Bryan Burroughs

Hist 3090

Dr. Gagnon

04 March 2004                                                        

 

Desegregation of the University of Georgia

 

The fight to desegregate the University of Georgia was long battle. The first black people to ever apply to the university were a group of freedmen in 1867. However, this first big struggle to open the doors of the University of Georgia to African Americans came in 1950 when a brave young man named Horace T. Ward applied to the School of Law. Ward fought long and hard, for almost seven years, to get into the university but he didn’t quite make it. Yet Ward was the crusader that took the first major steps for other African Americans in the future to start out at. He paved the way for the likes of Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, the first black students to ever attend the university. Their integration in 1961 created a vast array of emotions in the student body. Some willingly ushered in the change on campus, others grudgingly accepted the court mandate with frustration and anguish, other students outright defied the court order and rioted outside of Charlayne Hunters dormitory. Some of the thoughts and feelings they felt were feelings to blacks, and equality that was passed down to them from generations earlier.  It was definitive time in the history of the University of Georgia.

The first major struggle to integrate the University of Georgia began in 1950 with a man named Horace T. Ward. Ward grew up in La Grange Georgia where he was an excellent student. Even during his elementary education years his teachers saw that Ward was a very gifted student. During high school in La Grange Ward was the senior class president and the valedictorian of his graduating class. His impressive marks gave him an easy admission to Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1946.

While at Morehouse Ward earned a bachelors degree in history in 1946. After obtaining his B.A. in history Ward went on to attend graduate school at Atlanta University where he earned his M.A. in political science in 1950. Ward was an equally exceptional college student as he was a high school student. During his college career Ward was greatly influenced by several black leaders to apply for the University of Georgia School of Law. Some of the men that encouraged him to attend law school at UGA were: Austin Thomas Walden, the only black attorney in Atlanta; political scientist Robert Brisbane, who was a Harvard Ph.D. graduate; and Morehouse College President Benjamin E. Mays. Mays often told his students to oppose segregation systems and to work hard to gain equality. Ward once told an interviewer, “Benjamin Mays preached you don’t do anything to segregate yourself.”[i]

Perhaps the most influential person concerning Ward’s application to the University of Georgia was William Madison Boyd an Atlanta University faculty member and President of Georgia’s NAACP chapter. Getting African Americans into graduate school programs was becoming an important goal for the NAACP. In 1950 the NAACP won two court cases that integrated Oklahoma University and Texas University. The Supreme Court case McLaurin v. Oklahoma 1950 desegregated Oklahoma University and Sweatt v. Painter 1950 desegregated Texas University. With two universities integrated the NAACP was going to attempt to integrate a school in the Deep South and Ward was the perfect to student to do so.

The influential men who encouraged most certainly wanted the best possible education for Ward, but the primary goal was not for Horace Ward to get into UGA but an African American. These same men were also encouraging Martin Luther King Jr. to apply to the University of Georgia School of Law, but instead King went into the ministry.  The NAACP had an agenda specifically set for the University of Georgia not necessarily for Horace Ward. If Ward had not been willing to apply to UGA the NAACP would have found someone else for the job. The goal of integrating UGA was not for Ward to go to law school; he was used for the greater purpose of opening up southern schools to African Americans. [ii]

Ward was just right for the purposes of the NAACP. He was a remarkable student, but more importantly Ward was a native Georgian. According to the Supreme Court cases McLaurin v. Oklahoma 1950 and Sweatt v. Painter 1950 states had to provide equal education for African American students.[iii] If the state could not provide equal educational opportunities then they must be admitted to the white universities. Using this legal basis Ward should easily have been admitted to the law school at UGA, but the university fought back to keep Ward out.

Ward turned in his application to the University of Georgia School of Law on September 30, 1950. Whenever a black person would apply to UGA the executive secretary of the Board of Regents, L. R. Seibert, would send him or her a letter offering the applicant out-of-state aid. The out-of-state aid, which was called the grant-in-aid program, would offer the student money to attend school out state, which would cover the difference in the cost tuition as well room and board and allowance. An article in the Atlanta Journal reported that from 1943 to 1960 the State Board of Regents had spent $2,306,087 in grants to over 25,000 black students using the grant-in-aid program.[iv] Ward denied the offer of the grant-in-aid program asked that the university proceed to review his application for acceptance. On October 17, 1950 Ward received a letter saying that the university would be in touch as to the status of his application. Needless to say the admission process getting underway created lots of controversy. Whites and blacks alike cautioned Ward and his mentor Benjamin Mays, not to rush into trying to integrate the university.

