The Desegregation of Walton County Schools

Brooke Greene

11 – 5 – 04

Research Paper

Walton County Georgia is located about forty-five minutes southeast of Atlanta. Walton County consists of the cities of Loganville, Monroe, Social Circle, and in the 1950’s and 60’s a very small town called Good Hope had a school. The process of school integration in Walton County played out much of the same way as desegregation in Atlanta happened, but it took place with a lot more ease because of the way the county was demographically populated and because of the number of people in the population in general.

The society of the south had been under attack ever since white public officials implemented the first black codes. These laws remained in place largely because of the Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson which declared segregation legal as long as facilities were equal. Blacks continued to be discriminated against until 1954 when Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas changed the politics of the south. The south would have to integrate black people into society or resist the Federal Court’s decision.

In Georgia when the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruled school segregation unconstitutional the decision “unleashed a torrential reaction”. No voice from any citizen in Georgia supported the decision, people organized, and the Klu Klux Klan began to stir once more in the state. Georgia like every other state in the south, its first move to fight against school integration was massive resistance, and this was not about states rights but about white supremacy. The Governor of Georgia, Ernest Vandiver, recruited John Sibley to be the head of the Georgia General Assembly after the federal court order Atlanta’s public schools be integrated in 1959. The whole purpose of this organization was to put and end to the Brown decision by passing laws. They passed laws would withhold funds from schools that would integrate, and only five months after the Brown decision the state passed an amendment that prepared the state to covert to a private school system. This amendment was made in the event the Federal Courts forced schools to integrate. The Georgia General Assembly would not however be able to cut funds to schools willing to integrate because Federal Courts ruled they could not. They also said that if one school shut down then all schools would too.[1]

The Georgia General Assembly would eventually become the Sibley Commission where its purpose was still to buy some time until the governor could avoid having the schools in Georgia shut-down or integrated. There was essentially two opposing forces in Georgia trying to solve this problem because there was the hard-core segregationists who thought massive resistance was the key, but on the other hand, there were organizations like Help Our Public Education (HOPE), and the biracial group Organizations Assisting Schools (OASIS) who wanted to find a way to desegregate so the schools would not be shut-down. The goal of Sibley was to “establish a system of education within the limitations of the Supreme Court decision, yet one which will secure the maximum segregation possible within the law”. Sibley was able to create a plan that satisfied the majority and even took some ideas from HOPE. The Sibley Commission began to travel all around the state to different counties where people could gather and discuss their opinions, but it usually was just John Sibley telling of his proposal. Sibley’s plan consisted of a freedom of association amendment to be added to the state constitution. This freedom of choice plan allowed students to transfer schools. Also a second constitutional amendment would be made that would allow a community to decide on desegregation with a local election. Tuition grants would be offered to those students that wished to transfer schools that had integrating or for those students whose school was shut-down because they did not integrate.[2]

The Walton County Board of Education attempted to use the freedom of association plan that was constructed by the Sibley Commission except once it was put into action this idea became known as the freedom of choice plan. This plan was approved by the 1961 legislature. The plan was told to the citizens of Walton County in August of 1965, but once the plan was put into action it only affected eight students. The plan was completed September 3, 1965. In the county there were many requests to transfer, but most were denied because they were not in compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VI only called for four grades and they were first, eighth, eleventh, and twelfth grade. The freedom of choice plans used by the school systems in Georgia was a way to avoid total desegregation. It allowed the schools to look as if they were following the federal courts order to desegregate without actually doing it, but soon the courts would put down orders to receive plans for total integration or Georgia schools would be shut-down.[3] [4]

There are two very different pictures that can be seen when comparing and contrasting the process of desegregation in Atlanta with the process in Walton County. The legislature approves the “freedom of choice” plans in 1961, and in that same time frame on Wednesday, August 30, 1961 and seven years after the Brown decision, four Atlanta high schools were integrated with no violence or protest. The peaceful integration of these four schools gave Atlanta the reputation of “a city too busy to hate”. Atlanta’s so called successful integration was noticed all over the United States, even so much so that President John F. Kennedy opened one of his news conferences with congratulations to the city. A lot of the image of the city was helped by the fact that there were some really horrible events happening in other places like in Mississippi where troops were being called in. In Walton County, the “freedom of choice” plans did not even go into affect until fours years later in 1965, and even then the plans were not considered a success and the county was not what the government could call fully integrated. From first sight it would seem that the large community of Atlanta had more success with integration because of how quickly it was determined by politicians that schools were desegregated, but the picture of Atlanta looked very different on the inside than it did on the outside. The reality Atlanta saw was that of the white community, but the black community knew that it was not what it seemed. One writer for an Atlanta publication wrote, “Blacks enjoy Atlanta, but they don’t like it like it is”. African Americans were straight forward with their comments like, “Atlanta enjoys a reputation it doesn’t deserve,” and “Atlanta’s image only looks good when compared to Mississippi”. The white and black community of Atlanta still remained largely segregated, and so did the racial communities of Walton County but the huge determinate that caused the black community in Atlanta to be more upset by their situation the number of students. The major complaints by black citizens between 1950 and 1960 were that their schools were too crowded, and the buildings were inadequate. [5]

