Whole Thesis 02/23/15
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: “A Clear and Serious Invasion”: Slow Reactions and the First Pearsall Committee 6 Chapter 2: “A Sponge on a Brick Wall”: Voluntary Segregation in North Carolina 28 Chapter 3: “Getting to Z”: Creating “Moderation” from Extremism at the Special Session 51
of 1956 51
Conclusion 74
Acknowledgements 78
Introduction
As Thomas Pearsall lay dying from cancer at Duke Hospital, he reflected back over his time as one of the most important actors in the desegregation of North Carolina schools nearly a quarter of a century earlier. A man who prided himself on his racial tolerance, he was distraught over the idea that African Americans in the state might have misperceived his actions during that time. Though Pearsall honestly believed that he was working to preserve public education in the state, many African Americans disagreed. They believed that his actions, and those of the special policy committee on desegregation that he chaired, purposely slowed implementation of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown and actively made it more difficult for them to access quality education. Pearsall lamented, “they have been much more patient than I ever would have been…. I don’t want to go to the grave feeling I haven’t done the best I could for the blacks.”1
His torment was so great that his wife, Elizabeth, felt compelled to call then-Governor of North Carolina, Jim Hunt, and ask him to send “a respectable member of the black community” to come relieve Pearsall of his burden.2 Hunt sent a man from Durham, though Elizabeth was at
lunch when he visited and, significantly, never felt the need to get his name.3 The conversation
with this unknown man settled Pearsall’s soul, and he was soon able to pass away in peace. The questions Pearsall wrestled with on his deathbed in 1979 began officially on May 17, 1954, when the Supreme Court of the United States dismantled the precedent for legal
segregation set by Plessy v. Ferguson, but their roots went back much farther. In reaction to a string of court cases that emphasized equal opportunity in public education, North Carolina policymakers had spent the years leading up to Brown v. Board of Education attempting to 1 Interview with Elizabeth Pearsall by Walter Campbell, May 25 1988 (C-0056), in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 19.
provide actual “separate but equal” schools. In 1940, black school properties were valued at only $15 million, as compared to white school properties, which were valued at $100 million. By 1952, black schools were valued at over $60 million, an increase of 318 percent. In the same 12 years, white school property values only increased by 176 percent. During this period, the state per capita expenditure on black students rose almost 500 percent, while that for white students rose 285 percent.4 White students still received vastly more public resources then black students,
but the state was making an effort to equalize the educational opportunities
It was because of these efforts that Brown came as such an insult to the state’s leadership. The claim that “separate educational facilities were inherently unequal” was an affront not only to the history of white supremacy in North Carolina but to the state leadership’s recent actions.5
Unlike other Southern states, North Carolina had a reputation of being an “inspiring exception to southern racism,” although it simultaneously maintained a rigidly stratified system of racial segregation.6
While historians have thoroughly deconstructed North Carolina’s reputation as a progressive Southern state, only a few have delved into the way Thomas Pearsall and his committees mobilized the language of moderation in defiance of Brown: Anders Walker’s The Ghost of Jim Crow: How Southern Moderates Used Brown v. Board of Education to Stall the Civil Rights Movement argues that southern moderates like North Carolina Governor Luther Hodges used the discourse of moderation and a specific attention to black shortcomings as a method of continuing segregation in public schools; William Chafe’s Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom takes a narrower approach by focusing on Greensboro, North Carolina and the way the city represented the overlaps between
4 “North Carolina,” Southern School News, September 1954.
5Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas 347 U.S. 495 (1954)
progressivism and racism during the 1950s and 1960s; and Numan Bartley’s The Rise of Massive Resistance and George Lewis’ Massive Resistance: The White Response to the Civil Rights Movement both analyze how white resistance movements formed throughout the South.
Nowhere in the historiography, however, is there a focused examination of the way the North Carolina governors and the eventual Pearsall Committees, which were created to study the issue of desegregation, used various strategies under the guise of moderation to prevent North Carolina public schools from integrating. These books do offer some useful lenses through which to analyze the subject. William Chafe’s definition of the “progressive mystique” said that in North Carolina, progressivism was “a way of dealing with people and problems that made good manners more important than substantial action.”7 Anders Walker defines moderation during the
1950s in the South as a counterbalance between extremism and the management of the
desegregation crises.8 This thesis uses these definitions of progressivism and moderation when
demonstrating that the Pearsall Committees harnessed these ideologies as tools of black oppression during the aftermath of Brown.
I argue that the leadership of North Carolina used the concept of moderation as a tool to temper their policy of continued segregation after Brown. In the months following Brown, Governor William Umstead appointed the Special Advisory Committee on Education, which became known as the First Pearsall Committee, to study the state’s approach to desegregation. After Umstead’s death in November 1957, Lieutenant Governor Luther Hodges assumed the Governorship. On the recommendation of the First Pearsall Committee and with the support of the General Assembly, he formed the Second Pearsall Committee to continue studying
desegregation. The Second Committee eventually created the Pearsall Plan, a set of policies that 7William H. Chafe. Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom.
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 8.
allowed North Carolina to keep minimum compliance with Brown in the ten years after the decision. While the governor’s office and the Pearsall Committees operated under the official goal of keeping the public schools open, in practice they prioritized the public opinion of the white majority over the rights of the black minority and openly excluded blacks from the decision making process.
The first chapter contends that the executive branch, under the leadership of Governor William Umstead, emphasized slowness and research in order to maintain the status quo and prevent immediate desegregation in the months immediately following Brown. The Governor established the Special Advisory to the Governor, which became known as the First Pearsall Committee, in order to study how the state could legally and immediately resist Brown. The creation of the First Pearsall Committee and Committee’s creation of the Pupil Assignment Act were examples of the ways in which the executive branch actively postponed legitimate action concerning desegregation and allowed the state government to feign progress.
The second chapter explains that in 1955, African Americans were removed entirely from the decision making process when Governor Luther Hodges created the Second Pearsall
Committee. Likewise, the governor openly ignored black opinions while he promoted a policy of voluntary segregation, which encouraged blacks to continue attending segregated schools
voluntarily. White moderates lauded voluntary segregation on the grounds that it would prevent violence on the part of white supremacists. At the same time, however, voluntary segregation allowed these moderates to blame black citizens if they chose not to voluntarily segregate and violence did occur.
case of desegregation, while the voucher system allowed parents to apply for grants to send their children to private schools instead of attending desegregated public schools. This chapter argues that through local option and the voucher system, the Pearsall Plan gave more rights to the white majority, further disempowering minority African Americans who did not have the same voting or monetary power as their white counterparts. The North Carolina General Assembly voted for the plan almost unanimously during the Special Session of the legislature in 1956 and the white citizens of the state overwhelmingly passed the constitutional amendments that activated the plan in the state. This was likely because the plan reflected the desires of some of the state’s more radical segregationists while still appearing to take the needs of African Americans into consideration.
