Desegregation of the Lovett School

By Daniel Allman

Ever since the beginning of America’s history there has been one constant that has created controversy and disputes amongst the people. Race relations have been an issue from the time slavery emerged as an institution to present day when blacks are still fighting for their rights as equal citizens of this country. Throughout this span of over 300 years blacks and whites have held multiple roles in the relationships with each other. It has been a long, slow, and tough process, but blacks have finally begun to gain the recognition and treatment that every American citizen is granted through the Constitution. One of the most significant periods in this process was that of the 1950’s and 1960’s when blacks were pushing for desegregation in schools. The Lovett School was one of many schools around the state of Georgia and the entire country that was encountering pressure to desegregate during these decades. During the years following Brown v. Board of Education, Lovett entered a period of its history characterized by momentous decisions and bad publicity. Lovett became one of the first private schools to desegregate, but the process supplied plenty of controversy.

The Lovett School was founded in September of 1926 by Mrs. Eva Edwards Lovett. She was a very innovative educator who had a vision of a school that put more emphasis on the students’ lives. To her, an education should focus on developing a child in every aspect of their lives. So in the fall of 1926, twenty boys and girls entered the school in first, second, and third grade. The school first opened in midtown Atlanta, but only lasted there for several years before it had to be relocated due to its rapid growth in enrollment. The Lovett School continued to grow and add new grades, which finally led to the development of an official school in 1936. It was also during this same year that the Board of Trustees of The Lovett School first assembled. For the next eighteen years the school expanded under Mrs. Lovett’s guidance and belief in having a progressive style of learning that deals with “doing” rather than solely focusing on the textbook. A big date in Lovett’s history, which would later turn out to be even more significant, was February 2, 1954 when the school merged with The Cathedral of St. Philip. The Lovett School became known as Lovett Episcopal School, and in doing so passed all of the property’s ownership and control to The Cathedral. By 1960 the school had grown enough to require a new facility, which came to be its current location on Paces Ferry Rd. This location is where the first graduating class of 1962 would spend their final year of high school. A year later Lovett would face a decision that would impact the school tremendously as well as the entire community around it.[1]

While The Lovett School was setting up ties with the Episcopal Church, a major court decision was about to be made that would affect the entire country’s schooling system dramatically. The 1940’s and 50’s brought with them changes in American race relations. These shifts were a result of three major factors, which included the increase in blacks’ involvement in the military, the escalation of vocal support from white liberals, and the legal activism for civil rights. One of the main men who led this charge was future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall. Schooling became one of the main issues in segregation due to the discrepancies between black and white schools. There were clear problems with the quality of blacks’ education system in comparison to whites’. Transportation was unreliable if even available, facilities were in many cases “ramshackle shanties”, teachers were limited and so were their salaries due to lack of funds, and teachers were only provided “the most rudimentary instructional materials.” These conditions led to an outcry from the black community. In response to these conditions, Thurgood Marshall decided in June of 1950 to challenge the racially segregated public schools. Within a year Marshall gained the support of thirteen plaintiffs, one being Oliver Brown, who’s daughter Linda was in the third grade. They end up providing the famous name in the case Brown v. Board of Education. Marshall was challenging the segregation of elementary schools in Topeka, Kansas. After much battling in the district courts, the case finally reached the Supreme Court of the United States in late 1952. The decision following would be one for the history books. On May 17, 1954 Chief Justice Earl Warren read the courts decision, which stated, “We conclude that in the field of education the doctrine of ‘separate-but-equal’ has no place.” In referring to the courts decision of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, Warren overturned the decision and mandated the desegregation of public schools in the United States.[2]

The Supreme Court’s decision would eventually have an effect on every school in the country, both public directly and private indirectly. Following the decision, in the late 1950’s, several states including Georgia began looking for a way out of desegregation. One outlet was to create private schools, as Georgia did in developing “a private school plan.” Between the options of deserting local and federal government funding, desegregating, or closing the public schools and setting up privately funded independent schools, the choice was clear to many. To these people it was thought that a quality education could not be received in a mixed-race environment. However, the main setback for this plan was the source of funding. Churches were sought out by many groups seeking to establish religious private schools. State tuition grants were another way for private school students to pay for their education. In addition to the number of private schools that already existed at the time, there were many more that would wind up emerging from this plan. However, whether private schools wanted to desegregate or not, they would eventually all have to face the reality of a desegregated society, and change their policies.[3]