. The school system in Walton County was like every other county in Georgia in that there were white and black schools. In the 1960’s and still today in Walton County the different cities are segregated between the black and white communities. The majority of the black citizens lived in the cities of Monroe, Social Circle, and Good Hope which was so small that today it does not exist in the county. The white citizens lived mostly in Loganville and Monroe, but even in Monroe whites were more of a minority, and that is still the case today. Walton County and Atlanta had similar situations in that they both remained largely segregated even though an “integration” plan was in place. In Atlanta the black citizens knew there was not significant change even when the federal government agreed there had been. In Walton County there had not been any complaints from the black community or any suits filed to the District Court about the desegregation process. The reason there was not anything heard from the blacks was because the newspapers did not report on it. The only black opinion or black news that could be found in Walton County newspapers like the Walton Tribune was in a small section of the paper, usually in the back, titled “Negro News”, and the font size of the titles of the articles were usually small. Significant change in the integration of the county came on February 1, 1968 when the Department of Health, Education and Welfare told the Walton County Board of Education that the “freedom of choice plan had accomplished nothing in eliminating the dual school system”. They also specified proposal eliminated the dual system had to be submitted by the 1968 – 1969 school year. It is important to know that not until after this notification was the first suit filed against Walton County by a group of citizens. The article does not specify whether the group was black or white. In May, the Board of Education found out that the Federal Courts were ready to proceed against the Board in order to eliminate the dual system. The school board decided not to fight the courts and waste taxpayer money when they knew the case could not be won. [6]

The Board of Education adopted a plan on May 27, 1968, but again this plan was knocked down by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The plan was denied because a plan was not made to desegregate the all black Social Circle Training School. The H.E.W. asked for another plan by July 6, and just like before after the H.E.W had made a decision a suit was filed, this time another suit was filed to the United States District Court that called for a court ordered desegregation plan. The appeal was made by a group of African Americans from Social Circle. The federal court ordered that happened as a result of the suit by the group of black people was the “first case in which Georgia systems have been ordered to utilize the attendance zone plan”. The new plan caused for different grades to be moved to different buildings and cities. Now that the schools were to be integrated the classroom sizes were going to increase and that is why the housing locations had to be changed. The Board had to provide relocatable classrooms and even rent buildings to provide enough classrooms. Also teachers that were under contract were assigned to the school where their classes were also assigned, and new teacher were hired with no regard to race, color, or national origin. The amount of effort it took to make the new plan work shows how much Walton County had been trying to integrate schools. Apparently the county really had not been trying at all.[7]

The black community of Walton County were not the only people becoming upset by the desegregation plans, but the white community became angry also but not for the same reasons. The Board of Education received a petition protesting the integration plans. The petition had 3, 386 names that protested the announcement plan of integration for the schools. The petitioners also passed a resolution that authorized a committee from the Board to go before the finance committee of the State Board of Education. They wanted a request the continuation of funds for Walton County. The people were upset because the plan called for total integration, and they wanted it to be less than total integration. The Board explained its actions when the Superintendent Garfield W. Wilson wrote a letter to all civic clubs, and organizations. The Board said they totally eliminated the dual system because “the school system would immediately loose over $332,000 in Federal funds, Federal Courts were prepared to direct that the dual system be eliminated by court order, and the Board of Education had only two alternatives to desegregate by Board action or by Federal Court order”. [8]

Walton County Schools officially opened on August 29, 1968 even though the county was under attack from court orders, rulings, and appeals. A major action was against Loganville High which continued to operate even though the State Board voted to withhold around $80,000 to $100,000 in foundation funds unless the school closed. The last plan was approved by Court Judge W. A. Bootle. With the zone residence attendance plan, Walton County had until September 1969 to merge the all black Carver High with Monroe Area High. [9]

The Walton County public schools for blacks were established in 1906. Many of the early schools were operated by the Northwestern Baptist Association, Madison Baptist Association, and local churches where many schools actually conducted their lessons. In 1960 Walton County had three black schools which consisted of Carver, Good Hope – Peters, and Social Circle Training. Carver housed first through twelfth grade with twenty-seven teachers; Good Hope – Peters had first through eighth grade with ten teachers; and the Social Circle Training school had first through ninth grade with twelve teachers. There were nine white schools in the county in 1960, and the only thing that was significantly different from the white and black schools were the number of them because even the white schools averaged the same amount teachers per school. For example, the all black Good Hope School had ten teachers and the white Good Hope School had eight teachers. The black community only having three schools was probably difficult because there would be over-crowding in the classrooms with not enough teachers. Even though the white schools had about the same number of teachers in each classroom they were still not over crowded because there were enough schools.[10]

The impact of the Brown decision changed the face of the South more than any other piece of legislation since the abolishment of slavery. Before the Brown decision southern states were able to change state laws in order to avoid compliance with the Federal Government, and they tried to do the same with the Brown case too, but education is an issue that cannot be ignored or manipulated. Atlanta and Walton tried the same tragedy while fighting against desegregation which was desegregate as little as possible so that school will not be shutdown.