In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King famously said, “ I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.”9 As Thomas Pearsall lay on his deathbed, he
might well have had King’s words ringing in his head. No matter whether his intentions were pure, Pearsall and the North Carolina executive branch’s actions to preserve the state’s public school system curbed desegregation and actively withheld constitutional rights from the state’s black citizens.
“A Clear and Serious Invasion”: Slow Reactions and the First Pearsall Committee
Two months after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, two teenage girls applied for admission to an all-white high school in Colfax, North Carolina, a rural city about halfway between Winston-Salem and Greensboro. They had spent the previous year at Dudley High School, a black school in Greensboro. The girls based their transfer not on the basis of Brown, but on the fact that they were not black. They claimed to be of Scots-Irish, English, and Indian descent.
The principal of Colfax High School, W. H. Dewar, denied their applications. He insisted that he was not allowed to accept transfer students from the Dudley, no matter what their
situation. The girls appealed their application to the superintendent of Guilford County schools, E. D. Idol. Idol claimed that the girls could attend Colfax if they proved their racial descent. But, he added, “if they should be Negroes and desire to enter Colfax only on the basis of the recent Supreme Court ruling that segregation is not lawful, then we would have to say, ‘No’…. North Carolina is continuing segregation in the schools until the court decree is spelled out.”10
Idol’s statement represents the hesitancy that most North Carolina school leaders felt directly after Brown. In the unanimous decision, Chief Justice Earl Warren proclaimed, “We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.“11 African Americans across the country
celebrated this decision, agreeing with NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall that “once and for all, it’s decided and completely decided.”12 The Brown decision was supposed to herald a new
chapter in the lives of African Americans. While there were smaller cases leading to the Brown decision in the preceding 20 years, this was the first decision that would affect almost all African
10 “North Carolina,” Southern School News, October 1954.
11Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas 347 U.S. 495 (1954)
Americans, because almost everyone attended or knew someone who attended public schools. African Americans saw this as a breaking away at the foundation of segregation as a whole and imagined that soon, buses, restaurants, and all public facilities would be desegregated as well. As it turned out, change would be painfully slow.
It was unsurprising, of course, that school leaders like Idol were frustrated by the decision. The Supreme Court had proclaimed segregation in public schools illegal, but school leaders had no timeline or framework to begin desegregating their schools. Moreover, most school leaders were against desegregation in the first place. These school leaders were waiting for North Carolina Governor William Umstead to give them direction, and in the meantime, they chose to stick with the status quo.
Umstead and other state leaders spent the next year figuring out exactly how North Carolina would respond to the decision. These men believed their task was to to balance civil rights, southern tradition, and compliance with the Supreme Court. The state’s response was unique because of its subtlety. North Carolina would never become a landmark state for massive resistance, nor would it be a beacon of hope for the South’s African Americans. The first year after the decision situated North Carolina in between these two poles—preserving the schools, and keeping white supremacy alive. North Carolina Governor Umstead and Thomas Pearsall crafted a strategy of active inaction, consciously choosing to stick with the status quo until enough research could be done as to what North Carolina’s next steps should be. The strategy of active inaction was cloaked under the guise of North Carolina’s progressive history in order to halt desegregation immediately after Brown.
North Carolina’s response can only be understood fully in context with the rest of the South. Although Brown was not entirely unexpected, most of the Southern white community was appalled by the decision and by the perceived overstep of the federal government. The Citizens Council Movement began referring to the day as “Black Monday” in their propaganda pieces.13
Unsurprisingly, many white leaders who profited from segregation’s advantages echoed those feeling of anger. Most Southern politicians immediately spoke out against the decision. Mississippi Senator James O. Eastland defiantly proclaimed, “The South will not abide by nor obey this legislative decision by a political court.”14
Governor Herman Talmadge of Georgia was one of the most frank. Directly following the decision, Talmadge bitterly declared that the Supreme Court “has blatantly ignored all the law and precedent and usurped from the Congress and the people the power to amend the constitution and from the Congress the authority to make the laws of the land.”15 Talmadge
shared the conservative viewpoint that the Brown decision was inconsistent with the Constitution and that it usurped the rights of the states to manage their own affairs. Talmadge countered the Supreme Court’s attack with a harsh action plan. He concluded his address by threatening to close public schools in Georgia immediately if desegregation was forced upon the state.
In stark contrast to his neighboring governor’s rash strategy, North Carolina Governor William Umstead took a slower approach. Umstead took ten days to respond publically to Brown. Umstead’s actions leading up to his speech emphasized slowness, research, and
thoughtfulness. After being notified of the Supreme Court’s decision, Governor Umstead showed his restraint by refusing to meet with any reporters. Instead, he canceled the day’s meetings to read the decision and to meet with legal counsel to determine what the immediate consequences 13 Thomas P Brady. Black Monday. Association of Citizens’ Councils, 1955.
of the decision could be.16 A week later, he held another meeting with prominent state officials,
including State Attorney General Henry McMullen, Superintendent of Public Instruction Charles F. Carroll, Superintendent of the Budget D. S. Coltrane, and State Chief Justice M. V. Barnhill. The men discussed the major questions brought up by the Supreme Court decision, and Governor Umstead instructed the Attorney General and his staff to continue studying how the decision would affect North Carolina.17 The time that Umstead took to strategize and become informed
before making any sort of public statement differentiated him from other Southern politicians. Umstead’s eventual speech was full of hesitation and disappointment. He began his speech to the state by making it apparent that he believed the Supreme Court’s decision to be both regrettable and unnecessary. He harkened back to the 1868 ratification of the 14th
amendment in North Carolina, reminding North Carolinians that then-Governor W. W. Holden swore that the amendment would not prevent the state from operating separate schools for black and white students. Umstead then went on to remind his audience of North Carolina’s recent attempt to equalize the resources given to black and white schools. He claimed that teachers’ salaries had been fully equalized across the races. Both of these points situated North Carolina as a state that had taken measures to help its African American citizens, while still disagreeing with the Supreme Court decision. Umstead went on to proclaim, “the Supreme Court of the United States has spoken….This reversal of its former decisions is, in my judgment, a clear and serious invasion of the rights of the sovereign states. Nevertheless; this is now the latest Supreme Court interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment.”18 Umstead’s begrudging acceptance of the decision had a markedly different
16 “Transcription Session on the History of Integration in North Carolina”, September 9 1960, Folder 1774 in the Luther Hartwell Hodges papers #3698, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2.
