Matthew S Parrish

 Prof. Michael Gagnon

History 3090

 

Desegregation in Chatham County, GA

 

 

In August of 1994, U.S. District Court Chief Judge B. Avant Edenfield handed down a ruling following a recommendation from the Chatham County Board of Education stating that Chatham County was officially a “desegregated, unitary system and [would return] control [of the school system] to the local Board of Education.”  Nearly 32 years before in 1962, the Savannah-Chatham County School Board was ordered to desegregate Chatham County Schools; a slow, painful process that forced a historic, southern town come to grasp with her deep-rooted prejudices and forced her residents to change their minds and hearts.  But how and why did Savannah and Chatham County take so long to desegregate?  Why was this process and the lessons reaped from it important or significant?  A town full of southern charm and beauty, not even Savannah was spared the pain endured by those who foolishly resisted the end of segregated schools.  Amidst Savannah’s rich history and beauty, under the surface the racial divide was staggering and it would prove an arduous road to desegregate the Savannah-Chatham County Schools.^[1] <a name="#1">^{<a href="#1n"><strong>1</strong></a>}

The Savannah-Chatham County School system would not see any move for desegregation until 1962, though the years preceding were visited with isolated calls for integration and on the national scene, Americans and the justice system were demanding equality.  In May of 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, that equal education that did not discriminate along racial lines should and must be imposed.  The Court used the 14^th Amendment as their reasoning, deciding that the very fact that classes were divided by race made them “‘inherently unequal.’”  This decision was a reversal of the 1896 decision by the Court in Plessy v. Ferguson, where the Court found that “separate but equal” schools were constitutional, based on the presupposition that education would be administered equally among schools that were segregated by race.  Although that decision was handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954, it wasn’t until a year later in 1955 that the Court revisited the issue to give local school board officials the responsibility to see that desegregation be imposed.  This ruling was in response to unanswered questions prompted by Brown v. Board as to who would be charged with the responsibility and authority to take on such a task.  It was apparent to the Court and the Nation that school districts, especially in the south would not voluntarily desegregate.  The Savannah-Chatham County School Board would not deal with the issue for another 4 years, and it would be more than 15 years before Savannah and the school system would see real, but violent change.

The four years following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in 1955 were quiet in Savannah.  But by 1959, local black leaders began to cry for desegregation efforts to begin in the Savannah-Chatham County School district.  One of many leading voices in Savannah’s black community pushing for desegregation was the NAACP Savannah chapter President, Westley W. Law.   During the summer of 1959, W.W. Law, a local recommended that Negro students should pressure the Savannah-Chatham County School Board to admit them to the white schools for the upcoming fall semester.  Law pledged his aid to the Negro students who were trying to be admitted to white schools in Chatham County that fall.  However, by late August Law had changed his position.  In the August 28^th issue of the Savannah Evening Press, Law was quoted as stating that it “‘would be foolhardy for Negro children to attempt to enter white schools now because the school board has no plan for it.’”  Law was correct.  Four years after the Savannah-Chatham County School Board was charged with the responsibility of instituting a plan for desegregation, the Board had not held any discussion as to the matter of drawing up a comprehensive plan that outlined a timeline or logistics to begin desegregation.  Law’s shift in position was not entirely due to an absence of a plan for desegregation though.  Law was being threatened by local white attorneys with bogus lawsuits involving mail fraud if Law actively helped Negros try to register at white schools.  Law was later cleared by the Postmaster General of any wrongdoing.  It is clear from this isolated example of the lengths that those in favor of segregated schooling conformed to in order to deter desegregation efforts.  Law, as well as other black community leaders such as Hosea Williams, continued their calls for a desegregated school system but found no support from the School Board or the white community in Savannah.[2] <a name="#2">^{<a href="#2n"><strong>2</strong></a>}

