Amanda M. Causey
American South-Gagnon
November
5, 2004
Desegregation and the Monroe
County School
System
I
heard someone say once that history happens on a local level. This statement is validated by the fact that
we are all products of humanity, molded by our environment, experiences, and
ideals. This established, history is a
hard science to ‘muddle’ through because each instance studied was experienced
in different ways by different people.
Historical accounts as well are subject to scrutinizing because they
were written by men and women who - knowingly or unknowingly, purposefully or
not - faced cultural as well as personal biases when trying to record history
as it really happened. The accounts of
the American South are certainly no exception.
In fact, maybe even more so than in other instances Historians have had
to look much deeper than the surface to see how life in the South really
occurred. And so with these thoughts in
mind the following questions should be looked into carefully when studying the
integration of the American public school system knowing that all instances did
not occur exactly the same, but locally and individually. How did Georgia integrate? How did Monroe
County, Georgia
integrate and how does this school system fit into the overall picture of the
state?
Public School Integration Mandated in Georgia
In
January of 1960, Georgia Governor Ernest Vandiver said in his State of the
State address that he would use “every legal means and remedy” to maintain a
segregated school system within the state of Georgia. This was a reiteration of a previous promise
he had made to propose legislation to cut off state funding for public schools
that had chosen to desegregate.
Vandiver’s election campaign was a reflection of the overwhelming
mindset of White Georgians and the importance they had placed on the continuance
of segregation in the public school system.
Georgia’s
General Assembly was unilaterally opposed to integration and proposed that a
vote would be taken to close the public school system before allowing
desegregation to take place. When it
seemed that federal courts would work to overrule state decisions, tensions
rose among legislatures as well as citizens.
Governor Vandiver was then faced with a tough decision concerning the
future of public education in Georgia. Although most white southerners were opposed
to the integration of public schools, many people voiced that they would rather
see integration be carried out than see the closing of their schools. The University of Georgia
was among those protesting and even sent to Congress a petition from University
students who did not want to see the school closed. In the fall of 1961, the problem ceased to be
an issue when the Legislature conceded defeat over the integration of Georgia public
schools after a court ruling that the practice of segregation was
unconstitutional.1
Background of White Schools in Monroe
County
The
earliest account of a chartered school within Monroe County
was in 1821 with the formation of Jackson
Academy. By 1860, Monroe County
had issued thirty-seven charters for educational institutions. According to locals, the private school
system had been so successful that the county was “slow to accept the free
public school system.” However, in 1871
a public school system was established and in 1891 a measure was voted on and
passed that the schools would be locally tax supported, making Monroe County
one of the first school districts in the state to extend upon itself a tax to
supplement public school and eliminate individual tuition. By 1901, the public school enrollment for the
county was as follows: 1,648 white students in forty schools and 3,326 students
of color in forty-one schools.2
In
1895, the history of public high school education began when Professor Carle R.
Thompson found the facilities of Hilliard institute, originally housing an
all-white male school chartered by the Methodists of Forsyth in 1857, to be
inadequate. Professor Thompson refused
to become principal of the school until better facilities were provided. By 1912, the first public high school was
completed and named after a generous contributor, Mr. R. Banks Stephens as
Banks Stephens Institute. After
overcrowding within the facilities, Mary
Persons High
School was constructed in 1929 in a central
location to serve the entire county within the white community.3
Background of Negro Schools in Monroe
County
Around
1868, the Freedman’s Bureau and northern philanthropists helped establish Jackson Academy, the first official school for
Negroes in Forsyth. The school was
destroyed by fire in 1907. William M.
Hubbard started a class of three boys and four girls in the Kynette Methodist
Episcopal Church in Forsyth on May
9, 1902. On December 23, 1902 the
school was grated a charter and named the Normal
and Industrial School of Forsyth. By an
act of the Georgia Legislature in 1922, it was made a state school. In 1931, it became the State Teachers and Agricultural College - a junior college within the
University System of Georgia. The
college served as a beginning place for teachers to earn credits toward
certification. Many teachers earned
their first teaching certificates here.
In 1939, the college merged with Fort Valley State College and the high
school was established as Hubbard
Training School.9
Early Talk of Integration
In
1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren announced that segregation of the public
education system was unconstitutional.
It was decided, however, that no immediate action would be taken to
solve the problem. Warren predicted that it would take at least
a half-century for segregation to end in Georgia, “if then.” According to the Monroe Advertiser, there were “varied reactions” in the community
after hearing of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Despite these rulings, Monroe County
intended to continue building the Hubbard campus - the consolidated school for
Negroes. It was estimated that the final
cost for the project would be $500,000.
