Bryan E. Pruiett

5 November 2004

Dr. Michael Gagnon

School Integration and Race Relations in Murray County

On May 17, 1954, during the proceedings of Brown vs. Board of Education, the idea that separate but equal education was explored on the grounds that it could "deprive children of a minority group equal education opportunities." After much deliberation, a judicial consensus was reached that "separate but equal education facilities are inherently unequal." With a court order issued in May 1955, desegregation was ordered "with all deliberate speed." It would be ten years later, after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when Murray County, located in Northwest Georgia, would heed this call for integration." 1

A small population of African-Americans had always lived in Murray County, with a black community developing near Carter's Plantation, in the south of the county, after the Civil War. By 1880, a school for blacks was established in this community. Nina Moore Hill, a school teacher at the Carter School, authored an account of that school, commenting especially on its condition, writing that "the teachers had no formal education, but they had good common sense, Christian ideals, and a love for children." She conveyed how the classrooms were overcrowded with forty of more pupils per year and taught only grades one through seven. There was no high school for blacks in Murray County. Teachers did go through a certification program, as "they would be required to take the County School Board Examination." Given the results of these examinations, African-American teachers were awarded First, Second, and Third grade licenses. As time passed, the seven month school term was increased by two months and the children were given free lunches, as government aid was established, in addition to free books and even library funds.2

By 1947, the Carter School was closed and consolidated with other black schools that had been established around the county, taking the name of the Chatsworth School for Blacks, which was established in 1934-35. A new building was constructed to house the Chatsworth School in 1953. Dr. M. L. Carpenter, a member of the Board of Education during this time, comments that the "[the school] was very modern.with some real good teachers." Again, black education was only provided for grades one through seven, however, the Murray County Board of Education appropriated funds to bus blacks to Dalton, a neighboring town, to receive a high school education at the Emery Street School for Blacks. 3

During the time from the 1940s though 1961-62, a black exodus occurred in Murray County being most observable during the 1950s, as only three or four families would afterwards be left in the county. The overcrowded classrooms with forty and more students that Nina Moore Hill described were long gone, as during the school year of 1961-62 only eight pupils were enrolled in the Chatsworth Elementary School. By 1965, only four students, all from the same family, would be receiving their education at Chatsworth Elementary. During an interview with Kate and Sam Kemp, one of the first integrated school employees and one of the first integrated students respectively, this issue was addressed. Mrs. Kemp believes that it occurred in response to a desire of the younger generation to leave,

".there was a big variety of black people in Murray County, [but] they all went to Dalton. The younger generation, of course a lot of them were already gone to Dalton, so they moved too. That's what it was. It was the younger generation. There was more for them to do."

The court ordered desegregation "with all due speed" was slowly spreading through the South, but mainly in the large cities only. Numan V. Bartley reveals that most black and white children "still attended segregated schools in 1964." With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this was all about to change. Bartley expounds that as a result, the Office of Education announced in 1964 that in order to continue receiving federal funds, "schools would have to submit acceptable desegregation plans." With these developments, Murray County would begin to encounter a chain of events in its School Board meetings that would make it nearly impossible to continue a segregated education system. These difficulties would ultimately lead to an unexpected announcement of desegregation on May 4, 1965.5

During the March School Board Meeting in 1964, it was to be announced that "effective next year, no separate allotment of white and colored teachers would be made by the state." If Murray County decided to allot a black teacher, the county would have to pay the salary, something entirely unfeasible. During the February Board meeting the following year, a member, Mr. Ramsey made a motion that "the board accept the requirements imposed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964." The Assurance of Compliance would be made to the Health, Education, and Welfare Regulation. The motion was unanimously carried. During the April meeting, an addition to the February Oath of Compliance was made, stating that "it would be necessary to present a detailed plan for complying with the Civil Rights Act." Superintendent C. W. Bradley desired a consultation with the school attorney and tabled the issue until the next meeting. Dr. Carpenter asserted that practicality was a key part of this decision, as it "was costing considerably more to maintain the small school separately." The county was in dire need of a central office and realized that the colored school could readily be used in such a capacity. 6

