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PAGE 10—JANUARY 1956—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Georgia Assembly Meeting to Strengthen Segregation Statutes
MACON, Ga.
HPhe General Assembly of Georgia
will convene early in January with
the shaping of legislation to strength
en racial segregation one of its ma
jor tasks, in the opinion of legislative
leaders (see “Legislative Action”).
Pre-legislative session comment,
however, was overshadowed in the
public’s mind during December by
the furore created over the question
of whether or not Georgia Tech
would play Pittsburgh, a team with
a Negro squad member, in New Or
leans’ Sugar Bowl Jan. 2. The issue
was finally resolved in favor of the
football game being played but not
before segregation, schools and sports
dominated the headlines and public
interest for more than a week (see
“In The Colleges”).
A U. S. district court order imple
menting a recent decision of the Su
preme Court opened Atlanta’s mu
nicipal golf courses to Negroes after
some four years of litigation over
the racial controversy. (See “Legal
Action.”)
Two bills designed to sidestep the
U. S. Supreme Court’s decision hav
ing the effect of outlawing segrega
tion in public recreation facilities
were prepared for legislative con
sideration by Atty. Gen. Eugene
Cook.
One would empower state, county
and municipal governments to sell
or lease public golf courses, swim
ming pools or parks. Cook said it
would also circumvent a portion of
another U. S. Supreme Court decis
ion holding that states do not have
the power to close public parks
through legislation.
The second bill would allow the
governor or state park superintend
ents to close a park or other recrea
tion place in emergency situations
such as the possibility that it might
become a place of riot or disorder.
Some members of the legislature
said they may introduce bills giving
bus drivers, railroad conductors and
station masters police powers to deal
with segregation problems.
PARK BILLS EXPECTED
Both Lt. Gov. Ernest Vandiver,
president of the Senate, and Rep.
Marvin Moate, speaker of the House,
expect to see legislation authorizing
sale of state parks if segregation is
broken. Maintenance of segregation
will be a major issue before the Gen
eral Assembly, they said. Vandiver
said strengthening of statutes prohib
iting mixed schools and implementa
tion of a constitutional amendment
which authorizes segregated private
schools are major tasks for the Gen
eral Assembly.
A six-point legislative program
setting up legal and administrative
machinery in preparation for a pos
sible move from integrated public to
segregated private schools has al
ready been recommended to the leg
islature by the Georgia Education
Commission (Southern School News,
November, 1955).
IN THE COLLEGES
The football segregation contro
versy which figuratively shook the
state began Nov. 30 when Hugh G.
Grant of Augusta, speaking in be
half of himself and an Augusta group,
wired Coach Bobby Dodd protesting
against Georgia Tech’s participating
in the Sugar Bowl game against the
non-segregated University of Pitts
burgh team. Grant is second vice
president of the pro-segregation
States Rights Council of Georgia, Inc.,
but is not authorized to speak for the
council.
Tech President Blake Van Leer
later said that Coach Dodd contacted
Gov. Marvin Griffin after receiving
the telegram from Augusta and “the
governor’s office told Dodd not to
worry about it.” Van Leer also said
that on the day of the Georgia-
Georgia Tech game (Nov. 26), in the
presence of Robert O. Arnold, chair
man of the University System Board
Georgia State Patrol troopers and Atlanta policemen stood guard as Georgia Tech students demonstrated against
Gov. Marvin Griffin’s request that Tech not be permitted to play the Sugar Bowl football game against a non-segre-
gated University of Pittsburgh team.
of Regents, he told Gov. Griffin that
if Tech won, Tech would accept a
Sugar Bowl bid and the governor
replied, “Fine.”
GAME BAR ASKED
But on Dec. 2, the governor wired
Chairman Arnold asking that the
board of regents meet at once to bar
any state school from meeting a team
that uses Negroes and from engag
ing in a contest before an unsegre
gated crowd.
Bobby Grier, a reserve halfback on
the Pittsburgh team which Tech had
contracted to play on Jan. 2, is a
Negro, and Sugar Bowl officials had
announced that Pittsburgh could sell
tickets in its section of the stadium
to whomever it wished. Regular and
Tech tickets for the game were to
be on a segregated basis.
Gov. Griffin said the South must
not budge from its rules against ra
cial integration and said playing
against Negroes in athletics was no
different than going to school in in
tegrated classrooms. Ben Wiggins,
executive secretary to Griffin, said
the governor “feels he should have
been consulted on the bid. We under
stand Tech had chances at two other
bowls but accepted the Sugar Bowl
bid.”