After nearly eight years and no response to the judgment handed down by the Supreme Court, 1962 brought the beginning of the desegregation battle that lasted for the next 30 years.  From 1959, The Savannah-Chatham County School Board took no action towards desegregation for the next three years.  Tensions between races and especially the Negro parents’ agitation with the Savannah-Chatham County School Board reached a boiling point in January of 1962.  Mr. L. S. Stell, Jr., a black parent of a Chatham County student, filed a lawsuit against the Savannah-Chatham County School Board along with more than 25 other black plaintiffs on behalf of their children.  The plaintiffs asked that the court expedite the process of desegregation in the Savannah- Chatham County School district in the law suit.  Some specific requests of the plaintiffs included: “[That the Court] enter a decree enjoining defendants from continuing to ‘maintain a dual scheme or pattern of school zone lines or attendance area lines based on race and color…’” and conversely “[direct] the school board to ‘present a plan, within a period of time to be determined by this court, for the reorganization of the entire school system of Chatham County into a unitary nonracial system which shall include a plan for the assignment of children on a nonracial basis… .’”  The plaintiffs were doubtful of victory as the suit lasted nearly a year and a half, but in the summer of 1963, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals moved to order that the Savannah-Chatham County School Board begin the mandatory process of desegregating their school system.  The Savannah-Chatham County School Board was required to submit a plan for the desegregation of Chatham County that would be with terms and provisions acceptable to the Court.  Under the terms that the court handed down, the School Superintendent would be solely responsible for seeing that the desegregation plan be implemented soon and adequately.  The Court would monitor progress to insure that the school district was taking desegregation seriously.  The Superintendent and the white school board were now faced with a dilemma; how could the Savannah-Chatham County School Board continue segregation in Savannah Schools but satisfy the orders of the court.  As with most history of race relations in the south, it would be dirty and painful.[3] <a name="#3">^{<a href="#3n"><strong>3</strong></a>}    

By the fall of 1963, the Savannah-Chatham County School Board introduced a twelve year plan to desegregate Savannah-Chatham County Schools.  The plan called for the first step of integration to begin that fall in grade 12.  The NAACP quickly denounced the plan as too slow and ineffective; representatives from the organization did agree that desegregation needed to start in the higher grades.  Judge Frank M. Scarlett of the U.S. Appellate Court summons all involved parties to present and discuss the plan and asked Mr. Stell, plaintiff in Stell v. Savannah-Chatham County School Board, and Mr. Law of the NAACP to prepare arguments against the plan.  What ensued was a bitter war of words between the Judge, the School Board representative, the NAACP President, and representatives from the Chatham Council for Human Relations.  The hearing was held July 11^th, 1963.  Mr. Julian Halligan was the Board’s Vice-President and served as Chair for the Board’s integration study committee.  Mr. Halligan represented the Board.  Halligan presented a plan “which calls for integration of the twelfth grade [in 1964], and works down in succeeding years, with a statement of reasons for this plan.”  During the introduction of the plan, Halligan stressed that

            “The foremost thought and concern in the minds of the

Committee was that we evolve a plan that would be the

least disturbing to all the children in our school system. 

A plan that would not interfere with the children’s progress

in their quest for an education.”

 

However, other parties in the courtroom would not see the plan as in any way trying to “not interfere with the children’s progress…”  During W.W. Law’s rebuttal, he stated that it was the “hope of his organization that ‘next year nothing less than 10 grades or nine grades will fall into the plan.’”  Law sharply criticized the slow pace at which the plan was intended to move, reminding the court and the board of the 1955 ruling which was now, eight years later, being considered.  A third party involved in the hearing was the Chatham Council for Human Relations, represented by Frank Spencer.  Mr. Spencer directly criticized the Board’s plan, and posed a number of questions to the Board concerning the obvious lengths it was going to in order to prevent the desegregation of Savannah-Chatham County Schools.  Spencer told the School Board in reference to their action that “[they’ve] made an error, gone overboard.”  School Board President Darnell Brawner responded that “he resented ‘bitterly your statement that [the School Board] [is] opposing the law of the land.’”   In the end, the plan was adopted with several endorsements from the local community.  The plan would be initiated pending an objection granted in May by Scarlett by white students arguing that mixing the races would be detrimental to both white and Negro students.  The plan allowed that the 12^th grade would be integrated starting the next school year (1964) and that one grade would be added yearly for the next 12 years.  During the next 6 or 7 years, the Savannah-Chatham County School Board would continue to drag its feet and find excuse after excuse to slow or prevent further integration.  During this time, the Board would come up with several different, subdued forms of desegregation.  These plans typically brought in the first minorities, but failed at accomplishing the goal set forth by the courts.  Savannah-Chatham County Schools were still heavily segregated and no attempt to speed the integration process was being pursued by the school board.[4] <a name="#4">^{<a href="#4n"><strong>4</strong></a>}

By 1971, it was becoming more and more evident that integration was not moving nearly as swiftly or comprehensively as the national courts had intended it to.  So the courts took the issue up again in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg.  The outcome of the North Carolina case was a decision by the court that not only was the process of desegregation taking too long to implement, but that if local school boards were unable to enforce integration, the courts would be forced to step in and also implement busing black and white students to different schools to create more of a balance.  This was not what the Savannah-Chatham County School Board wanted to hear.  The failure of the Savannah-Chatham County School Board to promote desegregation forced the courts to take over in Savannah- Chatham County and begin mandatory busing.

