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THE GEOGRAPHICAL PATTERN OF SCHOOL DESEGREGATION
IN THE SOUTH

BY

Hannelore Sadezky

AN ABSTRACT

Submitted to the College of Science and Arts
Michigan State University of Agriculture and
Applied Science in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Geography

1958

Approved

 

Hannelore Sadezky

ABSTRACT

In.May, 1954, the United States Supreme Court de-
clared that segregation of the races in the public
schools was unconstitutional.’ The purpose of this
thesis is a geographical analysis of the impact that
the court decision has had on the Southern states.

Before May, 1954, segregation of white and Negro
children on the elementary and secondary levels of the
public-school system was virtually complete. Some Negro
students, however, were attending formerly all-white
colleges and universities, primarily in the Border States.

Desegregation since 1954 has also been almost re-
stricted to the border region of the South. These states
are characterized by relatively small Negro populations
and by attitudes which can be called intermediate between
those of the North and the South. In each of the Border
States, except two, more than one-half of the total dis-
tricts with any Negro enrollment have some desegregation.
In contrast to these states, integration has barely started
in East5Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina, and
segregation is still the rule in the rest of the South.

Comparison of the desegregation pattern with particu-
lar Negro-white ratios leads to the conclusion that the
proportion of Negroes in the total population of a specific

area gives only one clue concerning the reaction of

Hannelore Sadezky

Southern communities to the court decision. The general
attitude of a region seems to be more important. Thus
integration has, for example, taken place in areas of
relatively high Negro-white ratios in the Border states,
but not in areas of comparable or even lower Negro con-
centrations in the more "Southern" states.

This study also traces the progress of integration
from 1954 to 1958, and the following trends are observed:
(1) In each year more desegregation has taken place in
the most northern parts of the South than in areas closer
to the Deep South. (2) The peak of integration occurred
in 1955. and since then there has been a constant decrease.
(5) As the rate of actual desegregation decreased, liti-
gation concerning admittance of Negro children to white
schools increased. In fact, several of the districts in-
tegrating in 1956, and particularly in 1957, did so only
because of court orders;

0n the whole, the pattern of integration in terms of
counties with any desegregation looks impressive. 0f the
total bi-racial districts, however, only 26 per cent have
begun to mix Negro and.white children in the schools, and
the number of Negro pupils actually attending,mixed schools
is only a fraction of the total.

At the present time, integration seems to have come

to a standstill. The decision of four communities in

Hannelore Sadezky

Virginia, which are under court order to desegregate in
the fall of 1958, and the official reaction of the state
government to possible desegregation, may give an indi-

cation of the development of integration in the future.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL PATTERN OF SCHOOL DESEGREGATION
IN THE SOUTH

BY

Hannelore Sadezky

A THESIS

Submitted to the College of Science and Arts
Michigan State University of Agriculture and
Applied Science in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Geography

1958

To

calijl Ninolniya

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Most sincere thanks and appreciation for his unfail-
ing help go to Dr. Allen K. Philbrick who contributed
the original idea for this study and continued to inspire,
guide and advise the author during the research and writing
of the thesis and the design and execution of the illus-
trations. She is much indebted to the Southern Education
Reporting Service in Nashville, Tennessee, and particularly
to Mr. Patrick E. McCauley of that agency; without his full
cooperation certain aspects of the problem could not have
been examined. The writer also wishes to express her
sincere gratitude to Calvin Ninomiya for his constant
encouragement and practical help, especially in legal and

political matters.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
LIST OF TABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . l
I. CULTURAL BACKGROUND OF SEGREGATION. . . . . 9

Changes in Economic and Social Segregation
since the Civil War. . . . . . . . 9
Change in the Legal Status of the

Southern Negro since the Civil War . . . 17

II. SOUTHERN AREAS OF ECONOMIC, POLITICAL, AND
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AS CENTERS OF SEGREGAF
TION AND INTEGRATION ATTITUDES . . . . . . 25

Segregation and Integration Attitude

Regions in the South . . . . . . . . . 28
Segregation and Integration Attitude

Areas in the Border States and the

Mid-South. o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o 37

III. THE GEOGRAPHICAL PATTERN OF SCHOOL
DESEGREG'ATION C O O O O O O 0 O O O O O O O 51

On the Eve of the Supreme Court Decision
in 1954 o o o o o o o o o 51
The Total Change in Public-School
Desegregation from 1954-1958 . . . . . . 55

IV. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DESEGREGATION
PATTmN. O O O C O O O O O O O O O C O O O 64

Major Considerations For and Against

Desegregation. . . . . 64
Comparison of the Desegregation Pattern

to Negro-White Ratios. . . . . . . . . 68
Comparison of the Desegregation Pattern

to Segregation and Integration Attitude

Areas in the Border states . . . . . . . 75

V. THE EVOLUTION OF THE PATTERN OF SCHOOL
DESEGREGATION C O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 86

Desegregation in 1954 . . . . . . . . . . 89
Desegregation in 1955 . . . . . . . . . . 93
Desegregation in 1956 . . . . . . . . . . 98
Desegregation in 1957 . . . . . . . . . . 102
Desegregation in the Future . . . . . . . 108

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS (CONT.)
Page
VI. CONCLUSIONS................lO9
BIBLIOGRAPHY...................113

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page
1. Negroes in the Southern States - 1950 ...... . 32
2. Status of Desegregation in the Border

States and the Central Mid-South,
May,195800.0000000000000000.0000.ooooooooco 61

5. Extent of Desegregation in Counties
of Various Negro Concentrations............. 75

vi

Figure
1.

2.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Segregation and Integration Attitude Regions
in th 6 south 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

Percentage of Negroes in the Total
Population, 1950 . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Characteristic Deep South Elements . . . . .

Segregation and Integration Attitude Areas
in the Border States and the Mid-South . . .

Southern White Colleges and Universities
with Some Negro Students - 1953. . . . . . .

Desegregation 1954 - 1958 and Ratios of
Non-White - White Pupils . . . . . . . . . .

Three Zones of the Desegregating South; Rate
of Integration in Three Southern Zones, 1954-

Page

29

31
34

39

53

56

1957 (Percent of Total Counties with Negroes) 106

INTRODUCTION
Definition of the Problem

In'May, 1954, the Supreme Court of the United states
made its historic decision in Brown v. goard of Education

of Topeka:

We conclude that in the field of public education

the doctrine 'separate but equal' has no place.

Separate educational facilities are inherently

unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs

and others similarly situated for whom the

actions have been brought are, by reason of the

segregation complained of, deprived of the

equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the

Fourteenth Amendment.1

Thus segregation in the public schools was declared
to be unconstitutional. The decision suddenly threatened
years of tradition and a characteristic way of life of the
South, and the impact of the court's opinion on the states
concerned was and continues to be enormous.

A large number of works - books and articles - have
followed the decision, trying to consider its effect on
American society, particularly on the educational, political,
legal, and social system in the South. This thesis proposes
to add a geographical analysis to such studies by examining
the impact of the decision from the viewpoint of area in
terms of the actual spread of desegregation as it has

occurred in the Southern states since May, 1954.

1347 U.S. 483 (1954). Three other cases were included in
this opinion: Briggs v. Elliott: Davis v. County schoql
Board of_§rince Edward County, Virginia; Gebhart v. Belton.

1

Geographically, the integration pattern may be viewed
as the result of and the gradual expansion of compliance
with the Supreme Court decision from the ppint of origin
in Washington, D.C., to other areas of the South. As such,
this is a study in the origin and spread of culture. This
pattern and its development through the past four years
will be analyzed and related to the distribution of other
significant elements in the same region.

This analysis is clearly a study in cultural geogra-
phy. It considers a decision handed down by the highest
court of the United States which changes one aspect of a
characteristic, and from the viewpoint of a majority of
Southern Whites almost essential, part of Southern culture;
namely, segregation of the races. The problem will be
examined geographically; i.e., attention is focused on
the interpretation of the distribution and areal extent of
desegregation and its relationship to other patterns. The
thesis does not attempt to analyze the political, legal,
or social problems brought about by the desegregation”
decision except insofar as they are directly related to
the geographical pattern.

While this thesis is clearly focused on a cultural
phenomena, namely, the segregation of the races, and attempts
to trace its development from a point of origin through
its subsequent spread over a large area, it includes as

a related context aspects of the physical environment and

human organization of area. The areal distribution of
cultural features cannot be understood without considera-
tion of their relationship to the natural environment as
the basis of human life and the pattern of organization
developed by man out of the combination of physical re-
sources and his cultural heritage in terms of aggregated
experience.

The pattern of resistance to the Supreme Court deci-
sion in the South is indirectly related to the physical
environment of the region in that it seems to be particu-
larly strong in areas of plantation agriculture. This
type of economic organization was to some degree restricted
by the climatic requirements of cotton and tobacco, the
principal staples of the plantation system. However, since
plantations were not established in the entire area poten-
tially suited for them, but occurred interspersed with
smaller commercial and subsistence farms, traditional
feelings regarding race relations and therefore the reaction
to the Supreme Court opinion in the South may be expected
to vary considerably from place to place.

Analogous to the relationship between the natural
environment and this particular problem in cultural geo-
graphy, there exists also a relationship between desegre—
gation and the kind of human organization of area charac-
teristic of a particular region. The plantation as one
distinct type of economic organization was already men-

tioned, and in contrast to areas characterized by other

kinds of farming-units, integration will probably here
meet with the strongest resistance. Different reactions
to the Supreme Court opinion can also be expected in rural
areas from those in urban areas. Desegregation has more
precedent in urban than in most rural areas owing in some
degree to the closer association of the races in the par—
ticular activities characteristic of a city and also on.
account of the larger possibilities for organized action
in an urban area.

It seems, therefore, that a geographical analysis of
the desegregation pattern in the South, though primarily
a study in cultural geography, must also at the same time
recognize the great significance of the natural environment
and the human organization of area. In this thesis, the
cultural aspect of geography will be stressed, but the
other two important parts will, of course, be considered
whenever they are essential to the understanding of the
pattern of cultural features.

The analysis will be principally cartographical in
tracing the changes of the school desegregation pattern,
that have occurred since 1954. It is hoped that this can
be done with as much objectivity as possible, withouti

taking sides for or against the Supreme Court opinion.

Definition of Terms

Before examining the legal, economic, and social
background of the Supreme Court decision, it might be
wise to define the meaning of some terms as used in this
thesis. In recent studies, a distinct difference is made
between “desegregation" and "integration". Ira De A. Reid
gives a comprehensive definition of these terms as they
are used by sociologists:

Desegregation we regard as a neutralizing process
that must occur when groups have been prevented
from having equal access to the materials of a
society and egalitarian relations with other
groups, races, ages, religions, sexes, or classes
because of edicts or customs which have limited
the character and extent of their participation...
Desegregation is at once the removal of these
barriers and the essential prerequisite to
integration.1

According to this definition, the segregated school
system would only be one example of the state of segrega-
tion. Integration, as defined by the same scholar,

is the situation and the process which exists
when men in society are breaking down such
barriers while moving toward the full accep-
tance of all people without reference to their
racial, religious, or ethnic differences. It
is the process of achieving full equality of
status and condition.

Segregation, as used in relation to education, implies
therefore the systematic separation of the races in the
lira De A. Reid (ed ). "Racial Desegregation and Integrat1°ni'

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science, CCCIV (March,1956§, p. ix.

schools. In this thesis, it refers to the segregation
that is maintained despite the decision of the Supreme
Court, and not to the type of separation that comes more
or less "naturally" through residential segregation.
Desegregation, accordingly, refers to the process of en-
rolling white and Negro children in the same school. The
term integration will be used synonymously with desegre—
gation and is not necessarily intended to imply the actual
participation of both races in other activities, as seems
to be indicated.by the sociological definition.

Another term that may warrant definition is the word
"South". Scholars differ widely as to which states or
regions comprise the "South" of the United States. In
this thesis, the term will be used to refer to those states
in which segregation was mandatory prior to the decision
of the Supreme Court; on this basis the "South" would
include Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, West
Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi,

Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.
outline of Chapters

Chapter I will outline the basis for this study, dealing
with a consideration of the legal, economic, and sochil

background of the Supreme Court opinion in terms of the

change in the Negro's status in Southern life since the
Civil War. During this period court orders have signifi-
cantly affected public education in the South. often,

and particularly in the post-Civil War period, the court
decisions appear to reflect the prevailing opinion of the
Southern whites about the status of the Negro. But, more
recently, the High Court has increasingly decided segre—
gation cases in favor of the Negroes. Improvements in
educational facilities for the Southern Negro and in his
lot in other respects, were mainly achieved directly as a
result of court decisions. Since any educational advance
for the Negro is closely related to his economic and social
place in Southern society, a brief discussion of the change
in the Negro's economic andgmnial status since emancipation
would seem necessary in order to understand the significance
of the 1954 decision for the South.

The court's decision has met with various reactions in
different regions of the South. In Chapter II, it will be
shown that in certain Southern areas the white population
can be expected to be more pro-segregation than in others,
depending on the cultural background and present type of
organization of the area. On this basis, Southern regions
will be classified in Chapter II in terms of their attitude
toward the 1954 opinion of the Supreme Court.

Chapter III will describe the pattern of desegregation.

as it has developed up to 1958. It will answer questions

such as: Where in the South has integration occurred so far?
What is the extent of desegregation in the different states?

Does the resulting pattern appear haphazard or show definite

trends?

The significance of the desegregation pattern will be
analyzed in Chapter IV. Some of the important elements con-
tributing to a community's attitude regarding race relations
will be listed. Out of these, two have been selected which
seem to be of particular significance in decisions for or
against desegregation. They are, (1) the ratio of Negroes
to whites, and (2) the segregation and integration attitude
areas in the South which were discussed in Chapter II.

These two elements will be mapped and their distribution
analyzed in relation to the pattern of desegregation.

The year-by-year change in the pattern of integration
from 1954 to 1958 will be traced in Chapter V. This de-
velopment will be examined.in terms of the origin and spread
of integration from Washington, D.C., into the South.
Elements responsible for the particular pattern in each
year will be discussed in a generalized way or illustrated
by specific examples. The chapter will also point out
particular trends which have developed through the past
four years and will indicate their possible significance
for desegregation in the future.

The major conclusions arrived at in this discussion are
summarized in Chapter VI. In addition, this section points
out a few general contributions which this study may have

provided. 8

I. CULTURAL BACKGROUND OF SEGREGATION

Changes in Egonomic and Social Segregation
since the Civil War

Segregation of white and Negro persons has always
been characteristic of the entire Southern "way of life".
Separate educational facilities are only one expression of
this particular social system and cannot be understood
apart from the economic and social factors involved.

Before the Civil War, the South had little interest
in public education in general. Well-to-do white parents
engaged tutors for their children, poor whites remained
mostly uneducated, and few people even thought of educating
the Negro. In fact, several states had enacted laws for-
bidding the instruction of colored persons. As recently
as the end of the Civil War, no Southern state had an
effective system of public education, and in only a few
large cities could one find so-called free schools.l

Following the Civil War, all the Southern states ex-
cept three - and these only for a short time - established
separate schools for Negro and white children. This came
naturally to the Southerner since the attitude toward the
Negro was still rooted in ante-bellum society in which he

was considered innately inferior to the white person.