The Thursday, May 6, 1965 issue of The Chatsworth Times was issued with the headline "Board Desegregates Schools for `65-66" and included a Resolution from the Murray County Board of Education calling for an end to segregation in the school system. It was "Resolved that any pupil regardless of grade, race, or color shall be eligible to attend the school of his choice in the Murray County School System.September, 1965." The Resolution established that the "Negro schools of Murray will be closed at the end of the present school term." Furthermore, the Negro students were to be "included without distinction" in the schools of Murray County. The Resolution also terminated the busing to the Emery Street School in Dalton, and asserted that those students who were bused "would be brought back and included in the regular schools of Murray County." The Chatsworth Times provided additional information, including that Murray County had a total of 12 Negro students, "seven in high school and five in elementary school." Eight of these students commuted to Dalton, "only four.attended school in Chatsworth." These four "were from one family and one teacher taught them all." 7

While integrating such a low number of African-Americans compared to other areas around the state, Murray County's complete acceptance and quick implementation of a forced system-wide integration was rare when compared to other counties. The two closest other school-systems, Whitfield County and the city of Dalton system, located in Whitfield County, integration proposals were quite the contrary. According to the Dalton Daily Citizen, Whitfield County schools made it policy that any student would be accepted by a school in the student's district "regardless of race, color, or national origin." Black students would have to submit an application by August 1, 1965 to be "eligible to do so." Dalton City Schools planned to desegregate by grades, beginning with the first, 11th, and 12th grades in 1965, while "adding a lower grade and two upper grades each year." Integration for Dalton by these means would not be completed until 1968. 8

Because of Murray County's noble implementation of its integration policy, its desegregation plan was quickly approved by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (H.E.W.), as notified in a letter from Francis Keppel, the U.S. Commissioner of Education. Most importantly, acceptance of the plan provided "for the payment of Federal financial assistance." The plans of both Whitfield County and Dalton City School Systems would both meet rejection by the H.E.W. 9

In Murray County, printed public reaction to the announced school integration was heavily muted, with no antagonistic editorials or letters from the community to be found. A student, Kent Carpenter, did write in the "Powwow" section of The Chatsworth Times, a section reserved for school news and student interests, of his experience with integration. He had been a participant in the Governor's Honors Program of 1964, which was integrated upon its creation that year. Mr. K. Carpenter quickly pointed out that the African-Americans were given no special attention and that their "presence caused no disturbance." In the Dalton Daily Citizen, a surprising number of proactive editorials did appear, including one by Mark Pace, pointing out that parents needed to instruct their children on behavior during the integration situation and that "they should follow the same course." Another editorial was miffed over such a "vitally important matter being decided by an executive agency," and ended with a note of sarcasm and protest to the endless flow of executive orders from the Johnson Administration, believing that the suggestion for Congress to make law would be ".to indulge in an outburst of nostalgia." There was however a called meeting of Chatsworth's Ku Klux Klan, complete with a cross burning, for Saturday night, May 29, 1965. No mention of this meeting is made in the Chatsworth Times, as it appears only in Dalton's newspaper. While a direct connection with Murray County's integration and this meeting is not stated in the article, the meeting followed four days after the announced integration. 10

These suggestions of an active Ku Klux Klan in combination with the socially-altering effects of Federally imposed integration would lead one to suspect some degree of violent racial bigotry, but this was not the case in Murray County. Mrs. Kemp emphasizes this in her interview failing to recollect any sort of harassment during that time. She says "she can't complain about it and she won't complain about it." Similarly, Dr. Carpenter, in supporting the implementation of complete integration, was never approached about the issue, believing that "it was accepted and everyone went on with it." 11

Given the absence of any mainstream calls for violently rejecting school integration or any uncovered chastisement of the African-Americans in Murray County, the only party to publicly call for continued segregation came, in a seemingly ironic circumstance, from African-Americans. The Murray County School Board Minutes from July 1965 list a visit from a "Negro Delegation." Mrs. Ruth Whitener and a group of concerned blacks "appeared before the Board in the interest of the compliance to the Civil Rights Act." There was seemingly much discussion about "continuing the colored school site and transporting colored students to Dalton." Dr. Carpenter, present at the meeting, stated that they were asking "to be excluded from the law." Mrs. Whitener and her colleagues desired that Murray County maintain the Chatsworth Elementary School and desired for continued busing of black high school aged children to the Emery Street School in Dalton. Ultimately the minutes reveal that every board member refused this idea. Mrs. Whitener and her delegation also appeared before both the Dalton City School Board and the Whitfield County School Board.12