In 1963 Atlanta was experiencing plenty of controversy over race relations and the competing opinions of whites that resulted from this. There were both businessmen who could not see a prosperous future so long as segregation continued as well as those who in no way what so ever wanted to grant blacks more rights and equality. The emotions and disputes were brought to a climax when it was announced through a February 23 letter written by Lovett Episcopal School’s headmaster, Rev. James R. McDowell, that the Board of Trustees of the Lovett School had denied admission to three black applicants. One of the black applicants was Martin Luther King III, son of the civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.. The Board of Trustees’ March 27 minutes on the decision read as follows,

The admission of one or more negro students into The Lovett School under presently existing circumstances would involve many factors in the total life of the students, many of which factors are not recognizable to those outside the life of the school and those without responsibility for the school and its individual students.

Despite the school’s connection to the Cathedral of St. Philip, the Board still viewed the school as an “independent, autonomous institution, free of any outside ecclesiastical jurisdiction.” Therefore, they saw no conflict in their association with the church and their admission policies. The Board still recognized Lovett’s Christian orientation, and claimed that the school had no policy on racial segregation. However, they saw a threat to the peace and forward progression of the school, and thought that the acceptance of a Negro would have had a negative impact on both the students and the community as a whole. Hundreds of letters were written to the headmaster and the board of trustees in response to their actions. They were written both in support and in disgust of their decision, and were received from people all across the country. One of the motivations for standing behind their decision was that in many of the letters alumni were discussing pulling contributions and donations from the school. It was a decision the Board of Trustees of The Lovett School thought was necessary at the time, and a move that set in motion a series of events that would make the news in many years following.[4]

The first of these events was the resignation of Lovett’s headmaster, Rev. McDowell, in June of that year. Following the decision not to admit the three black students into Lovett, McDowell felt that his position and beliefs as a priest were being compromised. He knew that the teachings of the church were clearly against segregation, and therefore was left with no choice but to sever his ties with the school. Not only did the headmaster sever his ties with Lovett, but the Episcopalians cut any and all connections with the school as well. The Rt. Rev. Randolph R. Claiborne, Bishop of the Atlanta diocese, declared that because of the trustees’ actions they “have removed the school from the orbit of the discipline of the Episcopal Church” and therefore “forfeited the right of implied or official support” by the church. It would not be until the school revised its admission policy in respect to race that the Episcopal Church would return to considering Lovett an Episcopal school. However, even with all of these allegations, there were still clear evidences of ties between the Church and Lovett. These included the fact that fourteen of Lovett’s twenty-one trustee members were still required to be Episcopal communicants, the dean of St. Philips Cathedral was the board’s chairman, the school still celebrated Holy Communion every Wednesday and attended chapel every day, and the school’s Baccalaureate Service for graduation was still being held at St. Philip’s Cathedral. With the existence of all these associations still intact, and the statement by James M. Sibley, chairman of the board of trustees, that there was no change being considered in the school’s admission policy, many Episcopalians saw a need to act.[5]

The decision of Lovett and the resulting decision of the Episcopal Church gained much attention over the next several years. Churches were preaching sermons on the Lovett situation, which led some to walk out of the church, but many saw the need to speak out even more. In a letter written July 3 to Rev. Alfred Hardman, chairman of the board of trustees, from Rev. John B. Morris, Executive Director of the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity, Morris wrote, “steps will be taken in the fall at the opening of school to protest the trustees’ decision.” Following two paragraphs of abuse and a threat to picket at the school, it was made blatantly clear that people were going to act strongly against The Lovett School. The ESCRU would turn out to be the most driving force in the campaign against Lovett as Morris expressed his thoughts once again in a news letter sent in September of 1963. He emphasized manners in which they should protest Lovett’s disobedience to the Episcopal Church. They should involve themselves inter-racially in all of the schools services, maintain picketing of the school, constantly remind the Cathedral of St. Philip of the sin in segregation, and pray over the situation continuously to cure the “personal and social” wounds created through Lovett’s actions. In the fall of 1963, once school started back up, there were picketers marching. In addition to Atlantans, the school was picketed by Episcopalians from California, Michigan, Texas, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Massachusetts. These crowds consisted of all sorts of people ranging from priests to church-goers to ordinary people opposed to segregation. Two of the more prominent picketers were Rev. Kilmer Meyers and Rev. Malcolm Boyd. However, the protesting was not welcomed by every Episcopalian. There were many Episcopalians, including parents of students, members of the board, and even outsiders, who thought that the way some Episcopalians were going about their protest was not the way of the Church. One man attacked the ESCRU stating, “We all know that pickets and mass pilgrimages do not spell Episcopal Church, they spell NAACP or Communism.” This strong statement expressed the thoughts of many on how to orderly conduct one’s disagreement with something. However, the protesting continued on with very little affect on The Lovett School and its board of trustees.[6]