1
Harry S. Ashmore, The Negro and the Schools (Chapel Hill:
The University of North Carolina Press, 1954; p.6.

The Supreme Court seems to have shared and approved of
this general feeling.in its Dred Scott decision. The.
first years following the Civil War were characterized

on one hand by a great desire of the emancipated slave
for education since this was a sign of his new status as
a free man, and on the other hand by the efforts of white
Southerners to restore ante-bellum relationships.

The economic situation of that time favored the
white person in this struggle, although the South as a
whole had suffered great losses from the war. The freed
slave often had to forego his desire for education as his
primary objective since his economic problems were far
more serious.1 Whatever education he received after the
Civil War was primarily due to the activity of the Freed-
men's Bureau during the Reconstruction Period. Not only
were laws enacted for the equal education of whites and
Negroes, but it was also at this time that the public
school system was firmly established in the South.2 Thus
the Federal Government and some private persons were mainly
responsible for providing the freedman with his first
formal training, Most Southerners, however, were still

opposed to any education of the Negro because of the

;1bid., p.8.

2Ambrose Caliver, "Segregation in American Education: An
overview," Annals of the American Academy of Political
and Social Science, coolfiMerch, 1956). p.17.

10

possible political, social, and economic consequences.
Former well-to-do persons were afraid to lose their
status as leaders in the social structure, and to the
poor white the Negro offered a threat as future competi-
tor. And, even if the states had been willing to bear
the additional expenses for Negro training, at this time
most of them were too poor to be able to do so.

Whatever the Negro gained during the Reconstructionr
Period, he lost quickly when white supremacy regained
complete control in the South. The period between the
end of the 19th century and the New Deal years saw the
adoption of a large number of state segregation statutes
covering almost every imaginable activity and situation.
Thus segregation became extremely strict and characteris-
tic of all phases of life in the Southern states.

This systematic separation of whites and Negroes was
accompanied by the disfranchisement of the former slaves
during the late 1890's, so that the freedman's rights and
privileges were few indeed at the turn of the century.
Economically, too, the status of the Negro had changed
little with the Civil War. Some were employed as domestic
servants or as common laborers, but the majority seems to
have stayed in agriculture, the only area in which they might
have acquired any skills. Thus most of them barely managed
to make a living as croppers or tenants, and often their

freedom was more theoretical than actual. Industries

11

coming to the South had no room for the Negro.1 The growth
of manufacturing in the region only increased the possibility
of competitive Negro labor in the eyes of the poor whites.
They saw no reason, accordingly, for furthering the educa-
tion of the Negro which would only result in increased

2 The steadily growing

competition for industrial jobs.
difference in the ratio of expenditures for Negro and white
children up to World War I clearly reflects this attitude
on the part of the white Southern population.3

The great desire of the Negro for education finds its
basis in his wish to improve his social and economic posi-
tion. Similarly, the recent legal battle for integration_
in the schools indicates a determination to receive not
only an education comparable to that of white persons, but
also equal social and economic status.

Although the impact of the Depression on the Southern
school system as a whole was intensely felt, the status of
Negro education has shown some gains over the past decades.
Especially important was the increased attention which the
Federal Government paid to the position of the nation's
largest minority group, and the growing realization of
Southerners of their responsibility for the maintenance

of Negro education.4

1Ashmore, op. cit., p. 16.

2Horace M. Bond, ghe Education of the Negro in the erican
Social Order (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1954 , p.89.

 

3see, for example, Ibid., pp. 155-156.
4Ashmore, op. cit., p.29.
12

The greatest changes in educational facilities and
opportunities occurred in connection with the decisions
of the Supreme Court in the 1940's. More generally, the
Second World War was probably the single most important
factor in altering and improving the economic, political,
and social possibilities for the Negro. The internal
migration of the Negro, which had begun with the increased
mechanization of Southern agriculture, was accelerated by
the growing demand for industrial labor in urban areas.
The Negro farmer of the South left the field and moved to
the big cities both in the North and the South. This
process is still continuing, and its results are extremely
important for the future of Negro education in the South.
While there will be fewer Negroes in the rural areas of
the South, only a proportionately smaller decrease will
take place in the expenditures for their education if
segregation is continued. On the other hand, problems
in race relations are being shifted to many of the urban
areas throughout the country. Within most of these cities,
the population pressure is felt particularly in the older
central parts. This places an increasing burden on the
obsolete school structures and facilities which are
characteristic of those areas. The situation is further
complicated by the fact that a significant increase in
Negro school attendance is taking place due to a decline

in infant mortality and the improved economic status of

13

many Negro families.l

Thus a shift of the centers of racial association and
friction from the rural to the urban areas of the South
has taken place which is of great importance in any attempt
to understand and evaluate the effect of the 1954 decision.

Another significant change at this time which contri-
butes to the further possible improvement in the Negro's
opportunities is the gradual restoration of his franchise
in the Southern states. This, of course, increases the
Negro's possibility of influencing,his own future.

The most important fact pertaining directly to the
separation of the races was the abandonment of segregation:
by the Armed Forces during'World War II. But the above-
mentioned changes contributed to integration in a very
significant though indirect way by bringing white and Negro
persons together in various activities.

In 1947, a President's Civil Rights Committee recom-
mended that segregation based on race, color, creed, or
national origin should be eliminated from American life.2
With the coming of a Republican administration in 1952,
segregation has tended to disappear completely in the
Federal Civil Service. In fact, the first integrated
schools were those operated by the Defense Department for
children of military personnel stationed in the Southern
states.

lIbid., pp. 56-57

21bid., p. 49.

14

Southern public education since the Second World War
has been greatly affected by these changes. As was men-
tioned above, the problem of providing more and better
educational facilities for the Negro has largely shifted
to the urban centers in the South. It is also clear that
the educational progress of the Negro is closely related
to his economic and social advancement. In fact, one
might view the Negro's struggle for better education -
including integration - as a means of achieving a higher
social and economic position. At the moment, however,
the Negro appears involved in a vicious circle. Many
jobs are not available to him because he lacks the neces-
sary training, but he is not likely to obtain specialized
training in a particular field, even if available, if he
knows that he will not be given a job regardless of his
abilities. Therefore, there are at present relatively
few Negro professional men - except in the clergy and
teaching - and only a small number of engineers, managers,
etc.l Recent increased economic opportunities for*Negroes
in the South have made jobs available which are principally
at the lower level of employment, especially as operatives,
and in other less desirable positions.2 Fair Employment

Practices laws have, of course, not been adopted in the

1Eli Gianerg, The Negro Potential (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1956), p.25.

2Ibid., p. 26.

15

South,1 and even labor unions there are generally pro-
segregation.2 In contrast to the North, the Southern
Negro's advancement is still largely confined to the
Negro community, especially that of the professional man
3

and the white collar worker. The greatest needs of the
educated Southern Negro are for employment opportunities
outside of his own segregated community.

Even though economic advances of the Southern Negro
may seem small, opportunities for him have actually in-
creased at a much more rapid rate in the last two decades.
Generally, however, Southern Negroes have obtained their
best jobs with the Federal Government or in private in-
dustry in the Border States. Such opportunities have been
less available in the Deep South, and.where they have
occurred, the employers have usually been branches of
Northern companies.4 But these are the beginnings of
integration in the South, and as such they are very im-
portant. Education of the Southern Negro and expansion
of his economic opportunities must go hand in hand if he
is to be a useful and productive member of the Southern

community - not only to benefit himself but the white

population as well.

1Elmer A. Carter, "Policies and Practices of Discrimination
Commissions,§ Annals of the American Academy of Political
and Social Science, CCCIV (March, 1956), p.77-

2Weldon James, "The South's Own Civil War;% With All
Seliberate S eed, ed. Don Shoemaker (New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1957 , p. 28.

3Ginsberg, op. cit., p. 58.

42111.. p. 26.
16

Shangp in the Legal Status of the Southern Negro
since the Civil War

The opinion of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of

Education needs to be understood as one in a number of

 

decisions involving the Southern segregation problem over
the past decades. Even this particular case consisted
actually of three decisions from 1952 to 1954,1 with the
implementation order following in 1955. The background
and basis for all of these suits were laid in several
statements made since the late 19th century by the High
Court in decisions rendered as far back as 1896.

In considering the Supreme Court cases pertaining to
the legal status of the Negro, one may group them as falling
into two periods: the "Era of Adverse Decisions", lasting
till 1910, and the "Era of Favorable Decisions", from 1911
to the present time.2 The first period is characterized by
the famous case of Plessy v. Ferggson,3 a decision which
has served as the principal legal foil for suits concerning
racial segregation in all areas from 1896 to 1954. In the
earlier Dred Scott case of 1857,4 which also involved a
matter of anti-Negro discrimination, the Supreme Court
appears to have confirmed the majority attitude toward the

1Each of the four cases decided in the Brown decision in

1954 as well as the case of Bolling v. Shagpe, 347 U.S.
497 (1954), had been argued in December 1952 and reargued
in December 1953.

 

2Rayford.W. Logan, "The United States Supreme Court and the

Segregation IssueS? Annals of the American Academy of

‘

Political and Social Science, CCCIV (March, 1956); p. 10.

3163 U.S. 53? (B96).
4Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. (60 u.s.) 393 (1857).

17

Negro at that time. In the words of Judge Taney: "a Negro
has no rights which the white man need respect". However,
this case is no longer considered a precedent in constitu-
tional law.1

While time has tended to erase Judge Taney's views.ln
the Dred Scott case, the "separate but equal" doctrine
announced in the Plessy v. Ferggson case has, until the
.Sgggg case, been considered a leading precedent since its-
first statement_in 1896. The legal attitude toward the
Negro in general and Negro education in particular was
established in this decision, in which the Supreme Court
upheld the constitutionality of a Louisiana statute that
provided for separate but equal train accommodations for
whites and Negroes. The Supreme Court stated: "The object
and purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution
is to secure the absolute equality of the two races before
the law", and it decided that

laws permitting, and even requiring the separation
of the races in places where they are liable to be
brought into contact do not necessarily imply the
inferiority of either race to the other, and have
been generally, if not universally recognized as
within the competency of the state legislatures in
the exercise of their police power. The most common
instance of this is connected with the establishment
of separate schools for white and colored children,
which has been held a valid exercise of the legisla-
tive power even by the courts of states where the
political rights of the colored race have been
longest and most earnestly enforced.

1Albert P. Blaustein and Clarence C. Ferguson, Desegregation

and the Law (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University
Press, 1957): p.86.

18

While the reference made to segregated education in the
opinion was dictum, it seems clear that the Supreme Court
approved of segregated schools.

To Southerners, this decision meant the approval of
their social system, one characterized by a strict separa-
tion of the races. Indeed, it may have given them a feel-
ing of security that the administration of their bi-racial
school system was immune from legal attack.

Although the "separate but equal" doctrine continued
unimpaired until 1954, there appears to have been a con-
tinuing accretion to the requirements for "equality".

Between 1896 and 1930, however, only three suits
involving Negro education came before the Supreme Courtl,
but none of these was a direct attack on the constitution-
ality of segregated education. The "Plessy Doctrine" as
such was therefore not tested, and the two principal
questions remained: How was equality to be measured?

What was the proper judicial remedy in case inequality had
been established?

Not until 1935 was the "separate but equal" doctrine
actually applied.by the courts.2 In this suit and in four

cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court subsequently,

lgummings v. Board of Education, 175 U.S. 528 (1899)
Berea College v. Kentucky, 211 U.S. 45 (1908)
Gong Lum v. Rice, 275 U.S. 78 (1927)

2Pearson v. Murray, 169 Md. 478, 182 Atl. 590 (1936).

19

integration was ordered by the courts so that equality
could be achieved.1 The 1938 QELEES case2 resulted in
the first important application of the "Plessy Doctrine"
to higher education and has been called "the real fore-
runner of the decisions of the forties",3 which eventually
opened the graduate schools of the Southern states to
Negroes. The decision in the Gaines case not only estab-
lished that the states had to provide Negro students with
equal educational opportunities, but intangible factors
were included in the requirement for equality. The
Supreme Court then continued to broaden the definition of
"equal opportunities" in the Sippgl and McLaurin cases.4
There were definite signs by this time that segrega-
tion in the schools - at least on the graduate level - was
on.its way out. This feeling was practically confirmed by
the 1950 decision of the Supreme Court in the Sweatt case.5
Although this was the first attack on segregation pg; pg,
the court still apparently accepted the "separate but equal"
doctrine. However, the court mentioned as aspects of

equality in the education of Negro and.white students such

lBlausteppand Ferguson, 2p. cit., p. 106.
gMissouri ex rglgGaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337 (1938).

:Ashmore, op. cit., p. 32.

4Sipuel v. Board of Education, 332 U.S. 631 (1948)
McLaurin v. Board of Regents, 339 U.S. 641 (1950 .

SSweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 529 (1950),

20

intangibles as prestige of the school, position of the
alumni, and reputation of the faculty. Obviously, such
"equality" could not be met by a quickly established law-
school, and probably not by most Negro schools in the
South.

As a result of these court decisions, by the fall of
1953 Negro students were attending graduate and professional
schools in all Southern states except five - Mississippi,
Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina. On the
whole, twenty previously-segregated public institutions
had admitted Negroes by 1953, and the number of private
and church schools was even larger. Even though the actual
number of students enrolled was not very large, it pre-
sented a significant change in the educational and social
pattern of the Southern states.

In most instances, however, the court decisions of the
1940's resulted in increased expenditures for Negro schools
by Southern states since they were afraid that they could
not maintain their segregated school system unless the
schools were really equal. These efforts were greatest in.
the states with the largest Negro populations as, for
example, in Georgia and South Carolina.1 The South was
still basing its educational policies on the "Plessy Doctrine"

and apparently hoped that desegregation could be avoided.

l
Ashmore, 0p. cit., p. 51.

21

The 1954 decision in Spppp v. Board of Education
destroyed this hope. This time the constitutionality of
the "separate but equal" doctrine was directly attacked.
The question had now become whether segregation itself
was a denial of equal educational opportunities to the
Negro children since it had been found by the Supreme
Court that "the Negro and white schools involved have been
equalized, or are-being equalized, with respect to buildings,
curricula, qualifications and salaries of teachers and other.
tangible factors". The core of the problem was this ques-
tion: "Was race per as an invalid classification when:
measured against the equal protection clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment?"l. The Supreme Court decided that
it was. A

It held that "segregation of white and colored children
in public schools had a detrimental effect upon the colored
children", and that "there is no place for the 'separate
but equal' doctrine in public education. Separate educa-
tional facilities are inherently unequal." Consequently,
the court ruled that the Negro children in question had
been deprived of the equal protection of the laws, and
public-school segregation as an aspect of racial discrimi-
nation was found unconstitutional per so.

However, in view of “the wide applicability of this
decision, and because of the great variety of local condi-

tions", the Supreme Court postponed the formulation of any

1Blaustein and Ferguson, op. cit., p. 115.
22

decrees in these cases. Even in the 1955 decision of

the Spppp case1 no definite date was set for the comple-
tion of desegregation. The court recognized.rather, that
the problems resulting from its order in different areas
would have to be solved by local school authorities, and
the Federal district courts were charged with the respon-
sibility of determining whether local action constituted
"good faith implementation". The Negro plaintiffs in these
cases were to be admitted to their local public schools on
a non-discriminatory basis "with all deliberate speed".