Georgia teams have in the past
played against Negro players. The
University of Georgia played in such
contests in 1950 against St. Mary’s
and in 1952 against Pennsylvania, and
Tech played a desegregated Notre
Dame team in 1953.
MARCH ON CAPITOL
On the night of Dec. 2, Georgia
Tech students in a crowd estimated
by police to be some 2,500 strong,
marched on the State Capitol and
left considerable litter damage. An
other group demonstrated before the
Executive Mansion, home of the gov
ernor, in protest against Griffin’s at
tempt to prevent the Tech-Pitt con
test.
The marchers fought briefly with
State Capitol building guards and
Georgia Bureau of Investigation
agents at the capital when one stu
dent was taken in custody on a dis
orderly charge (but later released
some distance from the scene.)
Door locks were broken, trash cans
overturned and sand from toppled
cigarette urns scattered about the
first and second floors of the capital.
Fire hoses were pulled from their
racks and some shrubbery pulled up.
A can was placed on the head of the
statue of Gen. John B. Gordon, Civil
War hero, which is on the capital
grounds.
Some of the marchers, on their way
to the Executive Mansion, left over
turned trash cans and several burned
effigies of Griffin in their wake. Some
carried signs saying such things as,
“Grow Up, Griffin,” “We Play Any
body,” and “We Want to Go to the
Sugar Bowl.”
The Tech student demonstration at
the governor’s home lasted until
about 3 am., and some 500 boys were
in the crowd, according to an esti
mate by the Associated Press. State
patrolmen, city policemen armed with
tear gas and city firemen ready with
hoses had been summoned to keep
order before the demonstrators ar
rived, but the hoses or tear gas were
not used. Several students were held
by police but later released.
The Atlanta Constitution reported
that one of the Tech students present
at the demonstration was the govern
or’s own son, Sam Griffin, a freshman
at the school. The paper said the son
went in and asked his father to come
out for a short talk when the mob
converged on the mansion.
Griffin dismissed the incident as
“just a bunch of college boys having
a good time.” He said he would not
be pressured and had not changed
his mind about his position. His re
quest for a stern athletic segregation
policy, he told reporters in a later
news conference, was aimed exclus
ively at Tech’s Sugar Bowl game.
TECH FUNDS THREATENED
Rep. John P. Drinkard of Lincoln
County, chairman of the powerful
State of Republic committee in the
legislature, said he was in favor of
cutting off state funds to Tech if the
school insisted on playing Pittsburgh.
Minor demonstrations interpreted
as protests against Griffin’s action
were staged by about 50 Mercer Uni
versity students in Macon Dec. 3 and
by a few Emory University students
at the school near Atlanta Dec. 5.
Georgia Tech officials said numer
ous message received by the school
urged that the game be played.
The Atlanta Journal, largest paper in
the state, said communications to its
letters column ran about 6-to-l
against Griffin’s position. A spokes
man for the governor said messages
received at the Capitol supported
Griffin’s stand 232 to 119.
Most daily newspaper editorial re-
Penalized by the Politicians
for Unnecessary Fair Play
—Louisville Times
action over the state was strongly
critical of the governor’s position.
TALMADGE SILENT
Former Gov. Herman Talmadge
declined to comment on the contro
versy.
The president of the Tech student
body apologized to Pittsburgh for
what was termed Griffin’s “unwar
ranted action” and Bobby Grier, the
Pitt Negro player, said, “I’m just sor
ry the whole thing came up.”
As the controversy continued, a
basketball team from Valdosta State
College, a university system school,
played a nonsegregated team from
Moody Air Force Base near Valdosta
on Dec. 3. Five of the 12 Moody play
ers were Negroes. Military officials
at Moody said the Negro players
were put in the lineup only in games
played on the base, and Dr. Ralph
Thaxton, Valdosta State College
president, said he “would never have
approved such arrangements” (play
ing against Negroes) and had told
the coach “last year” that the school
would not play a non-segregated
team.
The board of regents met Dec. 5
as public interest in the issue mount
ed to high pitch. Most of the three-
hour session was behind closed doors,
with officials stating it was just a
committee meeting, but the public
part of the meeting produced an ex
change between Regent David Rice
of Atlanta, who wanted to censure
Griffin for his “attempt to interfere”
with Tech’s operations, and Regent
Roy V. Harris of Augusta, who said
Griffin’s action was “the finest thing
that ever happened to this state.”
