His decisions were likewise criticized. After
the ruling in _Brown v. Baskin_, Representative William Jennings Bryan
Dorn asked Congress to investigate Judge Waring’s “conduct in office.”
Under his ruling, said Dorn, “a Communist, a Negro, a Fascist, or a
Republican could vote in the Democratic Party of South Carolina.”[28]
III
Traditionally orthodoxy on the race issue has transcended all other
considerations in South Carolina politics. Consequently the state has
had more than its fair share of zealots willing to play the race issue
for the last ounce of its political worth. Even those most outspoken
on the issue have not been free of charges of racial heresy. In the
1938 senatorial election Olin D. Johnston, attempting unsuccessfully
to unseat “Cotton Ed” Smith, charged that the Senator had not always
been anti-Negro. “Why, Ed Smith voted for a bill that would permit a
big buck nigger to sit by your wife or sister on a railroad train,”
he cried. But Smith was able to use the attack on him by Roosevelt
and Northern liberals with telling effect. He boasted that he had
walked out of the 1936 Democratic National Convention when a Negro
minister was asked to pray. The purpose of that prayer, he declared,
was “not to ask divine assistance but to invoke colored votes.” “White
supremacy, that time honored tradition,” bellowed the Senator in a
campaign speech, could “no more be blotted out of the hearts of South
Carolinians” than could the “scars which Sherman’s artillery left on
the State House at Columbia.”[29]
During the 1930’s and 1940’s under encouragement given their
aspirations by the New and Fair Deals, South Carolina Negroes became
Democrats in theory and in fact. Their most ambitious political
undertaking was the formation in 1944 of the Progressive Democratic
Party under the leadership of John McCray, a newspaperman, and James M.
Hinton, a minister and insurance saleman. The Progressive Democrats
supported the national Democratic Party but opposed that of the
state.[30] The Progressive Democrats had little success. David Duncan
Wallace, the historian of South Carolina, estimated that only about
3,500 Negroes voted in the presidential election of 1944 and about
5,000 in 1948. In the latter year the Progressive Democrats sent a
slate of delegates to the national party convention and unsuccessfully
challenged the regular state Democrats.[31] A similar attempt in 1956
also failed.
The increasing role of the Negro in South Carolina politics has had
the effect of spotlighting such issues as civil rights, FEPC, and
states rights. The white majority remains as determined as ever to
maintain “the Southern way of life” and every inch of ground is yielded
grudgingly. The race question is applied to nearly every political
issue, either openly or covertly, and all-out attempts have been--and
to be sure, still are--made to discredit any proposal or policy
that would alter the _status quo_. The most popular method has been
that of equating unpopular measures with communism, atheism, racial
“mongrelization,” etc. Sometimes the results have been ludicrous. In
his unsuccessful 1950 campaign for the United States Senate, Governor
J. Strom Thurmond asserted that had President Truman “not been so busy
playing Negro politics,” the nation would not have been involved in the
Korean situation.[32] Favorite targets in the 1940’s were President
Truman’s civil rights bill and his FEPC proposals. Thomas R. Waring,
editor of the _News and Courier_ and not to be confused with his
cousin the judge, said the opposition to President Truman’s proposals
was based on the belief that they “would be an invasion of states and
individual rights” and would result in “an intermingling of races
in hotels, restaurants, theaters, buses, and places of employment.”
Governor Thurmond termed the FEPC proposals the closest this country
had yet come to communism. They would turn the United States into
“nothing more than a police state,” he warned. The proposals would
force employers “to hire even Hindus.” The Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux
Klan, a few hours after addressing the state legislature where he was
warmly received, told a Klan rally that if the civil rights proposals
passed, it would “be legal for a Negro to come up on your porch and ask
for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”[33]
Particularly dismaying to the state’s political leaders has been the
growing realization that neither of the national political parties can
be relied upon to protect what South Carolina Democrats consider to be
the best interests of the state and the South. At the 1936 Democratic
National Convention the South lost an effective weapon when the party
abolished the ⅔ rule for party nominations. Though President Roosevelt
had been able to hold the state party leaders in line, major revolts
have developed in South Carolina against the national Democratic Party
in every presidential election since 1944. Shortly before the 1952
presidential campaign was underway James F. Byrnes declared that the
South had become a “stepchild” in national politics while both national
parties were becoming slaves to the demands of minorities which held
the balance of power in key Northern cities. He labeled the 1948
Democratic platform “more socialistic than democratic,” and the result
of pressures brought by “organized minorities of northern states” on
the leaders of the Democratic Party. These pressures had forced those
leaders “to abandon the cardinal principle of states rights.”[34]
This alleged “renunciation by the Democratic Party of the principles
upon which the Republic was founded” led in 1948 to the most successful
of the political revolts, if measured in terms of election results.