It would seem not unexpected that the latter provision
raised the hope of anti-integrationists to continue segre-
gation as long as possible. Although separation of the
races in the public schools has been declared unconstitu-
tional, this has not meant and does not necessarily mean
the end of school segregation. The particular case de-
cided by the Supreme Court in 1954 merely involved Negro
children in four states and the District of Columbia;
technically, only in those specific districts were school
authorities compelled to take any action in regard to the
decision. For the rest of the South, therefore, the Brown.
decision's importance is in its authority as a legal pre—
cedent; that is, cases involving circumstances similar to

Brown v. Board of Education will almost certainly be

 

decided in favor of the plaintiffs and result in an order

1Brown v. Soard of Education, 349 U.s. 294 (1955).

23

for integration. But in most cases a Negro student has to
institute legal proceedings before any action occurs. In
1957, there were 3,008 bi-racial school-districts in the
South; that is, those having both Negro and white school
children residing within their borders.1 of these, 806
are in the still entirely-segregated states of Virginia,
South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi,
and Louisiana. Even among the 2,202 bi-racial districts
in the Border States and in Arkansas, Tennessee, and North
Carolina, 1,411 were still segregated.2 It would take a
long time for the legal machinery to process cases from
those 2,217 segregated districts, even assuming that the
Negroes in these areas wish to attend the same schools as
the white children and are willing and able to start
appropriate legal action. Meanwhile, the resistant South
may always adopt new anti-integration laws, and although
many of them will probably not withstand legal scrutiny,
it will undoubtedly take much time before they can be

tested.

lSouthern Education Reporting Service, status of School
Segregation—Desegregation in the Southern and Border

States (Nashville, Tennessee: Southern Education Re-
porting Service, November 1‘,. 1957), p.2.

2raid. , p.2.

 

24

II. SOUTHERN AREAS OF ECONOMIC, POLITICAL, AND SOCIAL
ORGANIZATION AS CENTERS OF INTEGRATION
AND SEGREGATION ATTITUDES.

It has frequently been shown in the past years that
the success or failure of proposed desegregation in a
specific area could not often be predicted. Integration.
has been achieved smoothly in some districts where dire
forecasts about riots and bloodshed had been made, and
on the other hand desegregation has had to be postponed
or abandoned in other places where unforeseen difficulties
arose. Even local school boards and other persons familiar
with the particular area have found it impossible to fore-
tell what degree of success would be enjoyed in its attempts
to desegregate local public-school systems.

However, if one looks at the South as a whole with a
view to anticipate the effect of the 1954 Supreme Court
opinion in various communities, it would seem possible to
predict to some degree the general reaction of different
Southern regions to this decision. But such "predictions"
would seem to have validity only on a verygbroad basis.

The South is - in certain respects and viewed on a
particular scale - a region of uniformity. Depending on
the criteria employed, scholars include different states
under this general term. Most frequently used is the

definition of the U.S. Bureau of the Census which includes

25

as "South" the same area as this thesis does, with the

exception of Missouri.1

This state, in fact, is almost
always included.in the North Central United States.
other states fiequently assigned to the non-South or the
"border region" are Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia.2

A closer look at the South soon reveals great diversity
within this seemingly-uniform cultural and economic region.
Various sections represent different cultural backgrounds,
diverse natural environments, and contrasting types of area
organization. Such diversity includes: (1) areas of plan-
tation agriculture, (2) those in which subsistence farming
prevails, (3) the distinction between rural regions and
urban centers, (4) sections of predominantly-Democratic or
-Republican attitudes, etc. These present entirely differ-
ent backgrounds against which the decision of the Supreme
Court can be viewed and the reaction to it made under-
standable.

The purpose of this section is to classify the areas
in the South which are more likely to oppose or not oppose
desegregation. It is rather likely that only a small number
of'Southerners is really entirely in favor of the Supreme
Court decision. Consequently, it seems to be more realistic
to assume that the majority of the Southern white population-
would prefer to maintain racially-segregated school systems.

1see, for example: A.E. Parkins, The South (New York:

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1938), p.2.

 

2see, for example: Rupert B. Vance, Human Geography of the
South (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press,
1932), p.21.

26

The differences that do exist seem mainly a matter of the
degree of resistance to desegregation rather than a ques-
tion of a pro- and con-division. While many strongly
object to any form of integration, most individuals would
seem to prefer tomaintain segregation by legal means.
Others, who are fewer in number, would not even hesitate
to employ force "to keep the white race white". The
opposite attitude is that of persons who wholly approve
of integration, but their number seems rather small. The
majority of the population probably stands in between the
two extremes.

Even within the group who now accepts desegregation
though with qualifications, the reasons for their attitude
vary. For some of them, integration is now the law of the
land. others base their decision on democratic or reli-
gious principles. Still others have merely resigned them-
selves to the fact that they must eventually accept this
change in their system anyway. Although most of the group
would still prefer to send their children to white schools
if they had any choice, they do not violently resist
integration attempts.

These prevailing attitudes are not distributed en-
tirely haphazardly over the South. They are associated
with particular regions of culture and area organization.
In the following brief discussion several such regions,

significant with respect to their particular attitudes

27

on desegregation, will be pointed out. Many of the areas
in which the population may be eXpected to be against
integration are often popularly known for their strong
Southern attitudes, and often, but not necessarily, their
population has a large Negro-white ratio. Some of the
areas are centers of plantation agriculture, etc. No
attempt is made here to present an analytical study of
Southern regions except to point out these areas in a
general way and indicate some of the elements which seem
to be responsible for the strong pro-segregation attitudes.
Later on, these regions will be compared with the actual

pattern of desegregation.

Segregation and Integration Attitude Regions in the South

 

The regional differences within the South which seem
to bear some relationship to the attitude of their inhabi-
tants toward the Supreme Court decision can even be observed
on a "larger than state-wide" basis; that is, in (l) the
Border States, (2) the Mid-South, and (3) the Deep South.
These regions are shown in figure 1.

The IBorder States.--Genera11y, Texas (without its

 

eastern part), Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia,
Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Delaware are con-
sidered Border States. Being juxtaposed to the North,

they seem, on the whole, more socially and economically

oriented to northern states than to the Deep South. All

28

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a 238

29

of them, except Texas, remained in the Union during the
Civil War, although public opinion within them at that
time seems to have been divided over that issue. Except
in small areas and in East Texas, the plantation system
was never firmly established in these states and, as
mentioned above, they are economically closer to the North.
Industrialization is developed to a higher degree in this
area than in the Deep South. As a result, the average
income of both white and Negro Southerners is higher in
the border areas than in the rest of the South. As is
shown by the map in figure 2, another characteristic of the
fringe areas is the relatively low Negro-white ratio in
each state. As table 1 points out, each of the Border
States, except the District of Columbia, had less than

17 per cent Negroes in thehrpopulation in 1950, although
each Border State contained at least one county in which
Negroes constituted more than 20 per cent of the total
population and others with hardly any Negro residents.

Not only do Negroes form a significantly smaller part of
the population in these states than in the Deep South, but
they are also concentrated primarily in the urban areas of
the Border-South; that is, in places of 2500 population
and over. The degree of Negro urbanization ranges from
87.5 per cent for Missouri to 59 per cent for Oklahoma in
1950 and only in West Virginia are non-whites predominantly
rural. More than in any other Southern region, the de-

segregation problem in the Border States is an urban problem.

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52

This general difference between the border region and
the remaining Southern states seems to have found expression
in the reaction to the 1954 Supreme Court decisions Official
state attitude in the fringe states has generally encouraged
integration. Outright resistance on a state—wide basis has
not been characteristic of the Southern fringe, but has
occurred in a few areas within them.

The Mid-South.--Attitudes intermediate between those

 

of the border region and the Deep South are characteristic
of the Mid-South. In this study, the Mid-South is defined
as including the states of Virginia, North Carolina,
Tennessee, Arkansas, and the eastern part of Texas.1
These states seem to occupy a mid-way position, not only in
actual location, but also in some of the other characteris-
tics previously mentioned. Many areas within the MideSouth
are socially and economically like the Deep South whereas
other parts have a closer relationShip to the Border States.
In this central region the plantation system of agriculture
has been important in much larger areas than in the Border
States. At the present time, older plantation areas can be
recognized by the occurrence of multiple-unit type opera-
tions. These appear in most of East Texas, southern and

eastern Arkansas, western Tennessee, southern Virginia, and

North Carolina, as is shown on the map in figure 3.2
lSputhern School:News, May, 1956, p.1

2The multiple-unit area is defined as including "those
counties in which there were fifty or more croppers
accounting for 10 per cent or more of all tenants”. This
definition and the limits of the multiple-unit area were
obtained from: U.S. Bureau of the Census, United States
Census of Agriculture: 1954, Vol. III, Part 1, pp.XVI and
XXII.

 

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34

While all of the Mid-South states left the Union in
the Civil War, during the years thereafter some of them
resumed their ties toward the North, particularly with
the southward movement of industry.

The Negro population of the Mid—South, in terms of
non-white - white ratios, lies between that of the Border
States and the Deep South. In 1950, the Mid-South states
had roughly a population of between 16 and 25 per cent
Negroes. In all of these states, except Tennessee, the
Negro population is predominantly rural and therefore
more similar to that of the Deep South. The map in figure
3 also points out that more consistent Democratic voting
characterizes the Mid-South than the Border States.l Inv
deciding whether or not to comply with the 1954 court de-
cision, this region once more reveals characteristics
which reflect its mid-way location. While segregation is
still predominant, isolated occurrences of integration
have taken place.

Similar to these states which border the Deep South
on the north, is Florida on the other side of the Southern

core. Its lack of an extended plantation system Shows its

1Figure 3 was prepared on the basis of a series of maps
showing results of presidential elections from 1880 to 1928,
published in: Charles 0. Paullin, Atlas of the Historical
Geography of the United States (Carnegie Institution of
Washington, Publication No.4401; Carnegie Institution of
Washington and the American Geographical Society of New
York, 1932), plates 107-111.
The election of 1928 was included in the preparation of
this map although it presents a striking exception to the
general trends in that large parts of the South voted
Republican. However, if an area has maintained democratic
allegiance even in the 1928 election, it may be assumed
that the population of this area'has particularly strong
ties with the Democratic party.

35

greater resemblance to the border areas, as does its less-
consistent pattern of voting Democratic. Florida's Negro-
white ratio is similar to that of the Mid-South, and in its
high degree of Negro urbanization particularly resembles
Tennessee. Its present attitude toward desegregation
places Florida with Virginia and North Carolina, definitely
pro-segregation, but not quite as vehement as the Deep
South.

The Deep South.--The distinction between the Deep

 

South on one hand and the Border States and the Mid-South
on the other, finds clear expression at present in the
division of the South on the desegregation issue. No case
of integration in the public elementary and secondary
schools has occurred in the Deep South.

This region is characterized by the inclusion of all
but three of the eleven states of the former Confederacy.
It has the highest proportion of Negroes in the whole
United States. It is the area where slavery flourished.
As a result, with regard to Negro and white relations, a
master-servant relationship still persists today as the
rule rather than the exception.1 Remnants of the old
slave plantation system can still be found over the whole
region in the multiple-unit type operation, characteristic
of Southern agriculture. With few exceptions, "croppers"
accounted for a large part of all tenants in each Deep
South county in 1954. This kind of economic organization

1W.D. Workman, Jr., "The Deep South{’ With All Deliberate

S eed, ed. Don Shoemaker (New York: Harper & Brothers,
1957), P-90.

 

36

extends over all the Deep South, pointing up the signifi-
cant continuation of a distinctive former type of economic
unit in a slightly modified form.

From these and other circumstances, there has evolved
a typically Southern attitude regarding race relations -
a belief in the innate inferiority of the Negro. This
belief was implemented by means of a large number of
segregation laws after the Civil War, and has continued
in Southern customs to the present time. These elements
have developed the largest Southern region of strongest
resistance to any change in the system of racial segrega-

tion.

Segregation and Integration Attitude Appap

in the Border States and the Mid-South

 

Segregation Attitude Areas

Smaller regions of Deep South heritage are also found
in parts of the Border States and in most of the Mid-South.
Such areas within the Mid-South are almost always contiguous
with the Deep South and may therefore be viewed merely as
its extensions. Typically Deep South elements like, for
example, the multiple-unit type agricultural operation, are
found in Virginia, Arkansas, Texas, and Tennessee. On the
basis of this particular criterion, East Texas, southern and
eastern Arkansas, and western Tennessee could be divided

from the rest of these states which are similar to the

37

Northern and Border states. There are other areas of

Southern traditions that are completely separated from

the heart of the South and therefore more appropriately

called Deep South "outliers". These are more frequent

in the Border States than the Mid-South where contiguity

is likely. Often these regions are popularly known as

areas of Southern heritage and sentiment, and they seem

to contain districts of particularly strong resistance to

desegregation contrary to the general pattern of compli-

ance with the Supreme Court decision in the Border States.
Eight such major Deep South "extensions" and "outliers"

can be recognized in the Border States and are shown on the

map in figure 4;1 (1) East Texas,2 (2) "Little Dixie" of

Oklahoma, (3) Missouri's "Little Dixie", (4) the Missouri

"Bootheel", (5) southwestern Kentucky, (6) the Kentucky

Bluegrass, (7) southern and eastern West Virginia, (8)

the "Eastern Shore" of Maryland, and Southern Delaware.

These are by no means all of such regions, but they seem

to be the largest and best known. A brief discussion of

1No particular segregation attitude areas have been dis-
tinguished within the Mid-South. Rather, the whole
region, except the metropolitan areas, is depicted as
an extension of the Deep South in figure 4, since school
segregation is still predominant. The separation of the
Mid-South as a distinct region from the Deep South seems
justified, however, in view of the fact that some instances
of desegregation have occurred in the Mid-South in con-
trast to the Deep South.

Although included in this study in the Mid-South, East
Texas will be discussed at this point since it is part
of a Border State.

2

38

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39

the characteristically Deep South elements of each of
these areas will follow.

East Texas.--This section of Texas may be characterized

 

as the western extension of the former Southern cotton belt.
Ninety per cent of the state's Negro population live in
this area, and almost every_county has more than 20 per

cent Negroes. In several counties, the*white population

is outnumbered. Measured by agricultural level of living,1
this section of Texas is the poorest in the state; nineteen
of the state's twenty-one counties with the lowest level
are found in East Texas. In this respect, East Texas seems
to be a part of the Deep South which includes the largest
region having the lowest rural standard of living in the
entire United States.

East Texas is not only economically but also socially
similar to the Deep South. Settled principally by immi-
grants from Old South states, it inherited the culture and
traditions of that area. For example, there are more
counties in East Texas which have voted continuously
Democratic in the presidential elections between 1880 and

1928 than in any other part of the state.

1References made to agricultural level of living in the
Southern states are based on the following map: Roy
Wenzlick & Co., Agricultural Level of_;ig;ngby Economic
Areas in the united states (St. Louis, Missouri: Roy
Wenzlick & Co., 1958)?7 The data for the map is from
the Census of Agriculture. "The final rating is based
on the percentage of farms with electricity, telephones,
and automobiles, and the average value of products sold
or traded."