17 “Supreme Court’s Decision on Integration,” Messages, Addresses, and Public Papers of William Bradley
Umstead: Governor of North Carolina, 1952-1954. (Raleigh: Council of State, State of North Carolina, 1960), 199. 18 “The United States Supreme Court Reverses Itself on Public Schools,” Messages, Addresses, and Public Papers
tone from governors like Talmadge. Although Umstead did not hide his unhappiness with the decision, he cautioned the state not to overreact before the Court released its implementation decision. Umstead gave no hints as to his plan to combat the decision, but his disappointed tone suggested that he would not quietly accept it.
At the beginning of June, Umstead attended the Conference of Southern Governors hosted by Virginia Governor Thomas Stanley in Richmond. Attorney General Harry McMullan and State Superintendent Charles F. Carroll accompanied him. In tune with his initial statement on Brown, the press release Umstead issued after the conference was measured and calm. Umstead stressed the fact that all of the states had begun to study the possible effects of the decision, a statement that perfectly
foreshadowed his creation of a Special Advisory Committee the upcoming August.19
Upon returning from the Conference of Southern Governors he commissioned the UNC Institute of Government to study the decision and write a report detailing the state’s possible responses and the effects that compliance could have on the state. James Paul, the author, detailed the history of race and education in the state and listed some possible ways of following a gradual method of desegregation. Paul’s main conclusion was that until the implementation decision, the state had the right to continue segregation.20 This document would eventually guide the Special Advisory Committee in their
deliberations and help to form North Carolina’s statewide policy regarding the decision. Paul’s document was the first major research endeavor Umstead commissioned concerning desegregation and it began Umstead’s trend of using the need for further research as an excuse for inaction.
Special Advisory Committee on Education
19 “Governor Umstead Attends the Conference of Southern Governors Richmond, Virginia,” Messages, Addresses,
and Public Papers of William Bradley Umstead: Governor of North Carolina, 1952-1954. (Raleigh: Council of State, State of North Carolina, 1960), 208.
After commissioning the Institute of Government report, Umstead next appointed a committee to again study the desegregation problem in North Carolina and to create a plan of action to prepare for the Court’s implementation decision. Umstead selected Thomas Pearsall, a former Speaker of the State House of Representatives, to lead the committee. Pearsall was a large landowner in Rocky Mount, North Carolina and had over 1,000 black employees living and working on his land. He was known for his thoughtful approach to tenant relationships, even hiring a county nurse to assist with childbirths and starting a cannery on his land to help his tenants store food for the winter. These actions earned him a Firestone-Award for improvement in landlord-tenant relationships. While he may have been a better landlord then some, even his wife Elizabeth acknowledged, “It was still paternalistic. But with Tom’s generation you tried to improve the quality of the tenets’ lives and give them access to more education.”21
Thomas Pearsall’s experience as speaker as well as his experience working with black employers as a landowner gave him the requisite skills to lead the committee. Pearsall’s reputation as a generous landlord struck the perfect balance between progressive and traditional. Umstead assumed he would be able to garner the support of black North Carolinians while still maintaining the historical racial hierarchy. He was exactly who Umstead needed to steer the state immediately after Brown. Umstead’s personal secretary Edward Rankin reminisced, “I think Tom was an ideal choice because he was a former Speaker of the House, a respected person…well known and well liked throughout the state. He was a sensitive person, a person who knew how to work with people in all walks of life.”22 Pearsall already had a good
relationship with Umstead doing special projects. He had just ended his service as Umstead’s appointed chairman of the Milk Commission for North Carolina.23
21 Interview with Elizabeth Pearsall by Walter Campbell, May 25 1988 (C-0056), in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 8.
22 Interview with Edward L. Rankin Jr. by James Jenkins, August 20 1987 (C-0044), in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 22-23.
It was important to Umstead that Pearsall’s committee represented a cross section of North Carolina life and that there were voices from the most affected communities, yet Umstead’s idea of what created a cross-section was problematic.24 The majority of the members of the committee came from the
eastern half of the state because the counties in this area had a larger population of black people than white people. The east had the most potential for violence because of desegregation. In the name of diversity, the committee included two black men, one black woman, and two white women. This was barely representative of North Carolina however, because the other 14 members of the group were white men.
The Special Advisory Committee members represented a wide range of occupations. Logically, educational workers had the strongest representation. A large number of the members were the presidents of state colleges and universities. Gordon Gray was the President of the University of North Carolina and Paul A. Reid was president of Western Carolina College. Two presidents from the state’s black colleges were asked to serve on the committee. F. D. Bluford was president of the Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro and J. W. Seabrook was president of Fayetteville Teacher’s College. Dallas Herring, Helen Kafer, James C. Manning, and I. E. Ready served on their local school boards. Hazel Parker and Ruth Currant were home demonstration agents. This was a government position that taught home economics and agriculture to young girls in their regions. The committee also included three lawyers: Fred Helms of Charlotte, W. T. Joyner of Raleigh, and Judge L. R. Varser, who had formerly sat on the Supreme Court of North Carolina. R. O. Huffman, J. H. Clark, Arthur D. Williams, and committee chairman Thomas Pearsall represented business and political interests. Rounding out the group were Holt McPherson and Clarence Poe, journalists whose respective papers The High Point Enterprise and The Carolina Farmer represented a range of political perspectives.25
24 “Transcription Session on the History of Integration in North Carolina”, 3.
25 “Advisory Committee Appointed to Study Segregation,” Messages, Addresses, and Public Papers of William
Getting the committee to represent any amount of diversity required extensive effort. Some people did not see the need to have African Americans on the committee, even though they were the largest stakeholders in the implementation of the Brown decision. A relation of Umstead’s wrote to him saying, "Better no committee at all than one besmirched with one or more Negroes, unless of course, you want and need their advice, which is inconceivable."26
While Umstead received the credit for putting together such a diverse group of citizens, it was actually Holt McPherson and the state superintendent, Charles Carroll, who had to convince Umstead that including black voices in the committee was the correct thing to do. In a letter, Charles Carroll explained that having African Americans on the committee would help it stand up to criticism, and that black members would be able to convince black community members of the “responsibility and obligation with which he has been endowed by the court.”27 Likewise, Holt McPherson made the inclusion of African
Americans on the committee a condition of his joining.28 McPherson requested that the committee
include five African Americans to proportionally represent the number of black people in the state, though Umstead only selected three prominent African Americans to join. Umstead rejected any recommendations for others, saying that the committee already had plenty.29 Without the assistance of
McPherson and Carroll it is possible that the committee would have been all-white, even though a quarter of North Carolina’s population was black.30 This moment was the first time the governor’s office
specifically limited black contributions to the state’s approach to desegregation. This pattern would continue for the next two years.