During the August meeting of the Murray County School Board, the issue again came up. As Dalton City Schools would continue to operate the Emery Street School until 1968, there was a request, this time from Negro students themselves, to have the school system continue to provide transportation to Dalton. Dr. Carpenter believed that this was unfeasible, "it was just plain impractical, as the board was always running on a very tight budget." It was determined by the Board that no student transportation outside the system would be paid for, "as per federal bylaw."13

Several hypotheses have arisen as to why African-Americans wished to continue segregation and busing to the neighboring county. Dr. M.L. Carpenter believes it was because there was a such a close-knit community among the African-Americans that they wished to keep their schools the way they had been. Furthermore, he strongly opposes any assertion that the move could have been motivated to appease whites, "it was sincere." Some have also argued that the black schools were at the same standard or even better than the white schools of Murray County, believing that a student-teacher ration, four to one at Chatsworth Elementary, provided for more one-on-one attention. Teachers at the Chatsworth Elementary School were as qualified, if not more than those in the white schools with a black teacher even having a Ph.D. Judge Robert Vining, then Murray County District Attorney, supposes that Mrs. Whitener feared that students might not have gotten the attention they needed, "just knowing her, that's how she was." Mr. Kemp emphasizes this point, remembering that when he went to Chatsworth Elementary, he did get a lot of one-on-one attention. However, when asked about Mrs. Whitener's appeals for continued segregation, Both Kate and Sam Kemp were unaware that it had happened, and "fail to understand why she would have done that." Mr. Kemp did suggest that she "could have had an experience," that someone could have threatened her or her family into making her have such feelings or that she could have viewed the move as a setback. 14

Upon consideration, it is very understandable why Mrs. Whitener and her large number of colleagues would have wished for continued segregation. By today's standards, it is very obvious how blatantly wrong segregation was, however, Murray and Whitfield County both had spent a great deal of resources in making the legally prescribed segregated school systems as equal as possible, illustrated in Murray County with the construction of the new facility for black students being much more modern than the pre-existing white schools and with the incurred costs of busing high school age African-Americans to Dalton. Dr. Carpenter reflects that "[board members] didn't object to sending them over there or tried to short-change them on transportation." Busing to Dalton allowed the very few African-Americans of Murray County to have "a larger number of students to be friends and associates." It is quite clear that there was a rich, thriving spirit of community with the Emery Street School, which is strikingly evidenced by the press coverage of its May Baccalaureate services in 1965, in which twenty-nine seniors graduated. To dissolve this community, and cast them into environment where they would have to be viewed as different would be difficult to do for its members.15

In late August of 1965, an integrated school system began its fall term in Murray County. The presence of integrated African-Americans did not receive any coverage in either the Dalton Daily Citizen or the Chatsworth Times. Absent were the police escorts and picket lines that had scarred the school systems in Little Rock, Alabama and other bastions of integration discontent. It was however business as usual, with an unprecedented level of equality. Judge Vining asserts that there were equal standards, if you were a black student "you came in and did your work like everyone else, if you didn't, you got an F like everybody else." There were no separate standards for either race. Sam Kemp remembers that first year after integration. Because of the low number of African-Americans, "he was the only black child in the class." Only once he made it to the fourth grade would Mr. Kemp have another African-American in his class. At the end of September, Murray County High School Principal Ray Bagley delivered an integration report to the Board of Education. The minutes reveal that "Mr. Bagley reported.that no problems had been encountered." Dr. France Adams, then an English teacher, observed that the students were very well accepted and many becoming quite popular, "especially Clifford Bonds, who was a fantastic basketball player."16