4O

"Little Dixie" of Oklahoma.--This name refers to a
group of counties in southeastern Oklahoma, bordering East
Texas and southwestern Arkansas. It is "strictly a
political designation given the thirteen counties of the
third congressional district because they historically

1 This area has also been-

have voted solidly Democratic".
settled by people from the southeastern United states who
reportedly brought their Negro servants with them. Some
parts of "Little Dixie" have at the present time a rela-
tively high Negro-white ratio - in 1950 two counties had
roughly 20 per cent Negroes in their population. But the
majority of the counties in this Deep South "extension"
has less than 10 per cent Negroes, and most of them even
less than 5 per cent. "Little Dixie" does not, however,
have the highest Negro-white ratio in Oklahoma, nor is it
the most extensive area of relatively-high Negro propor-
tions in the state. But it is definitely a region of
Southern heritage.

Similar to East Texas, the agricultural level of
living in some of the counties in "Little Dixie" is the

lowest in the state, particularly in the eastern part of

this area.

1southern School News. April, 1956, p.15. "Little Dixie"
on this basis includes the counties of Le Flore, McCurtain,
Latimer, Pushmataha, Choctaw, Pittsburg, Atoka, Bryan,
Johnston, Marshall, Murray, Carter, and Love.

41

Missouri's_:Little pixie".--This term refers to a
group of counties "along the Missouri River to the west
of Jefferson City about midway across the state".1 A
Missourian, however, restricts "Little Dixie" to an area
in East Central Missouri north of Jefferson City, and
his definition will be adopted in this study.2

Like the above-mentioned regions, this area was also
settled by persons from states having rather strong Southern
traditions, in this case particularly from Virginia,
Kentucky, and Tennessee. The most outstanding Southern.
characteristic of these counties has been the tendency of
the population to vote "straight and.usually conservative
Democratic".

At the time of the Civil War, "Little Dixie" had by
far the largest number of slaves in Missouri: in most of
these counties there were found approximately 3,000 -

5,000 Negroes held by white masters.3 At the present time,

this region is second only to southeastern Missouri in the

1Southern School News, May, 1955, p.3.

2Robert M. Crisler, "Missouri's 'Little Dixie',€ Missouri
Historical Review, XLII (January, 1948), p.139

Crisler states that "on the basis of both political re-
gionalism and popular use of the term, there are eight
'Little Dixie' counties. They are Audrain, Boone,
Callaway, Howard, Monroe, Pike, Halls, and Randolph.

Five other adjoining counties, Chariton, Lincoln, Marion,
Saline, and Shelby, are strongly Democratic, and may be
included for the maximum extent of 'Little Dixie'. Like-
wise the term is sometimes applied to the three western
Missouri counties of Clay, Platte, and Ray."

3Perkins, op. cit., p. 207.

42

ratio of rural Negroes to rural whites in the state.
However, compared to other parts of the South, the pro-
portion of non-whites is relatively small, and did not
exceed 11 per cent in any county in 1950.

In contrast to East Texas and Oklahoma's "Little
Dixie", this region is comprised of a group of counties
with a medium and even a high agricultural level of living.
In this respect, Missouri's "Little Dixie" is more com-
parable to rural areas of the North than of the South.

The Missouri "Bootheel".--This region is also some-
times known as the Missouri Delta Country or just as
Southeastern Missouri. More than any other part of the
state, it resembles the Deep South in its economic and
social system. The area comprises mainly the six princi-

1 which account for 14

pal cotton counties of Missouri,
per cent of the state's Negro population. In 1954, three
of these counties had a Negro school enrollment of 5-10
per cent, one of 17 per cent and two just above 20 per
cent, Although these are the highest Negro—white ratios
of any rural area in.Missouri, a much higher number and
proportion of the state's Negro population is concentrated
in St. Louis and Kansas City.

1Mississippi, Pemiscot, New Madrid, Scott, Butler, and
Stoddard: Southern School News, September, 1954, p.9.

43

Even though this region is not as prosperous as the
state's "Little Dixie", it includes only one county with
the lowest agricultural level of living in Missouri.

Southwestern Kentucky.--Two smaller areas in south-
western Kentucky were likely to be particularly resistant
to desegregation. The first area is a group of counties
along the Mississippi River which shares in part not only
the physical environment of the flood-plain country, but
also a similar type of economy with the Missouri "Bootheel"
on the other side of the river. Cotton is somewhat less
important, but the cultivation of tobacco introduced
corresponding cultural elements to the area. The present
Negro-white ratio is, however, lower on the Kentucky side
of the'Mississippi - where the highest proportion of Negroes
in 1950 was 17 per cent in the southernmost Kentucky county.
Like many areas in the Deep South, these counties had never
voted Republican in any presidential election between 1880
and 1928.

The second area is a group of counties bordering on
and east of the Cumberland River along the Kentucky-
Tennessee boundary. This area seems to be an extension
of the Southern plantation system extending from the
Nashville Basin into Kentucky. In 1860, this sections
formed the second largest concentration of slaves in the
state,1 and at the present time, it contains the two counties

with the highest proportion of Negroes in Kentucky.

1Perkins, o . cit., p. 207.

44

The close relationship of southwestern Kentucky with
the Deep South may be seen from the fact that the movement
for secession from the Union during the Civil War was
strongest in this part of the state.

The Kentucxy Bluegrass.--This region was settled
principally by people from South Atlantic States, and by
1860 the largest concentration of slaves in Kentucky was
found in the Bluegrass.1 As was true in the early periods
in Maryland and Virginia, slaves were here associated with
tobacco cultivation rather than with the production of
cotton. At present, the Bluegrass forms a rather large
area of relatively high Negro-white ratios. In most of
these counties, the proportion of Negroes in the total
population ranges from 10 to almost 20 per cent. Unlike
several of the other Deep South "extensions" and "outliers",
however, this region includes some of the counties with the
highest agricultural level of living in the state. Due to
this fact, and because the Bluegrass is also closer to the
Northern states and more urbanized than southwestern
Kentucky, the former of these two areas would seem to
afford a more favorable background for integration attempts.

Southern and Eastern West Virginia.--For different
reasons, both of these areas might be expected to delay

or even refuse to comply with the Supreme Court decision.

1Ibid., p. 207.
45

Counties in the southern part of the state bordering on
Virginia not only have traditionally Southern sentiments,
but they also include the areas with the highest Negro-
white ratios in the state. There are concentrated in six
of these counties three-fifths of West Virginia's Negro

population.l

At the same time, all of these counties are
part of or close to an extensive area of the lowest agri-
cultural level of living in the state.

Strong southern sympathies also characterize the

eastern Panhandle counties of West Virginia.2

Only the
easternmost of these counties had a Negro proportion as
high as 16 per cent in 1950; in the rest of the Panhandle
non-whites constituted less than 5 per cent of the total
population. Racial feelings here, however, apparently are
closer to those of Virginia than of West Virginia itself.
The "Eastern Shore;:~-This term refers generally to
the low-land peninsula between the Chesapeake and Delaware
Bays, including parts of Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia.
In this study, it comprises only the easteranaryland
counties and that part of Delaware which lies south of the
Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. This waterway has been
called Delaware's "own Mason-Dixon--Line,"3 separating the

southern part of the state from the small northern states.

1Kanawha, McDowell, Raleigh, Fayette, Mercer, and Logan

counties contain approximately 60 per cent of West Vir-
ginia's Negroes: Southern School News, October, 1954, p.14.

2Ibid., January, 1956, p.16. The counties here included are:

Jefferson, Berkeley, andeardy.

3Ibid., May, 1956, p.10.

46

Forming an economic unit at the present time, par-
ticularly as an important truck-farming area, these counties
also have a common cultural background in that they com-
prised a part of the first settlements along the Southern
Coastal Plain. In fact, the Southern plantation was
developed here before the Revolutionary War. At that time
tobacco constituted the principal export crop, and slave
labor was introduced early in this region in connection
with the cultivation of this staple crop. As a result,
Negro-white ratios in this area are among the highest any-
where in the southern fringe region. In 1950, Negroes made
up almost 20 per cent of the total population in Southern
Delaware and up to 35 per cent in the Maryland counties.

Together with the plantation system of agriculture,
there developed traditional Deep South attitudes regarding
race relations which up to the present time, even with an
entirely different economic system, still characterize
this area as an extension of the Deep South into the Border
States rather than as a part of the fringe region itself.

All of the areas above discussed are, thus, closer
to the Deep South in tradition and sentiment than they are
to the Border states. Often, though not always, they form
one of the largest concentrations of Negroes in the respec-
tive states. Frequently these areas are also characterized
by the lowest average income of the non-white population
in the particular states, thereby resulting in large dif-

ferences between the economic and social level of the white

47

and Negro population. These elements would seem to offer
a rather unfavorable background for attempts to desegre-

gate the public schools.
Integration Attitude Areas

On the other hand, there are certain areas of economic
and social organization in the South where desegregation
could be expected to be more successful than in the above-
mentioned areas.

Appas of Small Negroggppulatgppppe-In the first place,
white opposition has been less in areas of smaller Negro
population, such as the western parts of Oklahoma and Texas,
especially in the High Plains; in the Ozark regions of
Missouri and northern Arkansas; in the Appalachian mountain
areas of Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia; and in
Western Maryland. Also, large proportions of the border
region have only a few Negroes or none at all.

Metropolptan greas.--Secondly, there are the large
urban centers of the South which each year attract more of
the rural Negro population. In the Border states particu-
larly the large metropolitan areas (which are also shown
on the map in figure 4) usually have a very high proportion
of the state's total non-white inhabitants. For example,
St. Louis and Kansas City account for almost two-thirds of
Missouri's Negroes, about one-third of Kentucky's non-
white population lives in Louisville, and approximately
one-half of the inhabitants of Washington, D.C., are Negroes.

48

Nevertheless, there are apparently certain characteristics
of urban life which seem more favorable to any attempt to
integrate the public schools, although it is too early to
draw any conclusions from the pattern of desegregation as
it has so far developed.

It has been said that one factor which favors inte-
gration efforts is that city-populations are "less close
to policy-making decisions" and more resigned to following
orders "from the top".1 Another factor apparently is that
a large urban area has jurisdiction over its own law-
enforcement agencies, and is thus able to stand behind a
desegregation order with its own forces;2 desegregation
may therefore take place following a decision of the
schoolboard although the community itself may still be
opposed to it.

Other positive elements seem to be the presence in
metropolitan areas of groups working for racial harmony
in general or even for integration specifically. While
prosegregation groups are more numerous in the South and
develop even in smaller centers, such organizations as
the Urban League, Human Relations Councils, church groups,
and perhaps even the NAACP, tend to be more restricted to

larger urban areas.

lEdgar L. Jones, "City Limitsgi With All Deliberate Speed,

ed.6Don Shoemaker (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957):
p.7 .

2Ibid., p. 76.

49

Another feature of urban life which may make school
desegregation less difficult in cities is the fact that
some forms of integration have already occurred in many
Southern cities, although such changes are still few and
far between in the center of the Deep South. But par-
ticularly in the metropolitan areas found in the Border
States, there are apt to be relationships between Negro
and white persons on the job, in the use of public facili-
ties, in schools of higher education, etc., all of which
approach a status of equality of Negroes to whites, and
serve to throw people into interracial relationships.

Finally, people in the big cities realize that in
most cases desegregation of the schools would actually
result only in relatively little mixing of the races.
This is due to the amount of residential segregation in
most urban areas, and the fact that most schools serve
neighborhood areas which are either predominantly white
or Negro, and actual mixing of children in class-rooms
would be restricted largely to schools in so-called fringe
areas. For this reason, large cities are the most out-
standing exception to the "rule" that the resistance to
desegregation grows stronger with increasing proportions

of Negroes in the total population.

50

III. THE GEOGRAPHICAL PATTERN OF SCHOOL DESEGREGATION.

Qn the Ego of thgpgppreme Courtfipecision in 1254

Until May, 1954, 40 per cent of the United States'
public elementary and secondary school enrollment was in
segregated schools.l Segregation was required in the
District of Columbia and in those seventeen states which

2 and it was per-

were defined as comprising the South,
mitted in four - Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, and Wyoming.
Segregation in the elementary and secondary schools
of the South in 1954 was virtually complete. The only
exceptions occurred in two of the Border States where
Negroes were attending formerly all-white schools before
the Supreme Court decision: Three school districts in
Delaware, all of which were located in the northernmost
county of the state, had some Negroes enrolled in three
elementary and one secondary school, and Baltimore's
Technical High School has had Negro students since
September, 1952.3 Except for these two cases, the South

was completely segregated on the primary and secondary

levels of the public school system, and at the time of
1Blaustein and Ferguson, op. cit., p.7.
2Supra, p.5.

3Kenneth B. Clark,"Desegregation: An Appraisal of the

Evidence," The Journal of Social Issues, IX, No.4 (1953),
p.19.

51

the court decision, 8,100,000 white and 2,500,000 Negro
children were attending 34,905 white and 15,227 Negro
public schools in the Southern states.1

The situation in Southern colleges and universities,
however, was different. The map in figure 5 which depicts
the situation with respect to segregation in schools of
higher education, shows that Negro students had entered
some Southern colleges and universities before May, 1954.2
By the fall of 1953, Negroes were attending twenty-three
state-supported schools on the graduate or professional
level, and nine state and municipal schools on the under-
graduate level. Although the exact number of Negroes thus
enrolled is not known, it may be assumed to have been A
relatively small since only 2,000 Negro students attended
formerly all-white institutions of higher learning during
the entire school year of 1952-1953.3

Figure 5 also shows forty-four private colleges and
universities in the South at which some Negroes were en-
rolled in the fall of 1953. It is not surprising that the
number of these institutions is larger than that of the
public universities, since the private schools were not
bound by the segregation laws of the Southern states. The
majority of these schools also were either theological

1Facts on File, XIV, No. 707 (May, 1954), p. 163.

2The map is based on a list of such institutions given in:

Clark, 020 Cite, pp. 16-170

3Guy B. Johnson, "Racial Integration in Public Higher
Education in the South,"_.' Journal of Negro Education,
XXIII, N00 3 (Summer, 1955): p0 326.

52

 

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53

seminaries or other church-supported institutions and
thus by nature were more likely to accept students without
regard to their race. This study, however, does not in-
clude private schools since they are not directly affected
by the Supreme Court decision.

The map distinctly shows the penetration of Southern
Negro students in the public institutions of higher learn-
ing in that region. Particularly, it points out their
”encroachment" upon the Deep South. Integrated graduate
or professional schools are found in all the Southern
states except Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and
South Carolina. Universities with non-white undergraduates,
however, are not only fewer in number, but also practically
limited to the Border States; with the exception of Louisi-
ana State University, all of these schools are located on
the northern and western fringe of the South.

On the whole, the pattern may therefore be described
as a concentric belt of integration in the border areas
surrounding the Deep South. Most of these public schools
of higher education had been ordered by the courts to
admit Negro students, but some accepted them on their own
accord. Interestingly enough, the first public school in
the South to voluntarily enroll Negroes was the University
of Arkansas in 1948, before McLaurin and Sweatte had been
admitted to schools in Oklahoma and Texas.1 This seems

11bid., p. 317

54

remarkable in view of the fact that Arkansas is located
right on the fringe of the Deep South and borders two
states which are considered anong the most "Southern"
in attitude and are two of the strongest proponents of
strict segregation of the races.