1960), 211-213.
26 "Letter from J. Martin Umstead to William Umstead", July 30 1954, Segregation Folder, Box 47 in the William B. Umstead Papers, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, North Carolina.
27 "Letter from Charles Carroll to William Umstead", July 7 1954, Segregation Folder, Box 47 in the William B. Umstead Papers, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, North Carolina.
28 Jacqueline Guffey Calaway, The Pearsall Program, 1954-1956 in North Carolina. M.A. thesis, Wake Forest University, Department of History, 1972, 68.
29 "Letter from William Umstead to Judge Mami Dowd Walker", August 2 1954, Segregation Folder, Box 47 in the William B. Umstead Papers, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, North Carolina.
African Americans in the state were not pleased with the committee’s make up. The Durham-based Carolina Times reported, “The appointments are positive proof that the Governor intends to do nothing to implement the Supreme Court’s ruling on the issue and would like a committee that will follow the pattern of conciliatory action or appeasement.”31 The main complaint was that the three
African American members were all state employees. This reduced their ability to speak freely or disagree with more powerful committee members because of the risk of retribution. F. D. Bluford and J. W. Seabrook were presidents of the two largest black institutions of higher education in the state. Hazel Parker was employed by the state government to teach African American women in Tarboro the principles of home economics. All three of the African American members’ careers were balanced entirely on the whims of the white-dominated state government, compromising their ability to represent the black community accurately.
In one instance, J. W. Seabrook presented a brief to the committee, attempting to give a moderate and achievable solution that reflected the state’s African Americans’ overwhelming desire to attend white public schools. Seabrook suggested a range of modest options including starting integration in areas with small black populations, gradual desegregation beginning with the next class of first graders, or sorting students into schools based on intelligence levels.32 Seabrook’s plan stressed individuals over race and
emphasized a quick but not immediate process of desegregation. The committee rejected it. Seabrook’s failure to get the committee to consider the most limited of options demonstrated the member’s
commitment to practicing only the minimum compliance with Brown.
The Pearsall Committee did not only limit the influence of black citizens within the committee, they also requested little input from black members of the public. At one point, the Pearsall Committee
31 “The Governor’s Advisory Committee,” Carolina Times August 14, 1954.
met with prominent members of the NAACP and other black community organizations to get their feedback. Most of those invited expressed the opinion that desegregation was worth the risk of school closures and white retaliation.33 They argued that the court decision had ordered immediate desegregation
and that anything less would be violating the law. Unsurprisingly, this meeting got heated. Clarence Poe, one of the more conservative members of the committee, strictly opposed everything the NAACP representatives were saying. He was adamant that immediate desegregation would endanger public schools all across the state.34 Thomas Pearsall left this meeting feeling as though the African American
leaders of the state would only be uncooperative. His conclusion resulted in even less participation from black citizens in the next iteration of the Pearsall Committee a short year later.
Most of the members of the Pearsall committee argued strongly against immediate integration because they did not believe that desegregation was the main goal of the committee. Although the committee had to obey the Supreme Court decision, most members felt that the committee’s
responsibility was to keep the schools open. The majority of the committee feared that North Carolinians would not vote to see their tax dollars used to support integrated schools, instead choosing to support the most radical segregationists in state elections. If the current legislators believed their jobs were threatened, the public education system that was the pride of the state would be disbanded. The committee’s true purpose was to buy time and let white people adjust to the Brown decision, avoiding any rash decisions by voters.35 This is why the committee became informally known in the press as the Pearsall Committee
to Save our Schools, a name created by Thomas Pearsall’s wife Elizabeth.36
33 Calaway, The Pearsall Program 77.
34 “Transcription Session on the History of Integration in North Carolina,” 14. 35 Interview with Edward L. Rankin Jr, 23.
White supremacist groups were already forming around the state and advocating for the closure of schools. In September, a group of North Carolinians formed the Durham-based North Carolina Association for the Preservation of the White Race Incorporated.37 The committee feared that
working too hard to desegregate the schools would give these groups more public support. This put the African American committee members in an even tougher position: it was nearly impossible to advocate for desegregated schools in a committee whose entire purpose was to cater to segregationists in order keep the schools open.
Brown v. Board Amicus Curiae Brief
One of the factors that determined the desegregation timeline was the upcoming Brown implementation decision. The court had invited North Carolina to present an amicus curiae brief to determine how flexible the implementation decision would be. Umstead’s advisors were torn as to whether or not to submit the brief. Attorney General Harry McMullen believed that it would be a mistake for North Carolina to present to the Supreme Court. The State Supreme Court Justices all agreed with the Attorney General, thinking it was best to “just ignore the whole situation.”38 There was concern on the
part of these men that presenting an argument in front of the court would make North Carolina a willing party to whatever the court finally decreed. Even though the brief would argue for the slowest rate of implementation possible, submitting the brief could make the state more susceptible to oversight from the federal government.
Thomas Pearsall, on the other hand, believed that the first Brown decision wasn't as unanimous as it appeared and that a compromise had been worked out that would allow for a
37“North Carolina,” Southern School News, October 1954.
weak second decision.39 He and others felt that submitting the brief was North Carolina’s best hope of
receiving a weak implementation decision and more flexibility over how the state desegregated. Umstead listened to the arguments made by his advisors but eventually decided on his own.40 This decision likely
came after consultation with several other Attorneys General across the South, who all advised that submitting a brief would not make North Carolina any more bound to the final decision then the states that did not submit a brief.41
Umstead decided that Assistant Attorney General I. Beverly Lake would compose and present North Carolina’s brief. Lake was a North Carolina native who received his law degree from Harvard Law School and returned to North Carolina to enter a private law practice.42 After working for W. T. Joyner,
one of the eventual members of the First Pearsall Committee, he was hired as a law professor at Wake Forest College. Lake stayed on the law faculty at Wake Forest for 18 years.43 After a short stint in
Washington D.C. working for the federal government, he received an offer from North Carolina Attorney General Harry McMullen to become an Assistant Attorney General. Stating, “Washington is the most beautiful city I have ever known, especially when looking at it through the window of a South-bound plane,” he hurried back to North Carolina to join Harry McMullen’s team in late 1950.44
Lake seemed a good choice to write the brief because he was a talented legal scholar and his commitment to the state of North Carolina could not be questioned. The choice of Lake was a telling one,
39 "Letter from Thomas Pearsall to Luther T. Hodges", August 7, 1954, Segregation Folder, Box 47 in the William B. Umstead Papers, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, North Carolina.
