Table Of Content0.761”
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HISTORY Higher
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“A compelling read and much needed addition to the literature on the Civil Rights e
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movement”—Book News Inc. st Education
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“This fine collection of essays [has] several strengths. . . . Highly recommended.” in
—Choice
“For every James Meredith, who gained fame for becoming the first black student and the
at the University of Mississippi, there were many other students who broke racial
barriers without attracting too much attention. Higher Education and the Civil
Rights Movement tells the stories of some of those students and also portrays the t Civil Rights
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broader story of the desegregation of higher education.”—Chronicle of Higher
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Education
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“Wallenstein has assembled an impressive group of scholars to tell some of the iv h
most powerful and moving stories of the struggle for freedom and equality in il e Movement
modern America. These essays add a critical dimension to the struggle for civil R r
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rights and expand our understanding of the movement.”—James Oliver Horton, g d
coauthor of Hard Road to Freedom h u
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“The seven essays, introduction, and afterword firmly place the desegregation of a
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southern colleges and universities within the context of the broader Civil Rights i
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movement. Readers will also appreciate how black undergraduate and graduate n White Supremacy, Black Southerners,
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students continue to challenge white supremacy by working for inclusive curricula, e a
services, and programming at major educational institutions in the South.” m n and College Campuses
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—Journal of Southern History e
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“The first comprehensive study of the process of desegregation as it unfolded t
during the twentieth century at the flagship universities and white land-grant
institutions of the south.”—Amy Thompson McCandless, College of Charleston
“Broadens the discussion of the civil rights movement to include academic spaces
as sites of struggle and contributes to southern history by providing unique
accounts of black agency during the dismantling of the Jim Crow South.”
—Stephanie Y. Evans, University of Florida
Peter Wallenstein, professor of history at Virginia Tech, is the author of Cradle
of America: Four Centuries of Virginia History and Tell the Court I Love My Wife:
Race, Marriage and Law—An American History.
A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold and
Randall M. Miller.
ISBN 978-0-8130-3444-7
University Press of Florida ,!7IA8B3-adeeeh!
UPF
www.upf.com
Edited by Peter Wallenstein
Higher Education and the Civil Rights Movement
Southern DiSSent
univerSity PreSS of floriDa
Florida A&M University, Tallahassee
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton
Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers
Florida International University, Miami
Florida State University, Tallahassee
New College of Florida, Sarasota
University of Central Florida, Orlando
University of Florida, Gainesville
University of North Florida, Jacksonville
University of South Florida, Tampa
University of West Florida, Pensacola
Southern DiSSent
The Other South: Southern Dissenters in the Nineteenth Century, by Carl N. Degler,
with a new preface (2000)
Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina: The Culture of Violence in Riot
and War, by Wayne E. Lee (2001)
“Lord, We’re Just Trying to Save Your Water”: Environmental Activism and Dissent in
the Appalachian South, by Suzanne Marshall (2002)
The Changing South of Gene Patterson: Journalism and Civil Rights, 1960–1968,
edited by Roy Peter Clark and Raymond Arsenault (2002)
Gendered Freedoms: Race, Rights, and the Politics of Household in the Delta, 1861–1875,
by Nancy Bercaw (2003)
Civil War on Race Street: The Civil Rights Movement in Cambridge, Maryland,
by Peter B. Levy (2003)
South of the South: Jewish Activists and the Civil Rights Movement in Miami, 1945–1960,
by Raymond A. Mohl, with contributions by Matilda “Bobbi” Graff and Shirley M. Zoloth
(2004)
Throwing Off the Cloak of Privilege: White Southern Female Activists in the Civil Rights Era,
edited by Gail S. Murray (2004)
The Atlanta Riot: Race, Class, and Violence in a New South City, by Gregory Mixon (2004)
Slavery and the Peculiar Solution: A History of the American Colonization Society,
by Eric Burin (2005)
“I Tremble for My Country”: Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia Gentry,
by Ronald L. Hatzenbuehler (2006)
From Saint-Domingue to New Orleans: Migration and Influences, by Nathalie Dessens (2007)
Higher Education and the Civil Rights Movement: White Supremacy, Black Southerners, and
College Campuses, edited by Peter Wallenstein (2007)
Higher Education and
the Civil Rights Movement
White Supremacy, Black Southerners,
and College Campuses
Edited by Peter Wallenstein
Foreword by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller
University Press of Florida
Gainesville/Tallahassee/Tampa/Boca Raton
Pensacola/Orlando/Miami/Jacksonville/Ft. Myers/Sarasota
Copyright 2008 by Peter Wallenstein
All rights reserved
First cloth printing, 2007
First paperback printing, 2009
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Higher education and the civil rights movement: white supremacy,
black Southerners, and college campuses/edited by Peter
Wallenstein; foreword by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller.
p. cm.—(Southern dissent)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-8130-3162-0 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-8130-3444-7 (pbk)
ISBN 978-0-8130-4000-4 (e-book)
1. College integration—Southern States—History. 2. Civil rights
movements—Southern States—History. 3. Social change—
Southern States—History. I. Wallenstein, Peter.