The Total Change in Public-School

Desegregation froml954'to l9§§-

The map in figure 6 shows the status of desegregation

by counties in.l958, as compiled from data of the Southern

Education Reporting Service.1

Each county that is known to
have Negro and white children in its public schools on a
mixed'basis since May 1954 is recorded on this map, regard-
less of the number of school districts located therein that
may have integration, the number of Negroes involved, or
the date of the change. Some of the counties, therefore,
may be completely desegregated; others may have barely
started the process.2 All of them, however, have taken
the first step toward compliance with the Supreme Court
order, and this initial move usually involves the greatest
difficulties withhthe community. Once desegregation has
been started in a district, and especially if the change
has taken place smoothly, the achievement of complete

integration seems less difficult.

1Southern Education Reporting Service, op. cit.

2The distinction between counties completely or partially

desegregated could only be made in the case of Oklahoma,

Missouri, Kentucky, and West Virginia where such data was
available. In the other states of the border region and

the Mid-South the extent of desegregation in the various

counties shown in figure 6 is not exactly known.

55

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Similarly to the distribution of integrated colleges
and universities in the South, the pattern of desegregated
elementary and secondary schools may be described as a
more or less continuous belt surrounding the Deep South.
In contrast to figure 5, however, this map does not show

any integration in the states of Virginia and Louisiana.

1

The entire Deep South plus Florida and Virginia is there-

fore still completely segregated on the elementary and
secondary levels of the public-school system.2 As men-
tioned above, these are the states which have the highest
percentage of Negroes in their population, and all of them
include some counties in which Negroes outnumber whites.
It is therefore not surprising that the majority of the
white population is strongly opposed to desegregation. At
the same time, most of these states also contain areas in
which non-whites make up less than one per cent of the
total population. In these counties segregation of public
schools is sometimes already considered a nuisance, and

a definite financial burden upon the community.3 But, due

1North Carolina will also not be considered here as desegre-

gated in the same sense as the Border- and.MidrSouth,
although some integration has taken place in this state.
It appears, however, that under its pupil assignment plan
only a token enrollment of Negro students has occurred.
The token nature of this attempt to desegregate is seen
in the fact that the official state attitude continues to
be pro-segregation, and the "desegregation“ only involved
eleven Negro pupils in three cities of the state: Southern
Education Reporting Service, 0 .cit., p. 20

2In further discussion regarding,public-school integration,
the Deep South and Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina
will be referred to as the Segregated South. Arkansas
and Tennessee, which have some desegregation, will be dis-
tinguished as the Central Mid-South from East Texas and
:from the rest of the Mid-South which has no integration.

3Ashmore, op. cit., p. 128.

‘37

to existing state segregation laws and penalties even for
voicing anti-segregation sentiments or the slightest
advocation of integration, communities could not desegre-
gate even if they wanted to.

Thus far integration has only taken place in the
Border- and.Mid-South states which are socially and economic-
ally closer to the North than the Deep South and where the
official state attitudes have been either pro—integration
or at least not anti-integration.

The pattern of desegregation in these states does not
form an entirely continuous zone around the heart of the
South. It is best developed in the areas east of the
Mississippi River and least in the Southwest. In Texas,
integration has occurred in a line of counties following
the Rio Grande from the Gulf of Mexico to El Paso, and
from there along the western border of the Panhandle north-
ward. The area from the southwestern part of the state
through central Texas shows only intermittent desegrega-
tion, and practically no integration is found in East Texas.
Oklahoma, on the other hand, has one of the most uniform
patterns of desegregation in the whole region, spreading
uninterruptedly over the whole state except for the north-
west and southeast, plus a small area in the northeast.
Whatever integration has occurred in Arkansas is principally
limited to the northwest, with three isolated spots in the

central and northeastern parts of the state. From here

58

the belt of integration swings northward around the Ozarks
in southern Missouri, forming a wide band along the Missouri
River, and turning,southward following the Mississippi, and
then into Kentucky. Although the majority of Kentucky's
counties have begun desegregation, the pattern here is
perhaps the most interrupted in the whole region with the
exception of Texas. In general, it is characterized by a
rather contiguous string of integrated counties along the
Ohio River and three bands across the state in a northwest-
southeast direction, along the West Virginia boundary,
through the Bluegrass, and through central Kentucky. These
three zones are bordered to the South by an almost con-
tiguous band of desegregated districts along the Virginia
boundary. Tennessee shows only two isolated occurrences:
of desegregation in the central and eastern parts of the
state. From Kentucky, the zone of integration continues
eastward to cover most of West Virginia, almost all of
western Maryland and northern Delaware.

It should be remembered, in this connection, that the
map gives no indication whether or not the areas not shown
as integrated have any Negro residents or are still segre-
gated, although the answer is rather obvious in the case of
a large area, as, for example, the Ozarks.

Even though there seems to be no particular regularity

to this pattern except that it forms a»belt-line around

59

the segregated South, closer observation reveals that,
in general, more integration has taken place near the
northern edge of the Border States than toward the fringe
of the "real" South. Thus, no desegregation has occurred,
for example, in most of East Texas, southeastern Oklahoma,
in the southern parts of Maryland and Delaware, and in most
areas of the Central Mid-South, i.e. Arkansas and Tennessee.
Although desegregation has, therefore, been started inaall
of the Border States and the Mid-South, progress made
toward complete integration in terms of a beginning in
each school district varies significantly from state to
state. The number of school districts and counties which
began to mix Negro and white children in the public schools
and the percentage of the total number of such bi-racial
administrative units is shown for each state in table 2.
There areaat the present time 7,511 school districts
in the Border States, the Central Mid-South, and East
Texas, 1,904 of which have populations of both Negro and
white pupils. Of these, 764 or approximately 40 per cent
had begun some desegregation by May 1958.1 In terms of
counties, which are used as the basis for figure 6 rather

than school districts, 51 per cent of those with any Negro

1Washington Post and Times Herald, May 11, 1958, El

60

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61

school children had started integration by 1958.1 But
of these 329 counties, only ten with eleven school dis-
tricts were located in the Central Mid-South. This shows
clearly the decrease of integration toward the heart of
the South.

All of the Border States except Texas and Delaware
have started to desegregate in more than one-half of
their total bi-racial school districts. The percentage
of integrated districts in the other states ranges from
100 per cent in West Virginia and the District of Columbia
to 67 per cent in the case of Kentucky, while Delaware and
Texas only began desegregation in 30 and 17 per cent of
their districts, respectively, all which are located.in

the northern and western parts of these two states.

lCurrent school enrollment by race and counties could not
be obtained for each of the states with some desegregation.
The Southern Education Reporting Service published such in-
formation only for the states of Maryland, West Virginia,
and Kentucky, and'the District of Columbia. In the case
of Missouri, Oklahoma, and Delaware the number of bi-
racial counties was arrived at by adding,the counties
listed as having some integration to those mentioned as
still segregated. For Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee
still a third method was used: as a substitute for actual
enrollment population of school age (5-17 years) as given
in the 1950 Census of Population was used although it is
realized that these two factors are not necessarilysequi-
valent. Since the number of school-age non-whites —
practically all of whom are Negroes except in some areas
of Oklahoma - is probably somewhat higher than of those
actually attending school, and since in most counties a
small Negro population in 1950 is more likely to have
diminished than increased, counties with less than five
non-white school-age children were not considered as
having any Negroes in the schools in 1958. Obviously
this results in some inaccuracies, but on the basis of a
sample taken, it was found that more accurate data could
be obtained by this method than if all counties with non-
whitesschool-age population in 1950 had been included in
the comparisons with 1958 desegregation statistics. For
the total number of bi-racial counties in Texas, Arkansas,
and Tennessee any other counties were added which the

Southern Education Reporting Service listed as having
some de:;;?39ation.

In general, it is possible to generalize that inte-
gration has made the greatest progress in those states with
the lowest Negro—white ratios, as, for example, in West
Virginia, Missouri, and Oklahoma, and least in states
with a high percentage of Negro enrollment. It undoubtedly
seems easier to introduce integration in Missouri with a
non-white - white ratio of one to ten than, for example,
in Arkansas where Negroes constitute 24 per cent of the
total school population. On the other hand, desegregated
schools have been for some time characteristic of such
centers of Negro concentration as the District of Columbia,
where Negroes outnumber whites by three to two, and in
Baltimore, St. Louis, and other districts of the Border
States where non-whites make up a substantial number in
the total population. As mentioned earlier, it is quite
clear that the willingness of a community to desegregate
its public schools depends not only on the number of Negroes
involved in the change, but on a large number of other
elements which are extremely difficult if not impossible
to measure. Used on a state basis, Negro-white ratios for
this purpose are especially meaningless since all of the
Border- and.Mid-South states include areas with high Negro
concentrations comparable to many parts of the Segregated
South, but also many districts which have few or no Negroes.
This problem, therefore, needs to be analyzed on a.more

refined scale than a state-wide basis.

63

IV. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DESEGREGATION PATTERN.
Major Considerations For and Against Desegregation

The last chapter described briefly the desegregation
pattern as of the present time. No attention was paid to
the fact that conditions unfavorable or conducive to inte~
gration differ in the various school districts of the re-
gion which may help to explain the particular distribution
of integrated counties. It is, of course, not possible in
this study to examine all of the large number of elements
which seem to play an important role in the decisions made
by various communities for or against public school inte-
gration. Instead, the following,list points to only a few
elements which have been decisive injthese considerations
in various districts during the past years oriihave in-
fluenced the attitude of teachers, parents, and students
after integration was started.

foicial attitude; open or close the door to public-
school desegregation. After the 1954 court opinion, the
governors, attorney generals, state boards of education,
etc., of the Border States expressed their willingness to
comply either immediately or as soon as the court had
handed down an implementation decision. Local school
officials were thus encouraged to go ahead with desegre-
gation. In the Deep South, on the other hand, officials

united in denouncing the court decision and continue even

64

yet to introduce legislation aimed at preserving,the
segregation of the races in the public schools. Even

if individual districts should wish to desegregate, they
would not be able to do so under applicable state laws.

Communityiattitude is one of the most important in-
fluences, but it is also probably the element which is
hardest to measure. In general, it is less likely that
integration takes place willingly or smoothly in areas of
strong Southern sentiments. On the other hand, it was
shown above that desegregation may be expected to be less
of a problem in urban centers.

The proportion of Negroes in the total mpulation not
only influences the racial feelings in a community, but
indicates the extent of the actual mixture of children
that would occur with desegregation. It is naturally easier
to integrate the schools in West Virginia where only six
per cent of the population is Negro than in the Deep South
where white children would probably have to go to Negro
schools in many areas.

The nature of existing;Negro-white relationships is
also of considerable influence. In many Southern urban
centers and in the border regions the Negro is closer to
being equal to the white person than in the Deep South or
in other predominantly rural areas. In several of'the
,Border States and the District of Columbia some desegre-

gation in other phases of life had already occurred before

65

1954, as, for example, in public transportation, in some
eating places, hotels, etc. Negroes have been admitted to

1 and in some

white labor unions in several big cities,
cases in the Border States have worked on the same Job

or attended universities together with white students.

The existing Negrodwhite relationships on a largely equal
basis were therefore important in bringing about atmore
favorable community attitude for desegregation in the
schools.

Organized racial orpinterracial group; are very in-
fluential in shaping community attitudes, both before and
after desegregation has occurred. The two most prominent
organizations are the NAACP and the White Citizens' Councils
which exist under various names in the Southern states.
Other groups are the Southern Regional Council, church
groups, the Ku Klux Klan and many others.

The social,peducational£:and economig_level of the
population can be an influential element in forming par-
ticular racial feelings in a community. It has generally
been observed that (a) integration is less likely to
succeed when the residents of the district have a relatively
low level of education and are not informed about current
events, and (b) large gaps in the economic and social level
between the Negro and white population are not favorable

to integration.

1
Blaustein and Ferguson, op. cit., p. 215.

66;

Attitudes of mass communication media seem to be
important once desegregation is actually introduced. This
has been true in St. Louis, Washington, Baltimore, and
other cities where newspapers actively supported the de-
cisions by the school boards. How effective these mediums
would be in changing prevalent community attitudes is hard
to say, since they often express the opinion of the
particular community they serve.

Pressure from the courts has resulted in integration
in several districts despite adverse reactions on the part
of the residents. But there seems to be a limit to the
power of such court decisions. Several Southern communities
continue segregation at the present time although they were
apparently ordered by courts to proceed with the admission
of Negro children to white schools. So far the Deep South
plus Florida and Virginia have managed to maintain strict
segregation in their public schools in spite of the Supreme
Court decision.

It would be extremely interesting to map the extent
of these different elements and compare them to the pattern
of desegregation. Unfortunately, it is impossible to
determine and.map the attitudes of thousands of Southern
communities toward desegregation, the opinion of local
school boards, teachers, parents and students, to define
the level of present Negro-white relationships, and so on.
Instead, the significance of the present pattern of de-
segregation will beranalyzed in terms of two selected

elements from those listed above: (1) the

67

Negro-white school-age population ratio in the counties of
the Border- and.Mid-South, and (2) the particular areas of
probable greater or lesser resistance toward desegregation
which were shown in figure 4.

Comparipon of theQesegregatipnggattern to

Negro-White Ratios

Although the percentage of Negroes in the total popu-
lation of a specific area does not determine the attitude
of the white residents toward race relations, it is probably
one of the most important elements in the establishment of
particular racial feelings. The proportion of Negroes is
especially significant in the school desegregation issue
since the extent of actual mixture of the races in the
class-rooms depends to a large degree on it. As a result,
it is one of the principal considerations of white parents
when the issue arises.

The following analysis will seek to show to what extent
the Negro-white ratio seems to have been significant in
decisions of Southern communities for or against desegrega-
tion.

The map in figure 6 depicts the pattern of desegregation
in 1958. Superimposed on it are lines representing selected
Negro-white ratios by counties.1 A general observation of

the entire South shows that desegregation so far has

1Although current school enrollment by race and counties was

available for some of the Southern states, population of

school-age as found in the 1950 Census of Population was

used to provide an equal basis for the whole region. The
ratio of non-white to white school-age children was cal-

culated for each county in the South.

68

occurred principally in areas of relatively low Negro con-
centrations. The majority of the counties with some inte-
gration has less than 10 per cent Negroes in their popula-
tion. The principal contrast shown here is that of the
pattern of desegregation between the increasingly higher
Negro-white ratios of the Border States, the Mid-South and
the Deep South. Since areas having less than 10 per cent
Negroes are more extensive in the Border States than in
other regions of the South, integrated districts in the
border area are also more numerous. In other words, the
desegregation problem seems to be relatively small in such
communities. At the same time, less integration has occurred
in areas with between 10 and 20 per cent Negroes. Where
such areas are in the Border States, however, desegregation
has in many cases been started. In the regions with more
than 20 per cent non-whites, no desegregation has taken
place in the Deep South, little in the Mid-South, and some
in the Border States. Most of the Border States districts
that have resisted integration to the present time have
nearly 20 per cent or more than 20 per cent Negro children
in their school population.