40 “Letter from Thomas Pearsall to Holt McPherson,” September 5, 1954, Folder 7 in the Thomas Jenkins Pearsall papers #4300, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 41 “Letter from Max Cogburn to Harry McMullen,” July 7, 1954; “Letter from Albert Young to Harry McMullen,” August 9, 1954; “Letter from Richard W. Irvin to Harry McMullen,” July 23, 1954, Folder 7 in the Thomas Jenkins Pearsall papers #4300, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
42 Interview with I. Beverly Lake by Charles Dunn, September 8 1987 (C-0043), in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 17.
particularly considering that Lake was a publically known racist and segregationist. In a letter to Thomas Pearsall he declared, “so far as I am concerned I am prepared to spend the rest of my life fighting against the mongrelization of North Carolina.”45 Choosing such a blatant segregationist to write the State’s brief
invalidates Umstead as a moderate political leader. Lake’s legal prowess gave him the ability to argue for the slowest possible desegregation timeline, concealed under the guise of common sense.
The brief that Lake created was a piece of legal mastery. Lake split the argument into four main sections. In the first, Lake established that directing the school boards to admit African American children to the school of their choice immediately had no historical precedent and would exceed the limits of a federal court. For constitutional methods of implementing the first Brown decision, he suggested that North Carolina be allowed to either assign students to schools on the basis of residence alone; segregate students on the basis of sex, intelligence, or achievement tests; or discontinue the present statewide school system.46 Lake continued by arguing that even if the court had the authority to force immediate
desegregation, it was not under any requirement to use that authority and could rather permit a “program of gradual adjustment.”47
In his third section, Lake argued that not only was the court not under any requirement to use its authority but it should not use its authority because any overarching decree would not acknowledge the variety of race relations found throughout North Carolina.48 A different strategy would be needed for the
mountainous areas of the state, the rural areas of the state, and the larger cities as all had different racial histories. Lake proceeded with this argument in his final section, saying that “a decree that may be workable under conditions prevailing elsewhere may have grave and far reaching consequences if applied
45 “Letter from I. Beverly Lake to Thomas Pearsall,” November 23 1954, Folder 6 in the Thomas Jenkins Pearsall papers #4300, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 46 Brief of Harry McMullan Attorney General of North Carolina as Amicus Curiae, p. 13, Brown v. Board of
Education of Topeka Kansas, 349 U.S. 294 (1955). 47 Brief of Harry McMullan, 13
to the public schools of North Carolina.”49 Lake concluded that desegregation would cause violence in the
state of North Carolina and that the victims would be children, as the ensuing violence would disrupt their education. Ironically, his argument completely ignored the fact African American children in the state were already victims of an unequal educational system.
I. Beverly Lake supported his brief’s claims with arguments similar to Umstead’s first speech on the matter. Lake claimed that North Carolina was “the land of opportunity for negro teachers,” saying that North Carolina employed more black teachers than New York, even though both states had the same number of African Americans.50 Lake rightly stressed the diversity of the state, explaining that a
desegregation plan for an area with a smaller concentration of African Americans, like the mountains, might not be effective for an area in the rural east. Another of Lake’s main claims was that black students were more likely to be “retarded” than white students, defining retardation as students who were old for their assigned grade level. Stating that “whatever the explanation, the fact remains,” Lake insinuated that this was not due to a lack in teacher preparation nor the extra responsibilities of the students but rather an innate condition of African American students themselves.51
Before filing, the Attorney General’s office sent out a questionnaire to all of the state’s superintendents. The goal of the questionnaire was to show the Supreme Court the opinions of the state’s educational professionals about desegregation. Lake attached the superintendents’ responses to the brief in an addendum. Unsurprisingly, most of the superintendents believed desegregation would cause disorder in their school systems. One superintendent said, “there would be riots, boycotts, and other disturbances.”52 Another claimed desegregation “would result
in an armed riot with possible bloodshed on both sides.”53 While violence was a legitimate
concern after Brown, the survey itself was problematic. First of all, all of the superintendents interviewed were white. This meant there was no African American perspective on the matter to explain why desegregation was essential for African American students. Second, some of the questions were leading. Question 6 asked, “How many of the schools in your unit, now used exclusively for white children, could accommodate any substantial number of Negro children without displacing any white children?”54 The focus on displacement stressed the inconvenience
for white children once desegregation began and ignored any inconvenience for black students. Despite its many flaws, Lake’s brief was effective. The resulting implementation decision, widely known as Brown II, took many of its key points directly from the North Carolina brief. Chief Justice Warren delivered the opinion. Like Lake, he stressed the steps already taken by Southern states to reduce discrimination in schools. He acknowledged that a variety of solutions would be needed to desegregate each individual school system. Justice Warren also agreed with Lake that public opinion was important in this matter and gave lower courts the right to take public opinion into the decision.55
After the decisiveness of the first Brown decision, the implementation decision
disappointed many integration activists. Yale Professor of Law Trina Jones notes that typically when the Supreme Court finds a constitutional violation, it requires an immediate solution.56 The
Brown II decision diverged from this pattern and sided with white public opinion. Jones enumerates the many reasons why African Americans viewed Brown II as anticlimactic. She asserts that the Warren court completely rejected the plaintiff’s requests for immediate
desegregation and declined to provide any substantial timeline along which desegregation had to occur. Likewise, putting desegregation in the hands of the district courts gave those who had 54 Ibid 58.
55 Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. at 299-300 (1955).
previously supported segregation authority over the entire process.57 The vague language of
“good faith” and “all deliberate speed” meant that the Supreme Court bound the lower courts to little accountability.58
Umstead and Thomas Pearsall considered Brown II a win. Such an open-ended timeline would allow them to postpone desegregation as long as they wanted. As long as it appeared to the federal government that they were making steps toward desegregation, it would not matter how small those steps were. Lake’s brief was crucial for desegregating North Carolina schools as slowly as possible.