In the presidential election of that year the “Dixiecrat” movement,
with Governor Thurmond as its candidate, carried four Southern states.
Though this movement was generally justified in terms of states rights
and constitutional government, the race issue undoubtedly was of
paramount importance in inspiring it.[35] Thurmond publicly and piously
objected to the “white supremacy” theme of many of his followers. He
professed to be “not interested one whit in the question of white
supremacy” and referred to himself as “a progressive Southerner” who
was interested in bettering the conditions of the Negro. He said he
would conduct his campaign solely in support of “the sovereignty of
the states as against federal government interference.” In October
he reiterated that he was not running “on a platform of racial
discrimination.” That was “for each state to decide.”[36]
Despite such pronouncements the race question ran prominently
throughout Thurmond’s campaign speeches. Few did not contain a long
attack on President Truman’s various civil rights proposals, especially
FEPC. In August he said that if the “segregation program” of President
Truman were enforced, “the results in civil strife” might be “horrible
beyond imagination.” Lawlessness would be rampant. Chaos would prevail.
Streets would be unsafe. The President’s “so called civil rights
program” was written by Joseph Stalin in 1920. It was “made to order
for Communist use in their designs upon national security.”[37]
In the 1952 election widespread support developed for General
Eisenhower in the state because it was believed generally that the
Republican Party and its candidate were more in harmony with Southern
conservatism and consequently represented less of a “threat” to the
South on racial and economic issues.[38] However, slightly more than
a majority of the state’s voters remained loyal to the national
Democratic Party; Negroes voted overwhelmingly for the Democratic
candidate.
IV
The constitution of 1868 authorized the first public school system
of South Carolina. Many years passed, however, before the state had
a functioning public school system worthy of the name, even for the
whites. Funds allocated by the state for public education increased
slowly. Though largely spent on white schools such outlays brought
limited advancement to Negro education through the trickle down
process. Discrepancies between the white and Negro systems continued
to grow. Not until the end of the nineteenth century did the total
amount spent on Negro education surpass that spent in 1879-80, despite
increasing enrollments. Not until 1919-20 did per capita expenditures
on Negro schools exceed those of the Hampton administration.[39]
In 1921 Professor Simkins, after making an unverified assertion to the
effect that “the educational separation of races in South Carolina
at present meets the approval of both races,” admitted that the
disproportionate share of the school funds spent for education of the
whites displeased the Negro. At this time the white schools received
$11.97 per capita while the Negro pupil received only $1.23.[40]
Until the late 1940’s when the NAACP began bringing suits for equal
and/or integrated public schools, little support was given in the state
for providing public education for Negroes, a situation reflected
in the wide discrepancies in the funds spent for white and Negro
schools. This attitude, in its most extreme form, was expressed in the
inaugural address of Governor Cole Blease in 1911. Blease, a blatant
Dixie demagogue, recommended “liberal appropriations for all our state
institutions of learning for white boys and girls.” He also favored
the improvement of “the free school system so that every white child
in South Carolina” could be given “a good common school education.” As
for Negro education, the Governor declared that “when the people of
this country began to try to educate the Negro they made a serious and
grave mistake,” the worst results of which were yet to come. “So why
continue?” he asked.[41]
In 1941 Governor Maybank, reputedly more enlightened, appointed a
committee to study the state’s education system. It found, among other
things, that nineteen counties in the state had no high school for
Negroes and that there were 1644 school buses for whites and eight for
Negroes.[42]
The relative status of white-Negro education in South Carolina can
be illustrated, and better yet dramatized, by reference to a few
statistics for the years 1940 and 1952. In 1940 statistics reflected
the relative unconcern for quality Negro education. On the other
hand, the 1952 figures indicated the progress that had been made by
the time the Clarendon County school case was making its way through
the courts. The NAACP used these statistics with devastating effect
in developing its argument against separate-but-equal systems.[43]
Since 1952 substantial improvements have come in both white and Negro
schools. Schools for Negroes have been rapidly approaching at least a
statistical equality with those of the whites.