Looking at the South as a whole, the relation of Negro-
white ratios to the pattern of desegregation is clear:
Integration becomes less frequent with increasing Negro
proportions of the total school population. At the same
time, however, it is evident that the location of a dis-

trict with a particular Negro-white ratio within one or

69

another of the three Southern regions is another important
indicator of the likelihood of desegregation. The Deep
South, Florida, and Virginia have no integration whatsoever,
regardless of the proportion of non-whites in the different
school districts. Arkansas and Tennessee also include
many areas, which are comparable, for example, to Missouri
and West Virginia in their small number of Negro residents,
but integration still has not taken place. Elements other
than the number of Negroes involved seem to be of greater'
significance in the Central and Deep South in inhibiting
communities from desegregating their public schools.

For various reasons, therefore, districts which in-
troduced integration between 1954 and 1958 are located
principally in the Border states. While the majority of
the few desegregated.Mid-South counties has low Negro-
white ratios as is shown on figurez6, the Border States
mixed school children successfully in several districts
with Negro proportions as high as 30-45 per cent. In
other words, integration in the Border States took place
both in districts of low as well as in those of propor-
tionately high Negro population.

It was shown in chapter III that the amount of inte-
gration that has taken place in the border region varies#
between individual states. These also differ with re-
spect to the various characteristics of the counties

integrated. Some states have almost complete desegregation

7O

regardless of the number of Negroes in the counties. In
others integration has only occurred in areas of low Negro
concentration, and in still others, no particular trend
can be observed at all.

Table 3 shows that in each Border State a larger per-
centage of the counties with proportionately low Negro-
white population have some desegregation than have those
with high Negro-white ratios. This is illustrated, for
example, by Maryland, where all the districts with Negro
population up to 20 per cent have started integration.
Counties with higher Negro-white ratios are more often
still segregated.

Although the situation is similar in the other Border
States, in most of them it is less clear-cut. In Texas,
for example, which has maintained more segregation than any
other Border State, integration has taken place in several
counties with more than 10 per cent Negroes, whereas other
schools have continued segregated in areas where less than.
one-tenth of the students are Negroes. West Virginia and
the District of Columbia show the greatest contrast to
Texas. Integration is complete in the District and was
begun in every county in West Virginia although in some of
them Negroes constitute more than 20 per cent of the stu-
dent body. In Oklahoma and.Missouri, desegregation was
also started in almost all of the counties. The districtS‘
still segregated in both states present areas of high
Negro-white ratios, but in each state other districts

with larger proportions of Negroes have been integrated.

72

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75

Kentucky presents a mixed pattern. Most of the integrated
counties have a small Negro population, but so do the
majority of the still-segregated districts. The largest
areas with more than 20 per cent Negroes in the total
population are also not yet integrated.

In summary, it appears that the Border States inte-
grated counties with both low and high Negro-white ratios.
In the Mid-South the beginning of desegregation took place
primarily in areas with small proportions of Negro to
total population, but not to the same extent as in the
Border States. The concentration of Negroes per se can-
not therefore be the only indicator of the type of reaction
to desegregation which may be expected in a community.

It is also evident that even within the border region
no absolute relationship exists between the percentage of
Negro students in a district and the success or failure
of desegregation. Most of the Border States already have
some integrated counties with relatively high proportions
of Negroes but still have other segregated districts with
only a few Negro students.

, on the other hand, more often than not the presently
segregated counties of the Border States are areas of
relatively high Negro population in proportion to the

totals in the respective states.

74

Comparison of the pesegregatpon_§attern to
Segpegation and Integration Attitude Areas

in the Border States

Segregation Attitude Areas

Figure 6 points out that of the regions characterized
in chapter II as having particularly-strong Southern atti-
tudes, most of them show only little desegregation at the
present time. In no case, however, is the entire region
still segregated.

Eastern Texas presents definitely the largest area
with segregated schools in a Border State. Some of the
integration in western Texas reaches to the western boundary
of this Deep South "extension", but with few exceptions the
East Texas counties show complete segregation. It was in
this region that integration was ordered in l956 by a
Federal Court in the town of Mansfield near Fort‘Worth,
but due to demonstrations by the white residents in the
areas, desegregation never took place, and the Negro
students were transferred out of the school district.1
This incident shows the strong resistance to integration
in East‘Texas. Opposition in this case was not based on
large numbers of Negroes; rather the Mansfield residents
objected to the admittance of three Negro pupils to a
school with 250 white children.

1WaiiIIIcI-I Westfeldt, "Communities in Strife,". With 551
Deliberate S eed, ed. Don Shoemaker (New York: Harper
& Bret era, 19 )I pp. 44-47.

75

In.leahoma‘s "Little pixie“ integration was begun in
most of the counties by 1958. Segregated schools are still
operating in three out of the sixteen counties in the region.
Two of these counties are located in the extreme southeast
of Oklahomauand.have districts with Negro-white ratios
higher than 20 per cent.

Since local school districts in Oklahoma have to pay
the extra costs if they want to maintain separate schools,
it was expected in 1956 that the rural districts in "Little
Dixie" would probably have to integrate their schools,
whereas the urban areas would try to maintain segregation
with extra expenditures.l

Missouri's "Little Dixie", on the other hand, has
started integration in every county. Although special
difficulties had been expected in this area, desegregation
seems to have taken place just as quietly as in most other
parts of Missouri.

The Missouri "Bootheel" presents a picture similar to
that of Oklahoma's "Little Dixie". The two southernmost
counties still maintain entirely segregated schools. They
are at the same time two of the counties with the highest
Negro-white ratios in the "Bootheel", and they border areas
of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas where the public
schools are still operated on a segregated.basis. Four
of the traditional Missouri Delta counties, however, have

lgputhern School News, April, 1956, p.15.

76

started integration, includinngississippi county with
a Negro population of 23 per cent,the highest proportion
of any rural region in Missouri.

The two areas in southwestern Kentucky in which
desegregation was expected to meet with strong resistance
are still almost entirely segregated. No integration has
occurred in the counties immediately bordering the
Mississippi River. Only one county in the area adjoin-
ing Tennessee east of the Cumberland.River has started to
mix Negro and white children in its public schools. In
this region, Southern sentiment, and perhaps the relatively-
low standard of living, particularly of the non-white
pepulation, seem to have been the decisive elements, since
integration has taken place in other counties in Kentucky
with similar Negro-white ratios.

Some of these similar, but slightly lower, Negro
proportions are found in the Kentucky Bluegpas . The
majority of the counties in this area have begun integra-
tion in the schools, and the change seems to have occurred
without major incidents and difficulties.

§puthern and eastern West lirginia are similar to
Missouri's "Little Dixie" in that all of the counties have
begun integration. Here, however, the change did not
always take place peacefully. White Sulphur Springs in
Greenbrier County which borders Virginia, became the scene
of a student strike and demonstration after nine Negroes

had been admitted in September, 1954, to attend the high

77

school with 441 white children.li To prevent violence, the
Negro pupils were ordered to return to their own high
schools. They were admitted again one and one-half years
later under court order.

Although desegregation met with strong resistance
in some areas of West Virginia, all of the counties had
begun to mix Negro and white children by 1957.

Integration could be expected to encounter particular
difficulties in Maryland since this state has the highest
Negro-white ratio in the border region. Except for the
counties of the Easternvghore,‘however,‘most of the Maryland
districts are integrated. On the peninsula, one of the
counties had eleven Negroes enrolled in November, 1957,
another had "no announced policy", and the remaining six
districts had "a policy of desegregation, but no Negro
transfers."2

Similarly, segregation is prevalent in Delaware south
of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. In the Southernmost
county of this state, the town of Milford was in September,
1954, the scene of one of the most publicized anti-
desegregation demonstrations. Similar to the situation
in White Sulphur Springs, Negro students had been attending
the white school for some days before the demonstrations

took place. The result was the same in both cases: the
lWestfeldt, op. cit., pp. 42-44.

esouthern Education Reporting Service, op. cit., p. l4.

78

Negroes were returned to their own school. The present
situation is different, however, since the school in
Milford, like the one in Mansfield, Texas, has remained
segregated to the present time.

It has been shown that in most cases the Southern
"outliers" and "extensions” in the Border States have been.
the areas of some of the strongest resistance to compli-
ance with the desegregation order of the Supreme Court.
Ewen regions like Missouri's "Little Dixie", which started
integration in all of its counties, are often not as com-
pletely desegregated as some of the surrounding districts.
This is shown on the map in figure 6, which makes a dis-
tinction between completely and partially desegregated
counties in the case of Oklahoma” Missouri, Kentucky, and
West Virginia, the only states for which such information
was available. "Little Dixie" in Missouri and a string of
West Virginia counties along the southern boundary of the
state stand out as partially desegregated areas from the
surrounding completely integrated.districts. The third
large area in which integration has been started in each
county, but not yet completed, is east central Oklahoma,
the area with the highest Negro-white ratios in the state.
Other partially desegregated districts occur in the Missouri
"Bootheel" and in scattered spots in Kentucky.

None of the Deep South "outliers" within the Border

States is therefore completely integrated. Sometimes

79

these are also the areas of highest Negro-white ratios in
the state, as, for example, in Texas and West Virginia.
In the states with two Deep South areas, segregation has
remained to a larger extent in the districts with the
higher Negro-white ratios, i.e., in the "Bootheel" and
southwestern Kentucky. But it is certainly not clear in
these cases how important the proportion of Negroes has
been in the retention of segregation. In both instances,
.the Kentucky Bluegrass and Missouri's "Little Dixie" show
other characteristics which may make these areas more
favorable to integration than the two other southern
regions in each state. Both, for example, are closer to
northern states, in each area Negroes occupy a higher
economic level than in the "Bootheel" and southwestern
Kentucky, and both contain the capitals of their respective
states. It is therefore likely that the more southern
location of the Missouri Delta Country and of southwestern
Kentucky, and the related Deep South characteristics and
attitudes, have been more important in the decisions of
these communities to maintain segregation than the rela-
tively high Negro-white ratios.

In still two other Border States, Oklahoma and.Marylmnd,
areas other than the Deep South regions in the states have
the highest Negro-white ratios. Despite this fact, some
integration in each county has taken place, while parts of
Oklahoma's "Little Dixie" and the "Eastern Shore" have

remained completely segregated.

80

One may therefore conclude that Southern traditions
and values are stronger elements in the resistance toward

desegregation than the mere proportion of Negroes.
Integration Attitude Areas

One characteristic feature of most of these Deep South
"outliers" and "extensions" is the fact that they are pre-
dominantly rural. Only three of these regions, for example,
contain one or more standard metropolitan areas. But how
did the urban areas, which were generally expected to form
the most favorable background for desegregation in the
border region, react to the Supreme Court order?

It was mentioned above that a large proportion of the
Negro population in the Border States is concentrated in
the metropolitan areas of those states. For example, more
than one-third of Delaware's Negro pupils live in Wilmington;
St. Louis and Kansas City have two-thirds of the total Negro
enrollment in Missouri, and almost 60 per cent of Maryland's
school children are concentrated in Baltimore alone. In
comparison to the average Negro-white ratios in the Border
States, the proportion of Negroes in those cities is ex-
tremely high. Needless to say, integration in the border
cities becomesza veryidifficult task - comparable in terms
of the number and proportion of Negroes involved to many
areas in the Deep South. It is also easy to see that the
outcome of integration in a big border city will distinctly

influence other smaller communities in their decisions.

81

It was, for example, reported that several Texas districts
were waiting to see "which way Dallas would jump". So far
Dallas has not “jumped".

Of the thirty-four cities listed by the Bureau of the
Census as "standard metropolitan areas" in the Border
States and Arkansas, Tennessee, and East Texas, twenty-six
had begun or completed integration by the end of 1957. The
eight cities which still operated segregated schools at
that time were without exception located in the two Mide
South states and East Texas. In other words, in each of
the metropolitan areas of the Border States and in four
cities of the Mid-South, Negro and white children were
attending some schools together. In many of these cities
Negroes constituted 20 and 30 per cent or an even larger
proportion of the total school enrollment, up to as high
a Negro-white ratio as ten to seven in the District of
Columbia. ‘

The proportion of Negroes in the total enrollment is
not different in the cities of the Mid-South which have
so far remained segregated. Thus, Dallas with 15 per cent
Negro school children and Houston with 50 per cent are
comparable to Oklahoma City and Louisville in this respect,
and Atlanta with one-third of the enrollment Negro still
has a smaller proportion of non-whites than Baltimore. In
this respect, therefore, difficulties would be similar if
integration were attempted. The main difference, however,

between these cities of the Border States and those of the

82

Mid-South and Deep South is the fact that the latter are
located in strongly pro-segregation areas. Relative lo-
cation rather than the mere proportion of Negroes in these
cities seems to be the decisive element. Racial feelings
in Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, and Atlanta have as their
settings their particular Negro-white ratios, but they are
principally expressions of the strong segregation attitudes
found in East Texas, Louisiana, and Georgia.

For similar reasons, the border cities have found it
possible to integrate their public schools. Decisions for
desegregation by school boards generally were not only
backed but often encouraged by state officials. The pre-
vailing attitude of the population was more often that the
law had to be obeyed than that it should be resisted,
although the majority of the people probably would have
preferred to maintain segregation in the schools. Desegre-
gation did not, however, always proceed peacefully, as the
anti-integration demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and
Baltimore plainly show. But the general attitude of the
urban communities in the Border States was such that
desegregation could take place.

Often little actual mixture of Negro and white children
in the schools resulted from desegregation in the border
cities. The principal reason is, of course, as previously
mentioned, the rather strict residential segregation in
many urban centers. The knowledge that most schools would

continue to serve principally members of one race was

83

undoubtedly an important element in the acceptance of the
desegregation order by the communities. In Baltimore, for
example, only 14 per cent of the city's Negro students
actually attended formerly white schools in 1957. The
situation is similar in Oklahoma City where 15 per cent of

1 The

the Negro pupils go to school with white children.
results in St. Louis, Kansas City and Tulsa further
exemplify the fact that integration in cities with resi-
dential segregation results in relatively little actual
mixing of the races. Desegregation orders in such urban
centers are significant only in the so-called fringe areas
where white and Negro residential districts meet.

On the other hand, not every Southern city has strict
residential separation of the races. In Louisville, for
example, fifty-five out of seventy-five schools have both
Negro and white students as a result of desegregation.2
Similar mixed housing patterns are characteristic of New
Orleans, Jackson, Mississippi and other Southern cities.

Residential segregation in the majority of the border
cities was certainly partly responsible for the relative
ease with which integration took place. The racial housing
pattern will, of course, also be a significant element if
desegregation is ever considered in other Mid-South and

Deep South urban centers.

1Jones, op. cit., pp. 80-81.

2Ibid., p. 80.

84

From the experience in the Border States, one might
conclude that urban areas provide a more favorable back-
ground for desegregation than rural regions. Certainly
most of the presently segregated districts in the Border
States are found in rural areas. However, the general
validity of this statement as applied to other areas
cannot be verified, since desegregation so far has been
limited almost entirely to the Border States. Although
Nashville and Little Rock, for example, have been among
the few Mid-South districts which admitted a small number
of Negroes to white schools, they did so only under court
pressure. In contrast to these two cities, desegregation
in the urban centers of the Border States has mostly taken
place without orders from the courts. Instead, the change
was based on the initiative of the city school boards,
it received encouragement from the governors, attorney
generals and other officials, and it was finally made
possible by community attitudes which were more favorable
to desegregation than in most rural areas of the Border

States or in the more Southern regions of the United States.

85

V. THE EVOLUTION OF THE PATTERN OF SCHOOL
DESEGREGATI ON

This chapter will trace the spread of integration
in the South during each of the years from 1954 to 1958.