Creating the Report
After Lake submitted the brief, the committee focused back on its initial challenge. It needed to create a plan that would slow desegregation as much as possible and have it ready to present to the legislature by the time the January 1955 session began. Pearsall was determined to have his group as informed as possible. Before every meeting, he sent out long lists of required reading.59 This reading included updates on the legislative activity of other Southern states,
recent books and articles that the committee might find useful, and pertinent letters from the public that listed novel solutions the committee might not have considered.
No amount of reading material could create an easy consensus. The committee debated the report’s details up until the last possible moment. Holt McPherson completely rejected an early draft claiming that it was an outright defiance of the Supreme Court.60 A later draft
included a recommendation that the state, the counties, and the cities accelerate school 57 Jones, “Brown II,” 13-14.
58 Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. at 299, 301 (1955).
59 "To the Governor's Special Advisory Committee on Education" September 22 1954, Segregation Folder, Box 58 in the William B. Umstead Papers, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, North Carolina.
construction so that equal facilities could be made available to everyone. Attorney General Henry McMullen and I. Beverly Lake felt that school construction should instead be used as a bargaining chip to keep African Americans in their own schools.61 Pearsall and his committee
removed the recommendation because support from Attorney General’s Office would be crucial when the report went to the General Assembly.
Lake and the Attorney General were not the only ones who had reservations about the report. One of the biggest debates when forming the report surrounded a resolution of protest that stated desegregation “cannot be accomplished and should not be attempted.”62 Seabrook went as
far as to threaten to submit a minority report with the plan to attempt to have the resolution removed from the final report.63 He believed that the statement was a direct contradiction of the
Supreme Court decision. The statement, however, was never removed and the committee somehow convinced Seabrook not to submit a minority report.
In a later interview Pearsall admitted that he was afraid that the African Americans on the committee would be unwilling to sign the report once the public knew its contents. Having a unanimous committee was important to Pearsall. He believed it would be easier to convince the legislature to pass the bills recommended in the report if the entire committee stood behind them. Pearsall made sure to get the three signatures before the final meeting ended, knowing that it was unlikely he would have that opportunity again. Pearsall’s fear indicates that he knew the black community would not readily accept the contents of the report and that the black members of the committee would receive backlash for recommending it. His predictions eventually proved to be correct.
The only person who did not sign the report during the committee’s final meeting was Dallas Herring. Before joining the committee, Herring was an active member of the Duplin County School Board. Herring had previously led a county-wide interracial movement to improve his county’s schools and felt very strongly about the preservation of the state school system.64 Herring believed some of the more prominent members of the committee, Pearsall and
Joyner specifically, were making all of the committee’s decisions. Herring particularly took issue with the report’s recommendation “that North Carolina try to find means of meeting the
requirements of the Supreme Court’s decision… before consideration is given to abandoning or materially altering [our school system]. Only time will tell whether that is possible.”65 Herring
did not think that the committee should acknowledge the possibility of school closures in any way.
While these deliberations were happening, North Carolina suffered a distressing loss. On November 7, 1954, Governor Umstead passed away. He had been crippled by ill health after a heart attack only a few days after his term began in January of 1953. Within hours, Lieutenant Governor Luther Hodges replaced him as Governor of North Carolina. Hodges quickly became the new leading actor in the state’s response to Brown.
After the final meeting of the Committee, Governor Hodges called Herring, angered to hear that he had not signed the report. Herring explained his situation and promised that he had no plans to file a minority report. He did not want to put his name on something that went against his beliefs. Hodges confessed that he also disagreed with the statement and that he believed it was necessary to reassure the white supremacists. Once Hodges promised never to allow a single
64 Interview with William Dallas Herring by Jay Jenkins, February 14 1987 (C-0035), in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 4.
school to close, Herring signed the report.66 With Herring’s signature, the committee was
unanimous. The report was officially submitted to the governor on December 30.
The report consisted of four official recommendations and conclusions to be presented to the General Assembly. The first was a decisive statement saying that “the mixing of the races forthwith in the public schools throughout the state cannot be accomplished and should not be attempted.”67 The second reaffirmed the position that public support was crucial to the
continuation of the state’s public schools and that desegregation should be carried out on a local level. The third elaborated on this position, saying that enrollment and assignment were local matters and should be determined by local school boards. The last conclusion asked for the legislature to create a permanent advisory committee that would be dedicated to continuous “study, attention, and perhaps legislative action.”68
In the General Assembly
Pearsall and his fellow committee members felt their work was done when they submitted the proposal. The day before the report was supposed to be presented to the
legislature, Hodges asked Pearsall to produce a bill to go along with the report. Hodges reasoned that if the legislature had the opportunity to draft the bill themselves, they would not follow the report’s recommendations as strictly. Using Alabama’s statutes as a guide, Pearsall drafted three bills to present to the legislature along with the report.69 The first bill transitioned enrollment and
assignment of students from the state level to the local level. This would move the responsibility of desegregation from the state to individual school systems. If the NAACP or other groups
66 Interview with William Dallas Herring, 13.
67 “Report of the Governor’s Special Advisory Committee on Education.” 68 Ibid.
wanted to ensure that every school district was desegregated, they would have to sue the school districts individually, instead of the state, which would require far more resources. The first bill became known as the Pupil Assignment Act.
The second bill was a resolution that mirrored the first conclusion of the report, saying that desegregation “cannot be accomplished and should not be attempted.”70 The third bill
established a permanent legislative committee to continue to study how to comply with Brown while keeping desegregation to a bare minimum in the state. Similar to the first Pearsall Committee, a permanent Legislative committee would have more resources to study the
desegregation issue than a special committee appointed by the governor. These bills, along with the report, were presented to the lawmakers on January 6, 1955.
The North Carolina General Assembly spent the following months debating the bills before their eventual passage that April. One of the biggest debates was again over the phrasing of the resolution, which had previously caused controversy in the committee. The entire text of the resolution stated, “The committee is of the opinion that the mixing of the races forthwith in the public schools throughout the state cannot be and should not be attempted.”71 Many in the
General Assembly were upset about the insertion of the word “forthwith.” “Forthwith”
insinuated that at some point in the future the mixing of races could occur, but it should not be attempted at that moment. They believed that the word should be removed for a more powerful statement in opposition of the Supreme Court.72 Eventually the word was taken out, and the
strongly worded resolution passed unanimously in the legislature.