The measures that the Courts called for included the “pairing of mostly all-white with mostly all-black schools and mandatory busing between the pairs.”  The Savannah-Chatham County School Board reluctantly accepts the terms of the Courts order.  They had no choice.  The weeks leading up to the 1971-72 school year were full of uncertainty and questions.  In Savannah’s elementary schools, registration went forward as usual per the instructions they received only days before from the courts.  Mrs. Montene Swann told the Savannah Evening Press that Isle of Hope Elementary School was “registered according to instructions we received last Thursday.” In the middle and high schools, registration proceeded without much incident, and the August 25, 1971 issue of the Savannah Evening Press noted that there were welcome committees comprised of students and teachers on hand to welcome new students at Jenkins and Savannah High Schools.  Black students from Tomkins High School and Beach High School would now be bused to all-white Savannah High and Jenkins High.  While the students gave a luke-warm welcome, the community’s reaction was cool at best.  During this initial period when busing began, parents and activists began protesting and forming protest lines.  Also, Savannah-Chatham County School Board members who were in favor of the busing and expedited integration received numerous threats on their life.[5] <a name="#5">^{<a href="#5n"><strong>5</strong></a>}

The National Guard was never called into Savannah to aide with rioters.  From most print accounts, the riots in Savannah were limited and not very dangerous.  But those who were there remember differently.  A personal account from a woman who was a teacher at Myers Middle School during the period when busing started, recalls both parents and students throwing rocks and other objects through glass bus windows at black students in the spring semester of 1972.  In addition, parents would bring lawn chairs and sit in the school drive-way and along the side of the school to harass black students and their parents.           

    The impact that mandatory busing had on the school system as a whole was tremendous.  During the ten years following the start of mandatory busing by the courts, “The public schools [lost] about 10.000 students, most of whom are white.”  Taking that many white children out of the public education system in Savannah caused the majority of the school system to become black.  With a predominantly black school system at that point, many parents began to send their children to private schools in a move referred to by historians of this era as “white flight.”  In Savannah, parents had several options in terms of a private education.  At the beginning of 1972, there were approximately 6-8 private schools in the Savannah area. 6 <a name="#6">^{<a href="#6n"><strong>6</strong></a>}

 

Unfortunately, while busing was initially successful in creating desegregation,

            the Savannah-Chatham County School Board was facing more problems by 1985.  Since

           busing began in the early 1970’s, a steady decrease of white students who attended public school had resulted in a massive net loss of whites by 1985.  Most schools in the Savannah-Chatham county area were falling outside of the desegregated guidelines, and one school in particular had returned to a segregated all-black status.  The Savannah-Chatham County School Board felt as though they had exhausted all of their options; the Board was ordered to revisit the drawing board and compose a new, long-term concept that came up with solutions as to how the county needed to deal with the un-even racial make-up of the school districts.  The board took on a variety of different proposals and studies to determine how best to handle Savannah’s desegregation crisis.  By the end of 1986, the Savannah-Chatham County School Board proposes a plan that they hoped would curve the problems they were currently experiencing.  One of the key points outlined by the board in their new proposal was the creation of magnet schools.  Magnet schools were schools that had a primary focus for gifted students or students inclined with particular skills.  Magnet school propositions included one for fine arts, one that focused on science, while another on math.  With perceived approval and enthusiasm from the community, the Savannah-Chatham County School Board submitted the proposal back to the courts for review.  The courts agreed to the magnet school initiative and other recommendations the board made.  However the balloon of support from the Savannah-Chatham County community would be burst after the city voted down a bond referendum to help pay for the desegregation effort in 1988.  Not all was lost as the courts, obviously disappointed by the referendum decision by the voters, okayed a new, more modest version of the original plan that would allow magnet schools to go forward.  Other important points about the courts decision included new levels of integration for Savannah-Chatham County schools, as well as a provision that enabled a majority race in one school to transfer to another school so long as it’s racial make up would be helped.7 <a name="#7">^{<a href="#7n"><strong>7</strong></a>}