It will attempt to show why theiinitial step toward deseg—
regation occurred at certain specific times in the differ-
ent states and in sub-areas within them. The development

of the pattern as a whole will be analyzed in terms of

its annual advance through the South. From this examination
certain conclusions can then be drawn regarding the future
of desegregation in the Southern states.

It was mentioned before that the most important element
with respect to whether desegregation occurs in a state is
the status of its law and the attitude of its officials.
From the time of the Supreme Court decision integration
was limited to certain areas in the South by official
resistance to the Court's ruling. During the following
years, the initial stand taken by state officials has not
changed much and has tended to fix the pattern of desegre-
gation on a state-wide basis.

The immediate reactions of the Southern states in 1954
to the Supreme Court opinion can be classified into three
major groups:1
1. :Strongly resistingpintegration" were four of the

traditional Deep South states: Louisiana, Mississippi,

Georgia, and South Carolina.

lSouthern School News, October, 1954, p.1.

 

86

2. fléwaiting Court action" were nine states from each of
the three major Southern regions: Kentucky, Oklahoma,
and Texas as Border States, Tennessee and Arkansas,
Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, and Florida from
the presently-segregated South.

5. "Moving toward integration" were the four Border States
of Missouri, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and the
District of Columbia.

Up to the present time, the four Deep South states in
the first group continue to form the core of resistance to
the Supreme Court decision. They have meanwhile been joined
by four of the original "wait and see" states: Virginia,
North Carolina, Florida, and Alabama. Although North
Carolina and Florida filed briefs as "friends of the Court"
in 1954, they share some of the strong Deep South sentiments
for maintaining segregation.

In the Mid-South, Tennessee continued to wait quietly
through 1954, whereas Arkansas joined the Border States of
Oklahoma and Texas in the same year in filing briefs with
the Supreme Court. The official view in Arkansas was
clearly expressed by the then Governor Cherry in a state-
ment that "Arkansas will obey the law".1 Oklahoma's reac-
tion was similar, though perhaps less openly stated. It
was indicated principally in efforts to change a compli-
cated budget system for separate schools which was based-

on two entirely different tax programs.

11bid., September, 1954, p.2.

 

87

The only Border State where official reaction to the
court opinion remained rather hostile was Texas. Kentucky,
on the other hand, was the only one of the nine "waiting"
states to indicate in 1954 that it would definitely comply
with 3px implementation order of the Supreme Court.

Four of the Border States and the District of Columbia
meanwhile did not wait for further instructions, but accepted
the opinion of the court as the new "law of the land" and
proceeded to integrate.

In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court had not yet made any
definite decision on the question as to how to implement its
opinion into effective desegregation. Therefore, school
authorities did not feel compelled to start integration.
Wherever desegregation did, therefore, occur, it was the
result of decisions on behalf of local school officials
since nobody at that time could order the school districts
to abolish their separate schools.

Individual school boards had different reasons for
such action in various areas, but in most states, except
in Texas and Arkansas, they had clear encouragement from
state officials. In Missouri, fornexample, the Attorney
General ruled that all state laws requiring segregation
'were void in view of the Supreme Court opinion.l Many
school officials in the state therefore decided that "law
is law and segregation is now against the law" and inte-

grated their schools. To them, segregation had clearly

lIbid., September, 1954, p.9.

88

been declared unconstitutional, and it would only be a
question of time until the new law would be enforced. In
several areas, high financial expenditures due to the bi-
racial school system also seem to have played an important
part in local decisions to end segregation.

For these and various_other reasons, many school
districts went ahead with integration when they discovered
that segregation could not be enforced by the states. With
relatively few exceptions, these changes seem to have been

accepted quietly by the communities concerned.
Desegregation in 1954

Integration in 1954 was mainly limited to two states:
Missouri and West Virginia. These are probably the two
most "Northern"l states in the South. But Negro and white
children were also mixed in a few districts in Delaware,
in Baltimore City, the District of Columbia, in two counties
in Arkansas, and even in one district in western Texas.

In West Virginia, and especially in Missouri, more
than one-half of the total number of counties integrated
at the present time took this step in 1954. Delaware also
began integration in two of its three counties. The District
of Columbia desegregated its high schools in 1954, thereby
mixing 62 per cent of its total white and 46 per cent of
the entire Negro enrollment in the first year. Maryland

took a significant step toward integration when Baltimore

1A "Northern" attitude toward desegregation, as used in.
this thesis, refers only to acceptance of the Supreme
Court decision in contrast to a "Southern" attitude
characterized by resistance to desegregation.

89

City announced a plan by which children could attend the
school of their choice regardless of race, the only limit-
ation being the capacity of the schools. Since Baltimore
had never had organized school districts, integration
resulted in relatively little change in the enrollment
pattern. Only 1,376 Negro students or 2.5 per cent of
the total non-white enrollment applied and were admitted
to formerly white schools.1

With the exception of Washington, D.C., Baltimore,
and Wilmington, Delaware, integration in 1954 started in
areas of small Negro populations in Missouri, West Virgin-
ia, and Delaware.2 Although both "Little Dixie" and.the
"Bootheel" in Missouri had begun desegregation, the "core"
of each of these areas in terms of the counties with the
highest Negro-white ratios were still segregated. Simi-
larly, integration had hardly started in southern and
eastern West Virginia, but was mainly concentrated in the
east central part of the state where Negroes constitute
small percentages of the total population.

However, a considerable number of these desegregating
counties, particularly in Missouri, did not complete the
process in 1954. In fact, the map in figure 6 points out
that many of them are still only partially desegregated
at the present time.
1mg” October, 1954, p. 2.
2St. Louis started its gradual desegregation program from
the top by consolidating the two teachers' colleges of

the city in 1954. Integration also took place in so-

called special schools.

90

Similarly, Negroes constitute only small percentages
of the total population in the integrated districts in
Texas and Arkansas. Of those Delaware distripts which
began desegregation in 1954, all but one were located in
the northernmostcounty of the state; this has also the
smallest Negro-white ratio of the three counties, and
contains the largest city in the state. However, this
ratio is higher than that of any of the counties integrated
in the same year in Missouri and West Virginia.

The important relationship between the degree of
control which a state exercises over the local school
districts and the desegregation question is clearly illus-
trated by the example of Baltimore City. The Baltimore
school system operates independently in many policy areas
from the State Board of Education. The city could there-
fore begin integration in 1954, although the State Board
had announced that "no move toward desegregation can be
made until the decision (of the Supreme Court) becomes
final and an effective date is set by the court."1

A similar reason enabled the Texas and Arkansas Dis-
tricts to desegregate although the official attitude was
definitely pro—segregation in the first state, and is still
mainly along.the "wait-and-see" line in the latter. But
the Arkansas Board of Education acts only as advisor to
the local school districts,2 and in Texas, "each local
school district (board) has the right to interpret statutory

llbid., May, 1957, p.1.

2Ibid., September, 1954, p.2.

91

and constitutional provisions" subject to court review.l
Although the official state attitude is therefore pro-
segregation, as in the segregated South, the situation is
not quite the same as in those states where there have been
enacted a large number of laws for the "punishment" of any
district which might want to educate white and Negro
children together. The principal reason for desegregation
in the Texas and Arkansas districts in 1954 seems to have
been financial, since the relatively large sums used pre-
viously to transport a small number of Negro students to a
distant Negro school or to educate them separately could be
saved.

The development of desegregation in 1954 shows in
general the same characteristics as the total integration
pattern from 1954 to 1958. Integration was begun mainly
(l) in some large border cities despite relatively high
Negro concentrations, (2) in other counties with small
Negro populations, especially if such change would result
in financial savings for the school district, and (3)
primarily in the high schools, particularly in Missouri.
Segregation was retained mainly in rural counties with
higher Negro-white ratios where the non-white students

could not be so easily absorbed into the white schools.

lIbide, June, 1955’ p.15.

92

pgsegpegation in 1955

The year 1955 brought the implementation order of the
Supreme Court. Following it there was a large increase in
the number of integrated counties in the Border States.
This increase was mainly due to the fact that Oklahoma and
Kentucky started integratiOn for the first time, and.Mary-
land adopted desegregation as a state-wide policy.

However, counties beginning to mix Negroes and whites
for the first time in 1955 are rather few in those states
which started the process in 1954. The exception to this
rule is Texas, where more counties began integration in
1955 than in any other year although the official state
attitude remained the same as in 1954. Desegregation in
this state was definitely due to local, not state, action,
which is also the case in Arkansas.1 Similarly, Tennessee
placed the responsibility for desegregation on local school
authorities. The only desegregation change occurring in
that state in 1955, however, was at Oak Ridge, which is a
community run by the Atomic Energy Commission.

Missouri, West Virginia and Delaware naturally show a

decrease indthe number of counties integrating for the first

1In January, 1955, Governor Shivers told the new Texas
legislature that "I recommend that no change be made in
our system of public education until - and maybe not then -
the United States Supreme Court gives us complete mandate".
Ibid., February, 1955. p.7.
After the court's implementation order the governor still
advised individual school districts that there was "no
need to hurry into desegregation". Ibid., July, 1955. p.1.

93

time, since each state desegregated more than one-half of
its counties having any Negroes in 1954. All three, however,
continued to mix more children in the districts which had
started to desegregate the year before.

In both West Virginia and.Missouri desegregation in 1955
was encroaching on the more "Southern" areas of the states.
Only one county in central Missouri was still completely
segregated at the end of 1955, and in the "Bootheel“ inte-
gration was begun in the county with the highest Negro-white
ratio, leaving two still segregated. In West Virginia, de-
segregation in 1955 took place mainly in the southwestern
part of the state, indicating a movement toward and into the
areas with most of the Negro population in this Border State.
Although the progress in terms of counties integrated for
the first time is less in both states in 1955 than in 1954.
it seems that the changes in 1955 occurred in areas with
larger numbers of Negroes. This was especially the case in
Missouri, which took its biggest step in integration in
1955 by desegregating the St. Louis high schools at mid-
term, the St. Louis elementary schools in the fall, and
both grade and secondary schools in Kansas City also in
the fall. Although the number of students involved in
this change was quite large in terms of total enrollment,
actual mixing of Negroes and whites was characteristically
limited to schools in fringe areas, i.e., mainly those at
the edge of the central cities and to schools along the

principal area of Negro residential expansion.

94

Meanwhile, desegregation took place to a large extent
in Maryland, Kentucky, and particularly in Oklahoma.1
Integrated counties in Maryland were without exception
located in the western part of the state which was, from

the beginning, expected to be more favorable to the change
than either the southern part or the "Eastern Shore". These
districts either had small Negro populations, or they were
close to Baltimore City or the District of Columbia, both

of which had started integration the year before.

The trend of further developments on the "Eastern
Shore" was also indicated by the action taken by two coun-
ties. Starting in 1955 and continuing to the present time,
the majority of these counties indicate willingness to
comply with the Supreme Court order in terms of a "policy
of desegregation". Actually they continue to operate
separate schools, and the result is, of course, "no Negro
transfers".2

In Kentucky, integration in 1955 occurred principally
in the eastern parts having few Negroes, and in a few

counties close to the northern boundary of the state. At

the same time, desegregation was begun in two counties in

1The attitude of these three states in 1954 was defined by
the statement of one Attorney General of a border state
at that time: "The Supreme Court has thus far issued only
an opinion, and the state's segregation laws will remain
in force until final decrees are issued.“ Ibid., Sep-
tember, 1954, p.6.
It was therefore against the law for any community to
start desegregation. The 1955 decision of the Supreme
Court then made it clear, however, that any state law
requiring segregation was unconstitutional.

aisle... September, 1955. p.8.

95

the Bluegrass, one of which contains the city of Lexington.
This involved the largest move toward integration in that
state in 1955 in terms of the number of Negro pupils in a
district, since Negroes constitute roughly 45 per cent of
Lexington's enrollment. Actual mixing of children in the
schools, was, however, rather small.

Unlike the development in other Border states, the
largest city in Kentucky did not start integration in the
first year that this change took place in the state. How-
ever, since the 1954 court opinion, Kentucky officials,
especially in Louisville, had been active in trying to
create "a favorable climate of opinion" for desegregation,
by a large number of discussions between school officials,
parents, and students of both races. "The less one talks
debut it, the better", was not the attitude in Kentucky.

The largest number of counties integrated in 1955 is
found in Oklahoma. Fifty out of the total of fifty-nine
counties which have some desegregation at present intro-
duced it in 1955. This means that 88 per cent of all the
integrated Oklahoma counties established some mixed schools
in the first year of compliance. This includes counties
with as high a Negro school attendance as approximately
34 per cent and comprised rural as well as urban areas.
This state shows clearly that there is no absolute correla-
tion between the proportion of Negroes in the total popula-

tion and the occurrence of desegregation.

96

The development of desegregation in 1955 is therefore
similar to that of 1954. In each state it began most often
in counties with small numbers of non-whites. The reaction
in large urban centers varied: in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and
in most of the West Texas metropolitan areas, for example,
desegregation was begun, while Louisville continued to
prepare for this step.1

Although the spread of integration in the Border States
up to the end of 1955 may seem impressive in terms of
counties with some mixed schools, it seems less so on the
basis of total numbers of school districts and still less
when one considers the number of children actually involved
in the change. As of October 1955, 154,000 Negro children
were mixed in schools in seven Border States, one Mid-
South state, and the District of Columbia. If one stops
to consider that almost three million Negro children were
enrolled in Southern public schools in 1954, it is obvious
that the above number is only a fraction of the total. Of
these 154,000 Negro pupils, 67,000 or one-half lived in
the District of Columbia.2 Obviously, segregation in the
public schools continued far more often the rule than the
exception in the South at this time.

1For 27 counties in Texas no data is available in regard to

the year of first desegregation. Of those districts known
to have started integration in 1955, all except two are in
West Texas and have relatively few Negroes. Of the metro-
politan areas in Texas, the majority integrated in 1955,
including Austin at the edge ofhEastTTexas and Corpus
Christi, El Paso, Wichita Falls and others in West Texas.

21b1de, OCtObeP, 1955! polo

97

At the same time, it was generally reported from the
still-segregated South that the official state attitudes
were "hardening against" the Supreme Court decision.1
White opposition groups increased, and it looked on the
whole as if the South were recovering from the initial
shock of the court decision and uniting more and more
strongly in its opposition to public-school desegregation.
In this connection one may certainly speak of a "Solid

South".
Desegregation in 1956

A trend, already apparent in 1955, became more distinct
in the following year: legal activity over the desegrega-
tion issue increased markedly. It was reported that "the
school controversy in some areas appears to be moving from
the school board to the courtroom".2 In contrast to the
Border States, emphasis in the still-segregated South was
placed on legislation rather than on litigation. At the
same time, organized pro-segregation groups in the South
increased in number and membership. In January, 1956,
forty-four private opposition groups were counted in the
South.3

This general change from voluntary to enforced inte-

gration is reflected in the percentage of counties desegre-
gating for the first time in 1956 as compared to previous

11219;: September. 1955. pp. 1-2.
21b1de, OCtOber, 1955, Pol.

31bid., January, 1956, p. 11.

98

years. A general decrease in the rate of integration on
a county-wide basis can be observed in the whole region.1
And, for the first time since the original Supreme Court
Opinion in 1954, some counties also show desegregation as ~
direct result of court action.