The other major bill presented by the first Pearsall Committee, the Pupil Assignment Act, was also contentious. Two competing bills were introduced during the session. On February 18, 70 “Report of the Governor’s Special Advisory Committee on Education.”
Representative Sam Worthington of Pitt County proposed that state citizens be allowed to vote on a constitutional amendment that would create a system of private segregated schools. The amendment would revoke the state constitution’s promise that public education be provided to all students. Hodges countered this bill, saying that it was “unnecessary and untimely to go this far.”73 Legislators seemed reluctant to act on a measure that extreme before the implementation
decision was heard the coming May. Hodges eventually formed a compromise with
Worthington. Hodges promised to call a special session of the legislature if the implementation decision was extreme, while Worthington agreed to retract his bill.74
Representative B.I. Satterfield of Person County introduced a second bill that would deny state funds to any city or county that attempted to desegregate their schools.75 Satterfield was
worried about the six or seven superintendents, out of almost 200, who had responded to the brief survey saying that they felt their school system was ready to desegregate. According to Satterfield, any amount of desegregation would be bad for the state and disrupt the social fabric. His bill, although directly contradicting the Supreme Court, would prevent desegregation unless the school districts wanted to become entirely self-sustaining. In contrast, Pearsall’s bill would technically allow desegregation if a school district desired.
Satterfield’s worry was completely incongruous with the point of the Pupil Assignment Plan. The Pupil Assignment Plan put school attendance and assignment requirements in the hands of local school boards. This meant that the NAACP and other advocacy organizations would have to go against each individual school board in court, instead of being able to consolidate the efforts at the state level. By diluting the NAACP’s efforts across the state, the
Pupil Assignment Act would preserve segregation for as long as possible. Likely because of these reasons, the General Assembly eventually passed Pearsall’s bill.76
Conclusion
The first year after the Brown v. Board decision was a contentious time in North
Carolina. White supremacist groups began consolidating their efforts, while at the same time the NAACP began putting more pressure on the North Carolina government to comply quickly with the Brown decision. To appease the segregationists, preserve the state’s public schools, and prevent violence, Governor Umstead enacted a plan of slowness. The Governor’s response to Brown, the make up of the Special Advisory Committee, the Brown II Brief, and the Pupil Assignment Act were all methods of slowing down North Carolina’s rate of response and making desegregation more difficult. This tactic set the tone for the next two years of dealing with the Brown decision.
“A Sponge on a Brick Wall”: Voluntary Segregation in North Carolina
“There are those who insist that in the light of recent court decisions… our plans for
development of our Negro institutions must end…My advice in planning for higher education in North Carolina will be based on the assumption that our Negro institutions will continue to be needed and used by members of the Negro race, and that the communities, the state, and the nation, will benefit therefrom.”77
With these words, Governor Luther Hodges ended the November 1955 Founders Day address to students and faculty at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College. The statement insinuated that desegregating public schools would remove the need for historically black institutions like NC A&T. Hodges hoped his speech would convince this rising class of educated African Americans to see the importance of a slow desegregation process. He saw the young people before him as the future leaders of their community and desperately needed their help to stop immediate integration.
From the outset, Hodges’s pitch did not go over as well as he planned. When he walked into the room, the students showed their disregard by refusing to rise.78 At two instances during
the speech, the audience interrupted Hodges. The first disruption was a “discourteous snicker, highly audible.”79 This interruption came around the time Hodges claimed that North Carolina
had “consistently operated with the belief that the youth of the Negro race was as much entitled 77 “Address at the Founders’ Day Program of the Agricultural and Technical College of North Carolina,” Messages,
Addresses, and Public Papers of Luther Hartwell Hodges: Governor of North Carolina, 1954-1961, Vol. 1, (Raleigh: Council of State, State of North Carolina, 1960), 256-257.
78 “Transcription Session on the History of Integration in North Carolina”, September 9 1960, Folder 1774 in the Luther Hartwell Hodges papers #3698, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 44.
to the benefits of higher educational opportunities as anyone else.”80 The second disruption
occurred a few minutes later, when about half the audience began loudly shuffling their feet. The noise was so loud that Hodges stopped speaking. Accounts differ, but many students claimed they were reacting to the Governor’s use of the offensive term ‘Nigra’ instead of ‘Negro.’ Hodges countered these accusations by insisting that it was only a mispronunciation and that the disruption was premeditated.81
Hodges held very specific ideas about the way the black community in North Carolina regarded desegregation, and believed that “the feelings which caused the interruptions of the speech at A & T College in Greensboro did not accurately represent North Carolina’s black citizenry.”82 Hodges was convinced that the black community desired to remain in segregated
schools as long as those schools had facilities and resources equal to those afforded to white students. Any arguments to the contrary he blamed on the meddling of outside interest groups like the NAACP. While some African Americans in the state would have preferred to attend school with other black students, it was far from true that every African American in the state had come to this conclusion. Hodges’s interaction with the A&T students that November highlighted his complete misunderstanding of the state’s African American population.
Hodges further displayed this disconnect when he appointed the state’s permanent committee to study segregation in the state. This committee, which became known as the Second Pearsall Committee, was comprised of seven lawyers and politicians and was again led by Thomas Pearsall. For a variety of reasons, the all-white committee consciously avoided the opinions of blacks who supported any kind of immediate desegregation. While the committee researched a permanent way to keep “radical” segregationists from shutting down the public 80 “Address at the Founders’ Day Program,” 250, 256.
81 Ibid, 250.
school system, Hodges used the discourse of moderation to promote voluntary segregation as a tactic to keep the system of segregation alive in North Carolina schools. Hodges’s strategy of voluntary segregation and the creation of the Second Pearsall Committee widened the chasm between the Governor’s administration and North Carolina’s black communities by continuing the paternalism and disconnect that characterized North Carolina’s approach to the desegregation problem.
Forming the Second Pearsall Committee
Because of Luther Hodges’paternalism and the committee’s narrowly defined purpose, the Second Pearsall Committee was significantly more one-dimensional than the First Pearsall Committee. This is significant because the First was already poorly representative of North Carolina. Although the committee was formed with authorization and funding from the General Assembly, Governor Hodges appointed its members. Unlike the committee Umstead formed a year prior, Hodges’ second committee was much smaller, all male, and all white. He purposely chose three members from the eastern half of the state, three from the western half, and one from Raleigh to ensure that the committee geographically represented the entire state.83 In spite of this
geographic balance, he made no effort to include a variety of racial, socio-economic, or gender perspectives.
