The South is a lovely place. The weather is generally fair, the sweet tea is delectable, and the people are hospitable. There is a pride in the South unmatched by any other region of the country. There is simply no place like it. But like every other region in the world, the illustrious South is not without a troubled past. Fortunately, it has been a growing experience. The state of Georgia shares in this experience and has made many strides since the abolishment of slavery in 1864. Public school integration is one such milestone that Georgians originally fought with, but proved to be a substantial leap towards the equality of white and black races. Within the state, Gwinnett County made the same leap through integration, though Gwinnett's public school integration was substantially less problematic than the overall integration of the state. Largely due to the county's youth, Gwinnett's integration saw virtually no opposition.
When Brown v. Board of Education was passed in 1954, Georgia made its stance on integration clear through legislation. In February of 1955, The General Assembly of the State of Georgia approved legislation directly pertaining to separation of races in public schools. Under the authority of the Assembly, law was created which provided that,
No state or local funds derived from taxation or otherwise, shall be appropriated, paid out, used, or in any wise expended, directly or indirectly for . . . support of any public school district or system in this State which does not provide separate schools for white and colored children . . . in which all the white and colored children attending public schools do not attend separate schools.
Through this legislation, the State Assembly concretely demonstrated the state's stance on integration and had no change in heart the following years. In 1957, the General Assembly of the State of Georgia developed a resolution that called for the impeachment of certain U.S. Supreme Court justices because of the decisions they made in Brown v. Board and other similar cases. In reaction to the Brown v. Board case, the Assembly accused the justices of denying to the states sovereignty reserved to them by the 10th Amendment which included state power to regulate public education. The Assembly solicited the Senate and the House of Representatives to institute impeachment proceedings. (1)
The Assembly of the State of Georgia did not stop with just passing of state law and wild assertions of impeachment. In the previous year, The Georgia Assembly developed a resolution in response to a U.S. District Judge in Ohio for
His sportsmanship in refusing to supinely surrender to the absurd directives of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ordering him to frame decrees providing for immediate desegregation of the public schools in Hillsboro, Ohio.
The Assembly went on to notify the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives of its "admiration for Judge Druffel," and in the resolution included instruction for the entire resolution to be transmitted to Judge Druffel so that he would know of Georgia's support. (2)
Needless to say, the year that followed the Brown v. Board court ruling did not have immediate results in school desegregation in Georgia. In 1955, there were some changes in segregation, but none dealt directly with the public school systems. For instance, the Georgia Medical Association agreed to grant full membership to black doctors in county medical associations, blacks were members of several Georgia State League baseball clubs, nine cities had black policemen serving and five counties had black deputy sheriffs. In addition, widespread integration in most of the armed forces in units based in Georgia had already taken place. Yet in the entire state, only three public school systems had at least one black person serving on the school board.
School desegregation was slow to happen in the state even though it was federally mandated. When the Georgia Education Association met in Atlanta in 1955 they asked that the policy of separate schools be retained. This association was at the time made up of 2,300 white school teachers and officials. During this same year, Georgia's governor, Marvin Griffin made the statement,
Georgians will not accept the United States Supreme Court desegregation ruling . . . they are determined irrevocably that we are not going to mix the races in the classrooms of our schools and colleges.