The new facilities at the Hubbard campus were equal, or possibly better
facilities than those used by whites.5
Proposals for Integration of Monroe County Schools
On
February 10, 1970,
Monroe County Superintendent Jim Mitchell met with the PTA to discuss the
school system’s intentions to comply with the recent court rulings. He continued by explaining that the law would
require a more complete integration of Georgia’s schools. The Monroe
Advertiser Editor stressed the importance of being informed and open-minded
about the new educational issues in order to offer the best possibly education
for the young people in Monroe
County.6
On
February 10, 1970,
the Board of Education sent its two-point plan for desegregation to the
Northern Division of the U.S. District Court of Georgia. The plan proposed that eleven teachers would
be transferred between the Colored and White schools, which would meet the
quote established by the court. The plan
also proposed that all students be allowed to select which school they wanted
to attend. However, shortly after the
Georgia State Department of Education ruled that the desegregation program was
not acceptable and that a new plan must be submitted by April 1, 1970. The Monroe County
desegregation plan was “deemed acceptable” after the proposal called for a
complete merger of all existing schools.7
8 9
Complete Integration of Monroe County Schools
Complete
integration of the Monroe County School System began in fall of 1970. Initially, a few black students were
attending Monroe County Elementary and Mary Persons
High School (all-white
schools). During the summer of 1970, a
program was offered at Monroe
County Elementary
School where white teachers taught all white
students and black teachers taught all black students. As implied from these
instances, Monroe
County tried to
slowly immerse its students into a
racially integrated school system to lessen possible tensions that could occur
later. Before classes began on the
Hubbard campus, the school was renovated.
Walls were painted, blinds installed, floors carpeted, desks and old
tables were refurbished and 500 new desks were added in preparation for
increased enrollment.10 11
Monroe County
became an official “unitary system” on August 27, 1970 when the county’s four former districts
were merged into two units. The Hubbard Elementary School housed students in
grades one through six. Mary Persons
High School housed
students in grades seven through twelve.12
On
this momentous day, Monroe
County citizens were
encouraged by locals “to use ever means at his disposal” to see the smooth
transition of schools to ensure that every Georgian child would have the
opportunity to learn in a fostering environment.13
Formation of Monroe
Academy
To
provide an alternative to those white students who did not want to participate
in integrated public schools, private schools were emerging all over the
south. In addition to Monroe County’s
public school system, a new private school, Monroe Academy,
was established in September 1966. The
school’s enrollment doubled in 1969 and then doubled again in 1970. It was in 1970 that Monroe Academy
saw its greatest growth and was able to add a Kindergarten.14
Student and Community Reaction to Integration
On
September 10, 1970,
exactly two weeks after fully integrating Monroe County’s
school system, the headline of the Monroe Advertiser read, “Minimum of
Confusion as New School Opens.”
According to school officials, 700 new students were merged into Mary Persons
High School totaling an
overall enrollment of 1,234 students.
School counselors agreed “It was one of the smoothest first days
ever!” Rev. Parsons commented that it
was smoother than in some previous years and Mrs. McCosh praised
administration, teachers, and students for their accomplishments.15
On
September 17, 1970
it was reported that some problems were occurring at Mary Persons
High School due to
overcrowding. Students were no longer
able to walk through the halls before homeroom, were not given breaks, and
could not all go to lunch together.
Although the headline, “Mary Persons Faces Student Unrest” seems to
imply that problems with race relations were occurring within the school in
light of other school riots within the South, it seems that students were
mainly having trouble with the higher number of students within limited spaces.16
In response
to the article, Mrs. Ernest Morgan, Jr wrote an editorial to the paper the
following week. Mrs. Morgan emphasizes the
fact that Forsyth is different from cities in California and New York where violent demonstrations are
taking place; Mary Persons is a place the children “love and call their
own.” She says,
“the type of sensational reporting
attempted on the front page of the Advertiser last week is certainly not
appreciated…more attention should be given to…attitudes expressed by the
majority of students at Mary Persons in
their efforts to cooperate and make a new system successful although it may not
be exactly what they would like it to be.”17
Personal Reflections
Through
my study of Monroe
County and other school
districts within Georgia,
I was very surprised with the results that I found. I went into this research expecting to find
belligerent outpourings from the white citizens in newspapers and stories of
riots and hatred. Although these
occurrences may have happened in specific national instances, it did not seem
to be the trend publicized in most southern towns. In fact, I found several instances where cities
in Georgia
were mainly concerned with desegregating quietly, as far as possible from the
public media. For example, Atlanta mayor Bill
Hartsfield considered peaceful desegregation very important in maintaining the
city’s “progressive image.” Also, Governor Vandiver, although opposed to the
idea, said “disorder would not be tolerated in the desegregation of Atlanta’s schools.”18
Monroe County
consistently avoided discussing specific issues related to the desegregation of
its school system. Although there were
many accounts of facts in the newspapers, there were never specific instances
recorded in news stories of how the students, parents, or administration was
adjusting to the changes. Many of the news
stories seemed more like propaganda than actual reporting. The Monroe
Advertiser, however, was much more willing to discuss racial issues
occurring in other cities outside of the south.