The men Hodges did choose shows his forethought into the committee’s next task, passing the eventual Pearsall Plan in the General Assembly. In addition to Thomas Pearsall, William T. Joyner and R. O. Huffman returned from the first committee. Joyner was one of the state’s most prominent lawyers, and Huffman was a civic leader and prominent businessman
from Morganton.84 The other four members were representatives from the state legislature. The
two state senators invited to the committee were Senator Lunsford Crew of Roanoke Rapids and Senator William Medford of Waynesville. State Representatives Edward F. Yarborough of Louisburg and H. Cloyd Philpott of Lexington acted on behalf of the North Carolina House of Representatives.85 The combined legislative, legal, and business experience of these men would
ensure that any plan created by the committee would pass in the General Assembly. Hodges purposely chose members that represented his specific views on how
desegregation should be accomplished. He stated that the committee members “were thoroughly in support of public schools and public education. At the same time, they recognized in a realistic manner the attitudes of the average citizen in North Carolina to the racial problem.”86 Hodges
had very specific definitions of what it meant to be “realistic” and an “average citizen.” Anyone who wanted to begin desegregating immediately was not considered either realistic or average. He publically labeled those who disagreed with him as extremists, helping him control the entire public discussion on desegregation.
For the same reasons, Hodges did not want to include African Americans because he believed they could be susceptible to influence from the NAACP, which he saw as an extremist group on par with the white supremacist groups being formed around the state. When describing the eventual Pearsall Plan, Hodges wrote, “we made it clear that the plan was designed to
discourage attempts by the NAACP and other groups to force integration, and at the same time to discourage demands for more drastic steps such as a complete shutdown of the state’s public
84 William Stevens Powell, “Robert Obediah Huffman,” Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988) 223-224.
85 “Address on State-Wide Radio Television Network,” Messages, Addresses, and Public Papers of Luther Hartwell
Hodges: Governor of North Carolina, 1954-1961, Vol. 1, (Raleigh: Council of State, State of North Carolina, 1960), 204.
schools.” 87 Angry at African American insistence on integration, Hodges claimed that his
committee was a moderate force between the two extremes of the NAACP’s demands for integration and white supremacists’ calls for the shutdown of the state’s schools.
Hodges never once stated that he believed an African American would advocate for immediate desegregation of the schools for reasons other than outside influence. Hodges was profoundly disappointed with the first committee’s earlier meeting with black leaders from around the state.The men in that meeting had, according to Hodges, promoted a policy of noncooperation that did not fit into his vision for the new committee.88 Hodges believed that the
African Americans on the first committee had struggled with their appointments because of pressure they felt from the rest of the African American community. As a result, Hodges felt that on such a small new committee, “a Negro member…would have to work under almost
impossible conditions because of outside pressure.”89
By excluding African Americans for their own supposed good, the leadership of North Carolina determined the needs of African Americans without letting them voice their opinions. Thomas Pearsall demonstrated this paternalism when he justified this exclusion by citing the poor the reception of the first committee’s African Americans when they returned to their
hometowns. Pearsall vaguely referred to “what they did to poor Hazel Parker” upon her return to Tarboro, North Carolina as a reason to protect African Americans from the negative
consequences of working with the committee.90
Pearsall agreed that the committee would function better without African Americans, but based his opinion on the fact that a black member was more likely to advocate for desegregation
87 Ibid, 93.
88 “Transcription Session on the History of Integration in North Carolina,” 16. 89 Hodges, Businessman in the Statehouse, 82.
instead of the stated goal of the committee. Pearsall entirely missed the irony that African
Americans were barred from the desegregation committee because of their desire to desegregate. He stated, “we found first and foremost in the minds of the Negroes … was immediate admission to the public schools of North Carolina, disregarding completely our primary objective, and that was to preserve the public schools.”91 The Second Pearsall Committee’s goal was the same as
that of the First: to protect the public schools from white supremacists while abiding by Brown. Desegregation was never the objective.
The belief that desegregation would end white people’s support of schools and result in public school closures was what kept the committee incapable of successfully working with the African American community. Even though African Americans were excluded from being committee members, Pearsall and the other six men held one final meeting with members of the black community in order to receive feedback. One account says that they asked the three African Americans from the first committee to each ask three black men who were not public officials to appear before the new committee.92 Another account describes finding 15 African
Americans from Greensboro and Charlotte without any stipulations as to who they were or what type of background they had. No matter how they were found, this eventual group agreed with the black leaders who met with the first committee; they believed that immediate desegregation and the restoration of black civil rights was worth the risk of public school closures. Pearsall recounted, “and the statement by the Greensboro man was to the effect that he didn’t care what the effect on the public schools was. Stand or fall, he was going to have integration of the public schools.”93 Neither Hodges nor Pearsall discussed whether the state government had the power to
91 “Transcription Session on the History of Integration in North Carolina,” 69.
92 John E Batchelor, Rule of Law : North Carolina School Desegregation from Brown to Swain, 1954-1974, PhD diss, (North Carolina State University, 1992), 171.
force immediate desegregation without any disruption to the state schools. The belief that desegregation would result in public school closures was so crucial to the ideology of the committee that an alternative was unthinkable.
On The Second Pearsall Committee
In addition to selecting the committee members, Hodges’ hired two segregationists to serve as the committee’s staff. Because it was authorized as a permanent committee by the legislature instead of only the Governor’s Office, the Second Pearsall Committee’s structure was different from that of the First. While the first committee met sporadically, about once a month, the second committee met almost weekly. The first committee considered their office to be the basement of Pearsall’s home in Rocky Mount. The second committee received funds to open an office in Raleigh.94
The Second Committee was able to hire a permanent staff, consisting of a secretary, W. W. Taylor, and legal counsel, Thomas Ellis. Recommendations by Hodges’ trusted advisors formed the basis of the hiring process. Colonel William Joyner, who served on both the first and second committees, suggested Ellis for his position. Dave Coltrane, the State Budget Officer and one of Hodges’ favorite aides suggested Taylor.95
Although Ellis and Taylor were hired as the committee’s staff, they did not always agree with the stances and actions taken by the committee. Both were strict segregationists and often inserted their beliefs into their work. Taylor came from an area in North Carolina with a 66% black majority.96 Because of this, he knew that any movement for desegregation would directly
94 Hodges, Businessman in the Statehouse, 84.
95 Interview with Edward L. Rankin Jr. by James Jenkins, August 20 1987 (C-0044), in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 37.