This statement was meaningful not only because it came from the governor, but also because school officials were in agreement with it. At this time the state school superintendent was M.D. Collins, and his feelings after the Supreme Court decision were, "I still believe in free, public, segregated schools." It is hard to make progress in integrating schools when necessary state leadership is strongly against it. (3)
Georgia saw years of segregationists elected to office during and after federal courts mandated school integration. Marvin Griffin served as governor of the state from 1955 to 1959 following Herman Talmadge, also a segregationist. Just before Griffin began campaigning, segregation had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Despite this declaration, Griffin upheld segregation in schools and promised that Georgia would not integrate "come hell or high water." He followed through with this promise as schools in Atlanta were not integrated until 1961, two years after Griffin left office. Although he did not approve integration, Griffin was a believer in education and allotted more money to be spent on black schools. As a result, black teacher salaries were raised to more equally match white teacher salaries. However, critics believed this was simply an effort to show that black and white schools were equal and thus implying that integration wasn't needed to equalize black and white education. (4)
Following Marvin Griffin, Ernest Vandiver Jr. served as governor from 1959 to 1963 and previously served as lieutenant governor under Griffin. Vandiver promised to maintain segregated schools, like Griffin. It was under Vandiver that The Georgia General Assembly passed legislation that refused to give funds to any school systems in the state that were integrated. Furthermore, the legislature passed administration that allowed Vandiver to close any school that desegregated and also abolished school taxing power of any system where desegregation took place. This legislation meant that desegregating a school system was in actuality condemning that system to be closed. Not long after Vandiver took office, black plaintiffs began filing suit to desegregate Atlanta public schools. In response to the suits, the state legislature created the Sibley Commission which held hearings where citizens of Georgia could express their feelings on their own school system. Eventually, the Commission recommended that each system vote to determine not if their schools would desegregate, but if they would remain open. Choosing to remain open was thus choosing to remain segregated, and choosing to desegregate meant the school system would close. Before the vote could be taken, however, federal courts ordered the desegregation of the University of Georgia and Vandiver decided to comply. Once the University was desegregated, so went the rest of the state. Vandiver's take on having to integrate was that, "the closing of the state's schools would be detrimental to the young people of Georgia and to the state's economic development." (5)
The leadership in the state of Georgia was the biggest hold up in statewide school integration. Georgia politicians refused to listen to federal mandates to desegregate and further developed legislation that strengthened segregation. School officials were largely in agreement with state politicians and if they were not, they were still subject to the legislation that was passed. Talk of keeping segregation was so common among state officials that the majority of the white public shared the common belief that schools in Georgia would never be integrated. When Ernest Vandiver was elected governor of Georgia in 1958, he pledged that not one black would enter a white school. Senator Richard Russell thought that public concern over possible desegregation of schools in the future was "surrender" talk and continued to propose segregation legislation while in the Senate. (6)
The state of Georgia obviously did not see eye to eye with the federal decree to integrate schools, and this provided for the years of segregation that continued after the Supreme Court actually declared segregation of schools as unconstitutional. Not to say that many other Southern states did not have problems with school integration, Georgia simply exemplified how bashful state politicians and policy could be in changing their ways.
Gwinnett did not particularly see eye to eye with integration either, but desegregating Gwinnett schools was considered on such a small scale as compared to the state, it was virtually acceptable. Gwinnett basically followed along with state policy, but the desegregation process was not so questionable as it seemed to be for state officials. Gwinnett was not the first system to desegregate, but its schools were integrated quietly and virtually without a hitch. Surely there were mixed feelings on the issue, but not enough in such a small community to cause any particular problems.
Gwinnett County was a fairly young and small community at the time Georgia was fighting desegregation. Gwinnett was founded in 1818, the county seat of Lawrenceville in 1821. The first school, Lawrenceville Academy opened in 1826 and by 1850 there were 31 one-teacher schools and 1,186 students in the entire county. By 1933 there were 71 mostly one-teacher public schools in the county for white students. Black students were generally educated at home or in their churches. Under superintendent R.S. Simonton, these 71 schools were consolidated into 18 all white schools and 12 all black schools by 1940. These schools took students of all grades and only five of the white schools were accredited by the county with Lawrenceville and Buford in independent city school systems. Lawrenceville schools became part of the county school system between 1941 and 1948
A major change in Gwinnett came in the 1950's when the 18 all white schools and the 12 all black schools were further consolidated. Under Gwinnett superintendent R.C. Wilbanks, four new high schools were constructed to take white students from eighth to twelfth grade. Central Gwinnett-Lawrenceville, South Gwinnett, West Gwinnett, and North Gwinnett were constructed in 1955 to consolidate the existing white high schools in the county. Only Dacula and Lilburn maintained their schools under legal action. In addition, two new all black schools were opened to accommodate black students from all over the county. Hooper-Renwick School in Lawrenceville received black students in elementary and high school and Hull Elementary was opened in Duluth. Obviously, there were more white schools created than black schools, but this reflects the population of Gwinnett County at the time. In 1962 there were roughly 11,000 students in the county and only 300 of these were black. (7,8)
Actual integration in Gwinnett schools did not come until the 1966-67 school year. There is little report of exactly how integration took place, other than that it happened and it was done successfully. There is no mention of integration even in the Gwinnett County Board of Education minutes.