The plan was a success for Savannah-Chatham County.  With the new magnet school program, hundreds and thousands of white students were being attracted back to the public school system.  By the end of the 1980’s, the Savannah-Chatham County School Board would be pleased to see that they were enjoying the highest percentage of white students in the system since “white flight” and busing imposed by the courts.  But the very thing that brought the Savannah-Chatham County School system out of a racial slump in the 1980’s, would begin to bring problems in the mid-1990’s.  The magnet school program in Savannah grew bigger and bigger in the 1990’s and saw the addition of three new magnet schools to the system.  What is the problem?  Now the magnet schools were pulling all of the white students away from the traditional public schools at a much higher rate than blacks or other minorities.  This was (and is) creating desegregation once again.  Efforts were successfully made to recruit more minorities into the magnet school system and honors programs.  Magnet schools today are still a source of opposition for those who feel they create more segregation than diversity.  The ultimate impact that magnet schools have on the Savannah-Chatham County School system and their efforts to aid in desegregation remain to be seen.8 <a name="#8">^{<a href="#8n"><strong>8</strong></a>}

A 1991 ruling by the Supreme Court mandated that schools systems can be released from court intervention “once found to have intentionally discriminated.”  This opened the door for a Savannah-Chatham County School Board panel to recommend in 1993 that the school board vote to “seek unitary status” and “declare the magnet plan a success for ending the schools’ dual system of separate black and white schools.”  A year and a half later in August of 1994, U.S. District Court Chief Judge B. Avant Edenfield handed down a ruling following a recommendation from the Chatham County Board of Education stating that Chatham County was officially a “desegregated, unitary system and [would return] control [of the school system] to the local Board of Education.”  A 32 year nightmare was drawing to a close, not to mention the years before that when segregation was lauded as good and healthy for out nation.  Savannah and the Chatham County Board of Education was from the outset rebellious and unwilling to create change; they weren’t convinced of the importance of what they were doing.  The principal that all men are created equal stands unwavering, but so often forgotten by those who take it for granted.  The Savannah-Chatham County School Board is required by law to provide its current standings on desegregation and how it is impacting its schools.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Endnotes

 

 

<p><a name="#1n"><a href="#1"><strong>1. </strong></a>[1]    Steven Tuck, “A City Too Dignified to Hate:  Civic Pride

Civil Rights, and Savannah in Comparative Perspective,” The

Georgia Historical Quarterly, Fall 1995, 539.

 

     “A Dream Deferred,” Savannah Morning News, 1 June 2004, sec. D, p. 1.

 

<p><a name="#2n"><a href="#2"><strong>2. </strong></a>[1]    “No Negro School Integration,” Savannah Evening Press,

28 August 1959, sec. A, p. 1.

 

<p><a name="#3n"><a href="#3"><strong>3. </strong></a>[1]    “Negroes File Suit Against Schools,” Savannah Evening Press,

18 January 1962, sec. A, p. 1.

 

     “A Dream Deferred,” Savannah Morning News, 1 June 2004, sec. D, p. 1.

 

<p><a name="#4n"><a href="#4"><strong>4. </strong></a>[1]    “Court to Sign Order,” Savannah Evening Press, 29 June 1963,

sec. A, p. 1.

 

     “A Dream Deferred,” Savannah Morning News, 1 June 2004, sec. D, p. 1.

 

<p><a name="#5n"><a href="#5"><strong>5. </strong></a>[1]    “Board to Unveil New Plan Today,” Savannah Evening Press,

25 August 1977, sec. a, p. 2.

 

     “A Dream Deferred,” Savannah Morning News, 1 June 2004, sec. D, p. 1.

 

<p><a name="#6n"><a href="#6"><strong>6. </strong></a>6        “A Dream Deferred,” Savannah Morning News, 1 June 2004, sec. D, p. 1.

 

<p><a name="#7n"><a href="#7"><strong>7. </strong></a>7       “A Dream Deferred,” Savannah Morning News, 1 June 2004, sec. D, p. 1.

 

<p><a name="#8n"><a href="#8"><strong>8. </strong></a>8       “A Dream Deferred,” Savannah Morning News, 1 June 2004, sec. D, p. 1.