1940 1952
White Negro White Negro
Expenditure per pupil $50.81 $15.16 $159.34 $95.65
Capital outlay per pupil 6.25 .66 24.70 11.45
Average length of school year (days) 175 147 180 178
Average annual salary of
classroom teachers $938 $388 $2,644 $1,985
Average years of college
of classroom teachers 3.7 3.4
Books in school libraries per pupil 2.3 0.7 3.0 0.9
Other statistics bear investigation in connection with the state’s
public education program. In 1950 the per capita income of South
Carolinians was $844, 46th in the nation. In the same year the state
spent 3.3 percent of its total personal income on public schools, tenth
highest percentage-wise in the country. In 1952, 42.7 percent of the
pupils attending public schools in the state were Negroes, a somewhat
higher percentage than Negroes in the total population. Between 1940
and 1950 the white population of the state increased 19.3 percent while
the Negro population increased only 1.0 percent. Yet during the period
1940-52 the Negro school population increased 12.5 percent compared to
a white pupil increase of 9.9 percent.[44]
As late as 1918 only one public Negro high school was operating in the
state! Not until 1930 did South Carolina have an accredited Negro high
school. By 1950 there were 80 state accredited Negro high schools, only
ten of which, however, were recognized by the Southern Association
of Colleges and Secondary Schools. By comparison there were 301
state accredited white high schools, 56 of which met the accrediting
standards of the Southern Association.[45]
The same inequality evidenced on the public school level existed in
higher education. The state maintains five institutions of higher
learning for whites and one for Negroes. The Negro institution was
originally rather thoroughly named the Colored Normal, Industrial,
Agricultural, and Mechanical College. The total state appropriation
for the white colleges in 1949 was in excess of $4,500,000 while that
for the Negro college was less than $600,000. Dr. Lewis K. McMillan,
former professor of history at the Negro institution, described the
college as “a glorified high school” treated as a “step child” by the
state. Until after World War II the college did not have a nominal
graduate or law school. However, in the light of a spate of federal
court decisions admitting Negro students to white state universities
when equal educational opportunities were lacking in state-supported
Negro schools, the 1945 state appropriations act authorized the college
to establish “graduate, Law, and Medical departments and such other
departments as may be necessary to provide training in all lines of
college activities for students attending this college.” No money was
appropriated until 1946 and then a completely inadequate $25,000 for
the graduate school. In 1947 $60,000 was appropriated for the Law
School. “Medical and pharmaceutical training” was authorized to the
extent of a paltry appropriation of $15,000 in 1950.[46]
While federal court cases in other states provided a general impetus
to this program, the danger that a Negro might be admitted to the
University of South Carolina loomed ominously on the horizon in 1946
when a Negro, Cleveland M. McQueen, applied for admission as a graduate
student in the School of Education. The state answered his request
with the appropriation for a graduate school at the Negro college.[47]
In the same year another Negro, John Wrighten, applied for admission
to the University Law School and was denied admittance. He then took
his case to the courts which ruled that unless the state provided a
law school at the Negro college “on a substantial parity with the
University Law School” by September, 1947, Wrighten had to be admitted
to the latter. By the deadline a law school had been established and
Wrighten made no further appeal.[48] Until January, 1958, no Negro made
a concerted effort to gain admission to one of the white institutions
of higher education. Two Negroes applied for admission to Clemson
College in 1956 but did not press their applications after being
refused. But in January, 1958, as will be seen in Chapter VII, Negro
students were clearing the decks for a law suit to force admission to
the University of South Carolina.