In some Border States, integration in 1956 was spotty;
in others it showed a definite trend of encroaching upon
more "difficult" areas of the states. The latter is true
of Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Maryland. Desegregation
in Oklahoma occurred mainly along the southern boundary of
the state and included two counties at the western edge of
"Little Dixie". The southeastern core of this Deep South
"extension", however, remained segregated. In West Virginia,
1956 brought the beginning of integration in all of the
southern counties of the state which have high Negro en-
rollments, exceeding 20 per cent in one district. Five out
of these six counties, however, desegregated as a result of
court action. Two other counties integrated voluntarily in
the western part of the Panhandle. The only completely
segregated districts in West Virginia were therefore found
in the eastern Panhandle. Similarly, Maryland introduced
integration in all except two counties on the mainland,
including one district south of Washington with 45 per cent
Negroes in the total school enrollment. For the first time,
some Negro and white children attended the same school in
one county on the "Eastern Shore".

1This, of course, does not refer to districts where inte-

gration was already established during the previous years,
many of which desegregated additional schools in 1956.

99

Kentucky stands out as starting integration in more counties
in 1956 than in any other year. These were mostly concen-
trated in the north central part of the state, but a be—
ginning can also be observed in the southwest. Only in one
county was integration a direct result of court action.

While desegregation went off smoothly in Louisville
where 34,000 white and 12,000 Negro students were involved
and where the change resulted in the mixing of 73 per cent
of the city's public schools, trouble developed in the
western part of the state. This brought to Kentucky the
first instance of "dc-integration", when demonstrations in
Sturgis and Clay resulted in the removal of the Negro
students from the white school to which they had been
admitted.

Integration in Missouri in 1956 is practically re-
stricted to increased mixing of children in districts which
had started the process in previous years. Only one county
introduced mixed schools for the first time. In the two
most "Southern" regions of the state, the situation did
not change much. Two counties in the "Bootheel" and one
in central Missouri were still entirely segregated.

Similarly only a few counties in Texas integrated for
the first time in 1956. All of them were located in the
western part of the state.

The situation in the Central Mid-South is typical of
the entire pattern of desegregation in 1956 and reflects
the attitude of most of the South at this time. Integra-

tion in Arkansas came to a complete standstill. Tennessee

100

experienced the first case of mixed schools in Clinton
which took place under court order and was accompanied by
demonstrations of the white population. In general, the
Mid-South in this year shows more than ever before its
close relationship to the Deep South. The strong resis-
tance which was always characteristic of the Deep South
had become stronger through the years on the basis of
organized opposition, and was now spreading from the
heart of the South into the Mid-South states. In Virginia,
Arkansas, and Florida, the white population grew more de-
termined to preserve racial segregation in the schools.
It was, for example, reported in the spring of 1956, that
Arkansas was moving toward the segregation side,1 and that
Florida's official attitude was changing from "gradual
.acceptance of integration" to "all-out resistance".2
In the Deep South such attitudes can be measured only
in terms of increased legislation for the continued separa-
tion of the races, in the growing;membership of White
Citizens' Councils, and other similar activities. In the
two Mid-South states of Arkansas and Tennessee, however,
increased resistance to integration can be observed directly
in the pattern of desegregation in 1956. One single case
of desegregation took place in the whole year and that

only under court order.

1Ibid., April, 1956, p.8

2pm., March, 1956, p.9

101

The number of Negro children entering,white schools
in 1956 could not be determined, but it seems to be relatively
small. While 154,000 Negro pupils were actually attending
mixed schools in 1955, 319,184 were reported to be in
"integrated situations" by October, 1956.1 Due to the
definition of "integrated situations", the number of
Negro pupils enrolled in mixed schools can be assumed to

be considerably small er . 2

Desegregation in 1957

The predominant trends established in l956 continue
into 1957. The rate of integration in terms of the percen-
tage of counties integrating for the first time decreased
even further. On the other hand, court action predomi-
nantly favorable to integration and legislation against
desegregation were increasing in many parts of the South.

Instances of counties beginning to mix Negro and white
children in 1957 were few and far between both in the
Border States and in the Mid-South. Generally speaking,
counties still entirely segregated in the Border States
at the end of the year were principally located in the
"Deep South" areas of each state. Thus integration in six

additional counties in Missouri seems to have left only

lIbid., October, 1956, p.1

2"'Integrated situations' is a term used to cover Negro
children who are attending formerly all-white schools;
attending formerly all-Negro schools which whites have
attended; are eligible to attend mixed schools in de-
segregated districts but are not doing so, or are en-
rolled in districts which have just begun the desegre-
gation process." Ibid., September, 1956, p.1.

102

two counties in the "Bootheel" wholly segregated. Similarly,
most of the presently segregated counties in Oklahoma are
found in "Little Dixie". Some districts in and around the
Kentucky Bluegrass have not yet started integration, but
most of the segregated counties in that state are located
along the southern Virginia-Tennessee boundary and.concen-
trated mainly in southwestern Kentucky. All but two of the
Maryland-Delaware "Eastern Shore" counties remain actually
segregated although most of them have a "policy of desegre-
gation".

Of the eight "Southern" areas in the Border States
which were discussed in chapter II, only Missouri's "Little
Dixie" and the two areas in West Virginia have therefore
begun integration in every county and completed it in some
cases. As shown above, the six remaining "outliers" and
'"extensions" present often the only entirely segregated
districts in their respective states.

The extent of desegregation in the MidrSouth was
again much less than in the Border States though the rate
of integration was somewhat higher than in the same region
during the previous years. Resistance to desegregation
seems to be increasing in the‘MidrSouth. Four counties
admitted some Negro pupils to formerly all-white schools,
but in three districts the change took place only because
of court order.

The number of Negro pupils in "integrated situations"
in November, 1957, showed an increase of 56,000 over 1956.1

1Southern Education Reporting Service, 0 . cit., p.2.

103

Since this number probably includes the entire Negro school
populations of Little Rock and Nashville where integration
began on a limited basis in 1957, it may be assumed that
only a small proportion of the 56,000 Negro pupils actually
entered white schools during the year. Since November,
1957, the situation has remained practically the same. Only
three districts in the Border States desegregated their
public schools since then. On the whole, integration has
taken place in only 26.7 per cent of the total bi-racial
school districts in the entire South,1 and no announcements
have been made of new desegregations in the fall of 1958.
Summary.--While the Border States were therefore
slowly but definitely proceeding toward complete compliance
with the Supreme Court decision and while the Mid-South
went along the same road, though more slowly and only under
court pressure, the Segregated South was enacting more
legislation to insure continued segregation. By the end
of 1957, eleven states of the Deep South, Central Mid-
South and Texas, had adopted 142 measures to preserve

segregation.2

Approximately one-fifth of these were
enacted in 1957. This shows a decline in legislation over
1956 when eight states of the Segregated South adopted
eighty-four measures - out of the total of 107 up to that

year.3

1Washington Post and Times Herald, 0p. cit.

2Southern Education Reporting Service, op. cit., p.2.

3Southern SchooI_Newg, January, 1957, 9.1.

104

Certain trends are evident from this discussion. Some
of these are shown in the graph in figure 7:1 (1) there is
a great contrast between the Border States and the‘MidrSouth
in terms of the ratio of counties actually integrated to the
total number of counties with Negro pupils. The rate of
integration in the MidrSouth never exceeded 5 per cent in
any year in comparison to 42 per cent in the Border States.
The graph shows that most integration so far has taken place
in the northern part of the Border States and that it has
decreased progressively toward the south. In zone one 22
per cent of the total counties with Negro pupils remain
segregated, in zone two 52 per cent, and in the Mid-South
94 per cent. (2) The graph points to 1955 as the year with

the largest percentage of districts mixing Negro and white

2

children for the first time in each zone. Since the

beginning of 1956, there has been a steady decline in

desegregation. (5) By 1958 integration has almost come to

1The map in figure 7 indicates a division of the Border

States and the Mid-South into three roughly concentric
zones around the Segregated South. Zones one and two
represent the northern and southern parts of the Border
States, and zone three represents the Mid-SOuth.

2Since data regarding integration in Texas was not collected
till 1956, information as to the beginning of integration
in this state is not available for several of the counties.
This was mentioned in a letter to the writer, dated
December 6, 1957, by Mr. Patrick E. McCauley from the
Southern Education Reporting Service. In the same letter
it was also stated that this agency had only been able to
identify 58 out of the 65 districts reportedly desegregated
in regard to county location.

Rather than entirely omit the counties for which no in-
formation as to the beginning of integration could be ob-
tained, the following device was used in the preparation
of the graph in figure 7: In each of the three zones these
counties were assigned to 1955 or 1956 in the same propor-
tion as there were counties for which the date of initial
desegregation was known.

105

Figure 7

 

THREE ZONES OF THE DESEGREGATING SOUTH

 

 

 

 

.. . " E: zone I
‘ ’ ' ‘ [:3 zone 2
‘L_'°.°==—2°°3°° - ZONE 3

SCALE IN an.” I: SEGREGATED SOUTH

RATE OF INTEGRATION IN THREE SOUTHERN ZONES, l954-I957
(PERCENT OF TOTAL COUNTIES WITH NEGROES)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

50 [—— - I
.- c.9i’I ............
4o iée """""" a
..' I \ I
.- / . \\
/ I \\
.- / \\
/ \
I'- 30 ...'° I \
3 ... / \\ “.3.
g / \
DJ / \\ .°.
m 20 Jr 4x
/ \
/ \\
/
/
I0
i—x
I954 I955 I956 I957
ZONE I --------- ZONE 2 —-— ZONE 3 —

 

 

 

106

a complete standstill. (4) host of the counties in the
Border States began integration in 1954 and 1955, particu-
larly in areas closer to the Northern states. The rate Of
desegregation in the Border States decreased in 1956 and
1957, but it increased in the Mid-South in the last year.
This may indicate a movement of integration toward the
Deep South. However, the total amount Of integration in
the Mid-South is so small that one cannot draw any major
conclusions from this indication. The reasons why only
one county began integration in 1956 in the Mid-South
whereas seven did so in 1957 may be that voluntary desegre-
gation had virtually stopped in this area by 1955, that
legal procedures were then used to force integration, but
these cases were not decided until some time in 1957.

(5) The graph does not show the additional trend; namely
that most of the integration that did occur during the
past two years has been the result Of court action rather
than voluntary decisions on the part of individual communi-
ties.

It is evident that the movement of integration has now
in effect come to a barrier. More than ever before, the
Segregated South and particularly the Deep South appear
determined to continue the separation of the races as a
part Of the "Southern way of life". Their influence in
this respect has been reaching beyond the boundaries of
these Southern states and has increased the resistance to
desegregation in other parts of the South which had already

begun the process.

107

Desegregation in the Future

At the same time that Southern opposition seems to
strengthen, recent court orders appear to threaten the
so-far solid South, particularly Virginia. Arlington
County, Charlottsville, Norfolk, and NeWport News in that
state are under Federal Court orders to desegregate in
September, 1958. At the same time, however, the state's
segregation laws provide that every school will be auto-
matically closed if integration should occur. It is
interesting to note in this connection that even in
Virginia with its Official attitude Of "massive resistance",
voices are being raised in favor of keeping the public
schools open, even if some Negro pupils have to be admitted.
Only time can tell what will happen. The most recent
court decision to disintegrate in Little Rock for a given
period of time is looked upon as a possible way to delay
in Virginia. Whatever happens in.Virginia will be a
precedent for similar situations in other areas of the
solidly segregated South, and as such it is bound to prove

extremely significant.

108

VI. CONCLUSIONS

It has been shown in this study how much the educa-
tional status of the Negro has been influenced by court
decisions even before 1954, and how close the relation-
ship Of the Negro's educational advance is to improvements
in his social, political, and economic life. Both races
in the South realize this clearly. At the same time that
it may therefore intensify the Negro's efforts for inte-
gration, this fact results in increasingly stronger oppo-
sition of white Southerners, who may be willing to grant
the Negro an equal educational and economic position, but
not social equality.

Whatever motivates the racial feelings of white
Southerners, these attitudes have been effective in shaping
the present pattern of desegregation. They were found to
be associated with particular Southern regions Of culture
and area organization, and more indirectly of the natural
environment. In these areas integration is opposed in
various degrees: (1) solid resistance in the Segregated
South, (2) a predominantly "wait-and-see" attitude of the
Central Mid-South and East Texas which seems to be changing
to stronger opposition, and (5) general compliance with the
court decision on the part of the Border States, where
resistance has been restricted to scattered smaller areas

within the states.

109

These three major Southern regions have been established
partly by the Official attitudes of the states within them.
Smaller "Southern" areas in the Border States, however, have
distinctly shown that Deep South values and tradition form
one of the strongest elements of resistance to desegregation
even in the general atmosphere of compliance in the border
region. Similarly, "Northern" elements are found in certain
areas of the South, but their influence to date is less
clear since integration is limited mainly to the Border
States.

Community attitudes - positive or negative to
integration - have influenced the present pattern of
desegregation more than any other element which may at the
first moment give a very ”logical" explanation of the situa—
tion. In each Southern community the expressed attitude
toward desegregation is the result of a large number of
elements coming to a focus in that particular place. It
is evident that each Southern school district presents
therefore a particular background for integration which
is different from that in any other community.

At the present time, desegregation in the South has
arrived at a barrier. September, 1958, may bring an
indication of what can be expected in the future.

NO solutions to the Southern school segregation
problem are given in this discussion. This was not the
purpose Of the thesis. Instead, it is believed that this

study has made some other general contributions:

110

(l) A large number Of facts pertaining to integration
have been pulled together from the viewpoint of area. Much
has been written on the subject before and since the Supreme
Court decision, but these works have approached the problem
from other points of view - that Of the sociologist, the
political scientist, etc. In this geographical analysis
attention was focused on the spread Of integration over
parts Of the South since the court decision. The pattern
of desegregation was, therefore, placed in its total setting
of the whole Southern region which made it possible to study
the interrelationship of the areal distribution of desegre-
gation to other significant patterns in the South.

(2) More specifically, this thesis has examined the
desegregation problem from the viewpoint of cultural geog-
raphy. It gives an example Of how one of the most impor-
tant parts in the political organization Of this country,
namely, the Supreme Court, is acting as an agent in a
cultural process. This cultural process of decision making
on the part of thousands of individual communities in the
South has been influenced by a statement made by nine men
in the nation's capital and.has resulted.in the distribution
Of desegregation over the South as we see it today. Each
Negro child in a formerly white school is there because
somebody in the community made that decision based ultimately
on the new "law of the land" pronounced in Washington.

(3) One does not need to elaborate on the fact that
the topic of this study is significant because it presents

a very important current problem. It is not only a

111

Southern problem, although the South will ultimately have
to solve it, but it has become a national issue, tending to
divide the country into pro- and anti-segregation parties.
At the same time that this problem is one of current signi-
ficance, segregation of the races has been with the United
States since the beginning Of this country. Obviously, it
cannot be solved in a year, and perhaps not even in a
decade. But this does not mean that it should be left
alone and forgotten.

Last, but not least, the American segregation problem
has more than national implications. Not only does it
present a target of the USSR in attacks on the united
States, but disturbances like those in Little Rock receive
great publicity in any foreign country and do not contribute-

to greater respect for this country in the world.

112

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