Simply by observation, I would tend to speculate if the events that
occurred were not downplayed to make Forsyth and Monroe County
seem ‘different’ from other cities, devoid of typical problems. This was evident in the Letter to the Editor
when Mrs. Morgan was appalled at the fact that Monroe County
would be viewed as lacking moral and Christian character.
Also,
the Historical Society mentioned in its book that the timeline for the events
leading up to integration was compiled from the minutes of the Board of
Education meetings. However, they felt
that some of the information was incomplete.
I found it interesting that we had previously discussed in class how
many of the records of integration proceedings mysteriously could not be found
anymore in many school districts.19
There
are small pieces of the puzzle that seem to be missing from the puzzle of integration
in Monroe County.
The schools could have genuinely come together peacefully like everyone
portrayed. Or, there could be another
side to the story. History is a
never-ending process of discovery and reformulation of ideas, and such is the
case in the study of Monroe
County.
In
Conclusion
Growing
up in the South, you are constantly bombarded with stories of the War of
Northern Aggression, race relations, family history, and all types of things
distinctively southern. It seems to me
that racial violence seems like such an abstract ideal that I pictured it as
something that occurred in other places, but certainly not in my hometown. I found a book by a local author who gave an
account of a Black boy he knew who was talked into being a lookout while some
older white boys stole gasoline. When
police approached, the older boys drove away and the young lookout was shot,
dead. I am not naïve enough to believe
that things like this did not happen in the South, but I had never heard of an
occurrence within five miles of my own home where my very friends families’
have lived for generations. America had to
questions its values and reshape its thinking in order move beyond racial
hatred. Race relations evolved in my
community just like it did all over the world.
Gradually, we have worked together to bring equality where it once did
not exist. And this happened in my
hometown just like it did yours, but our history happened differently, locally,
and in our own distinct way.20
1 Henderson
Harold Paulk, Ernest Vandiver: Governor of Georgia (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press,
2000), 107-129 pp.
2 Monroe County
Historical Society, Inc. Monroe
County, Georgia:
A History, 170-172 pp.
3 Monroe County
Historical Society, Inc. 174-175 pp.
4 Monroe County
Historical Society, Inc. 195-198 pp.
5 “Board
Continues Plan For New Colored School,” Monroe
Advertiser, 20 May 1954,
p.1.
6 “Monroe County
PTA to Discuss Plans for
School Integration,” Monroe Advertiser,
29 Jan 1970, p.1.
7 “Board of Education Presents Plan to
Federal Court,” Monroe Advertiser, 10 February 1970, p.1.
8 “Monroe County School Plan Unacceptable
to U.S. Courts,” Monroe Advertiser,
V.116 N.11, p.1.
9 “Federal Court Mandate for Monroe County
School Deemed Acceptable,” Monroe Advertiser,
V.116 N.16, p.1.
10 Monroe County
Historical Society, Inc. 178 p.
11 “Monroe County Schools Enter Into
Unitary School System,” Monroe Advertiser,
27 August 1970,
p.1.
12 “Monroe County Schools Enter Into
Unitary School System,” Monroe Advertiser,
27 August 1970,
p.1.
13 “School Opening Soon,” Monroe Advertiser, 27 August 1970, p.9.
14 Monroe County
Historical Society, Inc. 202 p.
15 “Minimum of Confusion as New School
Opens,” Monroe Advertiser, 10 September 1970, p.1.
16 “Mary Persons Faces Student Unrest,” Monroe Advertiser, 17 September 1970, p.1.
17 “Letters to the Editor,” Monroe Advertiser, 24 September 1970, p.2.
18 Henderson
Harold Paulk, 150 p.
19 Monroe County
Historical Society, Inc. 176 p.