Judge Robert Vining has described Murray County's integration as "a non-event." Essentially, this label holds true, for it was just that. At the end of the Spring term in 1965, the black school was closed, students bused to Dalton were kept home, and an integrated school term began in the fall of 1965, as usual. Mr. Kemp reflects that throughout his school career he "had no problem and always had friends." Upon the ending of her interview, Mrs. Kemp commented that "we're continually coming into the light" and that she is immensely happy with Murray County with how the county has conducted itself. Indeed, Murray County, should be proud. Leaders in its school system saw the need to quickly integrate for the good of everyone. Its citizens, although perhaps uncomfortable at first with the radical change to the social customs of a century, on the whole conducted themselves respectful to such a change and to all those involved in it. 17

Notes

1. Numan V. Bartley, The New South 1945-1980: The Story of the South's Modernization (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995), 372-373.

2. Nina Moore Hill, "An Account of Education for Blacks at Carters,"a primary source in Murray County Heritage, ed. Timothy R. Howard and others (Fernandina Beach, FL: Wolfe Publishing, 1987), 216-217.

3. Tim Howard and others, eds. Murray County Heritage (Fernandina Beach, FL: Wolfe Publishing, 1987), 385-386. Dr. M. L. Carpenter, retired physician and school board member, interview by author, 20 October 2004, Chatsworth, tape recording, Whitfield Murray Historical Society, Dalton.

4. Howard et al. 1987, 386; Hill 1987, 216; Kate Kemp, first integrated African-American school employee and mother, interview by author, 17 October 2004, Piney Grove Baptist Church, Chatsworth, tape recording, Whitfield Murray Historical Society, Dalton; Sam Kemp, first integrated student in Murray County, interview by author, 17 October 2004, Piney Grove Baptist Church, Chatsworth, tape recording, Whitfield Murray Historical Society, Dalton.

5. Bartley, 1995, 370-72

6. Murray County Board of Education, Board Minutes: Oath of Compliance, (Chatsworth, September 1965). Murray County Board of Education, Board Minutes: Oath of Compliance, (Chatsworth, February 1965). Murray County Board of Education, Board Minutes, (Chatsworth, April, 1965). Carpenter, 2004

7. Staff, "Board Desegregates Schools for '65-66," The Chatsworth Times, 6 May 1965; Resolution, by James C. Loughridge, chairman (Chatsworth, GA: Murray County Board of Education, 1965)

8. Staff, "County Integration Plan is Rejected," The Dalton Daily Citizen, 5 June 1965.

9. Staff, "Desegregation Plan Approved by HEW," The Chatsworth Times, 8 July 1965. Staff, "County Integration Plan is Rejected."

10. Kent Carpenter, "Purpose of learning overrides integration," The Chatsworth Times Indian Powwow, 27 May 1965, p. 2. Mark Pace, "We All Have Responsibilities When Integration Arrives," The Dalton Daily Citizen, 25 May 1965, p.3. Staff Editorial, "Let Congress Make the Laws," The Dalton Daily Citizen, 11 May 1965, p. 2. Staff, "Chatsworth Klan Meeting is Scheduled," The Dalton Daily Citizen, 28 May 1965, p. 1.

11. K. Kemp 2004; Carpenter 2004

12. Murray County Board of Education, Board Minutes: Negro Delegation (Chatsworth: July, 1965); Carpenter 2004

13. Murray County Board of Education, Board Minutes: Transportation for Negro Students (Chatsworth: August 1965); Carpenter 2004

14. Carpenter 2004; Robert L. Vining, Federal Court Judge and past district attorney for Murray County, interview by author, 4 October 2004, Dalton, tape recording, Whitfield-Murray Historical Society, Dalton. K. Kemp 2004; S. Kemp 2004

15. Howard et al. 1987, 448-49; Carpenter 2004; Staff, "Emery High Baccalaureate Graduation Set," The Dalton Daily Citizen, 28 May 1965, p.3

16. Vining 2004; S. Kemp 2004; Murray County Board of Education, Board Minutes: Integration Report (Chatsworth: September 1965); Dr. France Adams, retired high school administrator and English teacher, interview by author, Chatsworth, 3 October 2004, tape recording, Whitfield-Murray Historical Society, Dalton

17. Vining 2004; S. Kemp 2004; K. Kemp 2004

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