LC214.22.S68H54 2007
379.2'6309759–dc22 2007027406
The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency
for the State University System of Florida, comprising Florida
A&M University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida Gulf Coast
University, Florida International University, Florida State Uni-
versity, New College of Florida, University of Central Florida,
University of Florida, University of North Florida, University of
South Florida, and University of West Florida.
University Press of Florida
15 Northwest 15th Street
Gainesville, FL 32611–2079
www.upf.com
For
Thomas Hocutt, not of the University of North Carolina
Alice Jackson, not of the University of Virginia
Pauli Murray, not of the University of North Carolina
Lucile Bluford, not of the University of Missouri
Virgil D. Hawkins, not of the University of Florida
Horace Ward, not of the University of Georgia
Alexander Pierre Tureaud Jr., not of Louisiana State University
Medgar Evers, not of the University of Mississippi
Autherine Lucy, not of the University of Alabama
Clyde Kennard, not of the University of Southern Mississippi
And the many other failed applicants in the era of Jim Crow who did
what they could to blaze the way, together with those who followed
their lead and pioneered an African American presence
on campuses that had historically barred any black enrollment
Contents
Series Foreword ix
Preface xi
Introduction. Higher Education, Black Access, and the Civil Rights
Movement 1
1. Black Southerners and Nonblack Universities: The Process of
Desegregating Southern Higher Education, 1935–1965
Peter WallenStein 17
2. Four Who Would: Constantine v. Southwestern Louisiana Institute
(1954) and the Desegregation of Louisiana’s State Colleges
Michael G. WaDe 60
3. The Long Journey from LaGrange to Atlanta: Horace Ward and the
Desegregation of the University of Georgia
robert a. Pratt 92
4. Black Colleges and Civil Rights: Organizing and Mobilizing in Jackson,
Mississippi
Joy ann WilliaMSon 116
5. Prying the Door Farther Open: A Memoir of Black Student Protest at the
University of Maryland at College Park, 1966–1970
hayWarD “WooDy” farrar 137
6. Hold That (Color) Line!: Black Exclusion and Southeastern Conference
Football
charleS h. Martin 166
7. African American Women Pioneers in Desegregating Higher Education
Marcia G. Synnott 199
Afterword. Unfinished Business 229
Appendix 1. Federal Initiatives on Race and Higher Education, 1890–
1965 239
Appendix 2. University of Maryland v. Murray (Maryland, 1936) 242
Appendix 3. The U.S. Supreme Court and Segregation in Missouri
(1938) 249
Appendix 4. President Truman’s Commission on Higher Education (1946–
1948) 253
Appendix 5. McCready v. Byrd (Maryland, 1950) 257
Appendix 6. Sweatt v. Painter (1950) 262
Appendix 7. “Desegregation” at the University of Missouri (1950) 266
Appendix 8. Frasier v. Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina
(1955) 270
Appendix 9. Interview with Theotis Robinson Jr., of the University of
Tennessee 275
Appendix 10. Model Universities and Racial Diversity 280
About the Contributors 283
Index 285
Foreword
The story of desegregating southern schools is long. Much of it, in the popu-
lar mind at least, centers on several key moments or incidents in law or pro-
test that affected, and eventually effected, the official desegregation of public
elementary and secondary schools. There was great drama in the Supreme
Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and in white southern
“massive resistance,” epitomized by the confrontation at Central High School,
in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. Efforts to desegregate southern colleges
and universities also produced mythic moments. Mississippi governor Ross
Barnett’s defiance of a federal court order to admit James Meredith to Ole
Miss and the violence that met Meredith there in 1962, for example, became
a centerpiece in the desegregation narrative. For a time, desegregation played
out almost as a Kabuki of a white official barring a black student from the
schoolhouse door before yielding to federal power. Such confrontations made
good copy for newspapers and striking visual shots for the television evening
news. In a fuller story of desegregation, however, they distort the dynamics
and direction of the process. They make it seem that only through direct public
encounters could desegregation happen or become possible.
Peter Wallenstein’s collection of original essays, Higher Education and the
Civil Rights Movement: White Supremacy, Black Southerners, and College
Campuses, shows that the desegregation of higher education in the South was
more complicated and widespread, if also often less dramatic and more in-
cremental, than the standard accounts have it. The collection includes a very
useful chapter on the role of “black” colleges in the desegregation effort. But
its major contribution lies in studying a variety of “white”—or at least “non-
black”—colleges and universities. The authors analyze the educational set-
tings and circumstances that influenced African Americans’ efforts to seek
admission to southern institutions of higher learning and gain an education in
them.
The different terms by which the federal government established land-grant
colleges affected the curriculum and character of these institutions. The Mor-
rill Land-Grant College Act of 1890, for example, offered federal support for
colleges, so long as black students also benefited from the money, though a
state might extend such benefits by maintaining racially segregated institu-
tions. As students’ programmatic needs changed in a more complex economy
and society, black students excluded from “white” colleges and unable to get