REGENTS’ ACTION
The regents voted to:
1) Allow Georgia Tech to play
Pittsburgh Jan. 2 in New Orleans,
but prevent mixed-race contests in
Georgia and allow future games out
side Georgia to be played in accord
ance with the customs of the host
state.
2) Apologize to Gov. Griffin and
the people of Georgia for the conduct
of students who demonstrated at the
Capitol and the Executive Mansion.
Chairman Arnold interpreted the
policy resolution to mean that
Georgia Tech and University of
Georgia teams can play “anywhere
they are invited” and said he doubted
that the regents would take any
further action in the matter.
Coach Dodd of Tech commented:
“I think we can live by this ruling
okay.”
An investigation of the Atlanta
demonstrations was launched by
Tech officials and in Athens, on the
night following the regents’ meeting
during the day, some 750 University
of Georgia students took part in a
display, marching behind a banner
reading, “This Time We Are With
Tech.”
Dean of Men William Tate said an
effigy of Griffin was confiscated be
fore it was burned and added that
three students were “definitely in
trouble” as a result of their activities.
Resentment at Dean Tate’s action
against students involved in the Dec.
5 affair was believed responsible for
a larger demonstration on the night
of Dec. 6. Athens police and Georgia
state troopers had to use tear gas
to disperse a crowd of students esti
mated at between 1,000 and 1,500
persons.
Five University of Georgia stu
dents were later dismissed from
school and the cases of about 30 oth
ers were being studied.
On Dec. 1, the Georgia Tech Stu
dent Council voted to pay for all
damage caused during demonstra
tions at the State Capitol and Execu
tive Mansion in Atlanta by collecting
money from Tech’s 5,200 students “on
a voluntary basis.”
A suit to test validity of Georgia
laws prohibiting the use of public
funds to operate mixed schools has
been postponed twice, once by the
defendants and once by the state.
Judge George R. Lilly of the
Lowndes County Superior Court, at
the request of Atty. Gen. Cook, post
poned the state’s friendly test suit
against the Valdosta Board of Edu
cation.
Cook said the continuance was re
quested while the possibility of in
cluding legislation which might be
passed by the upcoming legislature
in the test case was studied. He said
implementation legislation allowing
the governor to close any schools in
which the races are mixed and to
make public educational grants to
individual students has been asked
of the 1956 General Assembly and
these angles may be brought into the
Valdosta suit by amendments.
COMMITTEE AUTHORIZED
The Valdosta Board of Education
adopted a resolution to name a com
mittee to study the effects of inte
grated schools but the state filed its
suit before such a committee was
named and no members have since
been appointed.
Two Negroes have petitioned the
court to intervene in the Valdosta
case. They are Leonard D. Davis and
Georgia L. Davis, according to Don
ald L. Hollowell of Atlanta, state
counsel for the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored
People. The Davises were among the
signers of the original petition ask
ing the Valdosta board to desegre
gate, and Hollowell said the inter
vention was filed to protect the rights
of the original petitioners.
GOLF COURSE CASE
An order by U. S. district court
Judge Boyd Sloan on Dec. 22 cleared
the way for Negroes to play on At
lanta’s public golf courses on an un
segregated basis. The U. S. Supreme
Court recently decided in favor of
Dr. H. H. Holmes, his sons, Oliver
and Alfred Holmes, and C. T. Bell
ad Atlanta Negroes who had brought
suit after being turned away from the
city’s pubdc Bobby Jones course m
1951.
City Atty. Jack Savage said the
municipadty had only two avenues
open after Judge Sloan issued Ws
order. The city could (1) close the
courses or (2) permit Negroes to
play on an unsegregated basis. Mayor
William B. Hartsfield said he be-
Ueved most of the people of Atlanta
would “accept without question” the
decision to open the city’s seven
public courses to Negroes. ,
Closing the courses, he said, wold
deprive some 70,000 white golfers o
the use of the links and would P u
100 city employes out of work. May° r
Hartsfield pointed out that the order
involved only golf courses and no
swimming pools and playgrounds
which will continue to be operated
on a segregated basis.
OTHERS PERMIT
Hartsfield said the decision was not
a “bold departure” from the action
of other southern cities, many 0 ^
which, he said, already have P er
mitted such desegregation.
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