The superintendent in Gwinnett at the time of integration was B.B. Harris. Harris was the principal at the all white Duluth School from 1945 to 1952 and then served as assistant superintendent from 1952 to 1957 before being appointed superintendent. Harris played a unique role in integration. Under Harris, a new elementary school called B.B. Harris Elementary was opened in Duluth. The school was constructed to implement a new curriculum which included moveable walls to make learning areas large or small and opened in 1966. The all black elementary school Hull elementary in Duluth was closed the same year and the black elementary school students joined the existing white elementary schools in the area including Duluth Elementary and the new B.B. Harris Elementary. The following year, the all black Hooper-Renwick School in Lawrenceville was closed and these black students integrated into the already existing high schools. When Hooper-Renwick High School closed in 1968, it mostly consolidated with the existing Central Gwinnett High School. When Central Gwinnett High School was opened in 1957 it was populated by former students of Lawrenceville and Bethesda High School. (9)
Dr. Brooks Coleman was the principal at B.B. Harris Elementary and Duluth Elementary when they were integrated in 1966. Student enrollment at B.B. Harris Elementary at the time was about 400, while as Dr. Coleman noted, only a handful of these students were black. In addition to these few black students in attendance, four black teachers were appointed in the new elementary school. In 1967, B.B. Harris resigned as superintendent and became principal of B.B. Harris Elementary and in 1970, Duluth Elementary became Duluth Middle for grades six through eight.
Gwinnett was successful in the desegregation process mostly because of the low population. Being as young of a county as it was at the time, and having so few people allowed for an easy process. Particularly the low number of black people in the county provided that there was not a large contingency of blacks to demand desegregation sooner than it actually occurred. Likewise, once desegregation did occur, there were very few blacks in each integrated school. Whites students would rarely encounter black students even after integration simply because there were so few of them.
Athletics also provided for an easy integration. High school sports was an arena that received much support from the community in Gwinnett. High school football received weekly coverage in the local news paper and a had a huge county following. Black students immediately excelled in high school sports once schools were integrated and found much support from the rest of the white community because of their abilities. George Rogers, a black student in the first integrated class to go through Duluth, was an electrifying football player who went on to win the Heisman Trophy at the University of South Carolina. Athletics provided a common ground for both races and was a facilitator of racial acceptance.
The only real questioning of Gwinnett's ability to integrate schools effectively came from the federal government in 1967. Under the leadership of Superintendent J.W. Benefield, the county complied with federal agents who were sent from Washington D.C. to check up on integration in Gwinnett. As Mr. Benefield recalled, the agents were not in Gwinnett long and encountered no problems. Such agents reportedly were to visit all 50 states and find out if racial discrimination was being practiced in any of the school systems. They were to gather data that would identify schools that violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Gwinnett was not found to be a discriminatory school system by these agents. (10,11)
In its entirety, Gwinnett's desegregation seemed fairly bland, especially when compared to that of the entire state of Georgia. Surely there must have been some racist feelings among whites and blacks in the 1950's and 1960's, but not to the extent that they interfered with the county's decision to integrated and further improve education. The leadership of Gwinnett County was much less radical than the staunch segregationist heads of state. This along with a small population of blacks and the wide acceptance of black athletes enabled Gwinnett to make a substantial leap towards equality through school integration.
7) Nita Hallford, "Preface," History of Gwinnett County Public Schools, (1989).
8) Gwinnett County Board of Education Minutes, February 2, 1954.
9) Dr. Brooks Coleman: former principal, assistant superintendent, and Gwinnett historian
10) J.W. Benefield: superintendent of Gwinnett County Public Schools (1967-1977).