The next step Episcopalians took was to protest Lovett’s use of the Cathedral of St. Philip for their Baccalaureate service. Following the May 31, 1964 service, the ESCRU sent out a news letter describing the details of the service. One aspect that caught some attention was the verse used in the lesson for Evening Prayer. The verse was John 13:1-17 and 34-35, which commands everyone to “love one another.” The hypocrisy behind the words and the actions of both Lovett and the Cathedral rang loud and clear to members of the ESCRU. In response to these convoluted actions and messages that both institutions were sending out, the ESCRU saw a need to continue their protesting. The society released a statement declaring once again that, “any form of segregation or separation… is contrary to the will of Christ, and must be resisted by his church and its members.” This service for graduation would be a target for those protesting Lovett in several years to come, and as each new year came the protests increased in size and influence.[7]

In the spring of 1965 the Rev. Henri A. Stines of the ESCRU sent out a statement on The Lovett School situation reminding its members of the upcoming Baccalaureate Service in an effort to spark a big enough protest to get everyone’s attention. After stating that the protest a year earlier had not made a strong enough point, he went on to announce that in attendance at the upcoming protest will be both the President of the ESCRU, Mr. Malcolm E. Peabody, Jr., and the Vice-President, Rev. James P. Breeden. This protest is emphasized as needing to be a bigger demonstration than ever before. On May 30, 1965 about thirty local clergy and laity marched along Peachtree Rd. by the church. While doing so, Peabody Jr. posted a statement on the main church door stating their cause and beliefs on the situation. After being torn down, he posted another one, and in doing so compared his actions to that of Martin Luther’s posting of his “95 Theses” on the door of a church. However, once again to dismay, the pickets had a minimal impact on the attitudes of the church and school.[8]

A final protesting of the cooperation between The Lovett School and the Cathedral of St. Philip would take form once again the week leading up to the class of 1966 graduation service. However this time around the ESCRU took a different route in gaining the attention of the public. Beginning the Wednesday before the Baccalaureate Service the ministers, Rev. Robert Hunter and Rev. Albert Dreisbach, staged a ninety-eight-hour fasting inside the church’s confines. Rev. Hunter, a Negro priest, and Rev. Dreisbach, a white priest who was the associate director of the ESCRU carried out this protest to witness to the public their brotherly faith in God. The fasting was ignored by many attending the service, but did gain enough publicity to make a point. However, not all of the publicity was supportive of their actions. One newspaper article accused the two men of putting on this protest solely as a publicity stunt, rather than truly attempting to provide an understanding to Lovett and the Cathedral on the immorality of their decisions. It was thought that Hunter and Dreisbach were too extreme in their attempt to prove their point. This might have been the opinion of some, but the two clearly had some influence when looking at the schools actions in the months following their protest.[9]

After four years of controversial events and disputes The Lovett School ended its admission policy of only admitting white students to the school. In September of 1966 the chairman of the board, James M. Sibley, announced the reworking of the school’s statement on admissions to read, “subject to limitations of space and facilities, those applicants deemed best qualified… will be admitted without regard to race.” John A. Rabbe had said in October of 1963, when he was Acting Headmaster, that it would be “foolish” to say that Lovett would never integrate, and as it turns out, it was just a matter of time. The decision was commended by Rev. Morris of the ESCRU, where he then put the pressure on the school to act on their decision to truly put their policy into affect. The “first step” had been completed, and now it was up to Lovett to reach out to the qualified Negroes in the community.[10]

Since the 1960’s, Lovett’s admission policy has been revised to where it now reads,

The Lovett School admits students of any race, color, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and national or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. The Lovett School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and national or ethnic origin in administration of its employment practices, educational policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic or other school-administered programs.

While being one of the first private schools in the south to desegregate, it was also one of the first prestigious private schools to hire a black teacher, which it did in 1974. The school has made great strides in becoming a diverse community and creating a diverse culture to live amidst. Today, the school prides itself on its multiculturalism and inclusive attitude. This welcoming of diversity is one of the main reasons for Lovett becoming one of the most desirable private schools in the state of Georgia.[11]