A misconception is that all African Americans were united in trying to integrate universities and colleges. Robert Brisbane was quoted in a 1995 interview as saying:

There is the assumption that all blacks were unified in support of Horace Ward; that is an erroneous assumption. I just got through showing this film to my class on Brown v. Board of Education and some of the toughest opposition Thurgood Marshall encountered was from some conservative blacks who felt that he was pushing too fast. It is also true that when Horace Ward sought entrance to the University of Georgia, there were some who felt he was doing too much too fast and that he should be content with the out-of-state aid and be satisfied. They felt he was just making too many waves.[v]

 

Ward began to face trouble concerning his application as soon as it arrived at UGA. October 17, 1950 the university told Ward they would be in touch concerning his application. However, he received no word on the status of his application for over three months. Ward sent another letter to UGA asking if any progress had been made on his application in January 1951. Again, the university said they were still processing his application and would notify him of any progress. Once again he received no word for another four months. When Ward applied to the University of Georgia School of Law the only entrance requirement was that the applicant must be a graduate of a college of approved standing by the University System of Georgia. Morehouse College Atlanta University was not a member of the University System of Georgia during this time but it was approved by the system. In other words there should have been no problem admitting Ward to the university. Ward was finally officially denied, without an explanation, on June 7, 1951 by UGA’s registrar Walter Danner. On June 25, 1951 the University of Georgia President, Dr. O. C. Aderhold received a letter from Elliot Cheatham of the Columbia University School of Law concerning Ward’s application. Cheatham told Aderhold that if the issue was taken to court it would be an “open and shut case”
since Georgia did not provide a law school for African Americans. Cheatham went to predict that unless the university acted quickly it would forcefully integrated in less than one year.[vi] 

President Aderhold was quick to take the advice of colleague at Columbia University. Ward then proceeded to go through an appeals process that lasted for several months. Following the advice of Cheatham the university made it tougher for Ward to gain admission by changing the admission standards for the law school on February 12, 1952 while Ward’s application was still going through the appeals process. The new entrance requirements included an entrance exam, and the applicant must receive approval from a UGA alumnus and from his districts supreme court judge. The university claimed they changed the requirements for law school in order to raise the quality law students coming into UGA. However, the obvious truth is that Ward, being an African American, would have chance of getting approval from both a white alumni and white district judge.[vii] On February 13, 1950 Ward was notified of the new requirements and that his application could not be viewed further until the requirements were accomplished. The Board of Regents told Ward they could not accept him at this time, due to the incomplete application, because that “would result in discrimination against other applicants.” [viii] Finally being fed up Ward filed a civil suit in the United States District Court, Northern District of Georgia against the Board of Regents on June 23, 1952.[ix]

Taking the Board of Regents to court would not only mean fighting against the university, but also fighting against some of Georgia’s state laws and its state constitution. The State Constitution of Georgia made it unconstitutional for students of different races to attend school together. ArticleVIII, Section I, Paragraph I of the Constitution of the State of Georgia stated, “The provision of an adequate education for the citizens shall be a primary obligation of the state of Georgia, the expense of which shall be provided by taxation. Separate schools shall be provided for the white and colored races.”[x] Not only that but the General Appropriations Act of 1951-1952 further said that state aid would be cut off to any university or college that integrated.[xi] The General Appropriations Act of 1951-1951 would end up shutting down the university due to the lack of funding. Not only were the laws and state constitution providing segregation, but the politicians of Georgia were ready to defend segregation by any means necessary. The Atlanta Journal reported that Governor Eugene Talmadge would throw the full resources of the state government into defense of the state’s segregation laws; Talmadge was ready to fight through “every court in the land.”[xii] The Governor was prepared to “fight to the bitter end” to protect the state’s constitution.[xiii]

  Nevertheless Ward proceeded with his civil suit. The state delayed the court date all the way to October 9, 1953. However, one month before his court date Ward was drafted into the military during the Korean War Draft and he would not return until 1956.[xiv] Upon his return the case, Horace T. Ward v. The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, was reopened on December 17, 1956.[xv] During the trial Ward is giving his testimony on the witness stand and reveals that he has been enrolled in Northwestern University Law School since September. Everyone in the courtroom was completely baffled as no one, not even his own lawyers, knew about this information. The surprising aspect was that no one knew about Ward’s enrollment, but the confusing part was that he did not take the out-of-state grant which would have helped pay for his school since he was going out of state. Due to this news Ward lost his case February 12, 1957. Judge Hooper gave the following reasons for ruling in favor of the defendants: Ward’s failure to file a new application after his original application was denied, and most importantly the premise that Ward “expressly abandoned his formal application” to enter the law school as a first-year student when he enrolled at Northwestern and asserted the right to enter as a transfer student in the near future.[xvi]

Although Ward was never admitted to the University of Georgia School of Law it is important to acknowledge what he did do. He did actually prove that he belonged in the university according to his merits. Judge Hooper never mentioned the plaintiff’s loss on account of Ward not being qualified. He did continue on to graduate from the Northwestern University Law School, become a successful lawyer in Atlanta, and also a judge. Perhaps most importantly it should be noticed that Ward’s efforts were not fruitless. Although he did not make it to UGA he did pioneer the way for the African Americans that would make it to UGA four years later.

The two African Americans that finally desegregated the Deep South University of Georgia were Hamilton E. Holmes and Charlayne Hunter. When these two applied they found themselves in very similar situations. They also had to deal with application delays, personal interviews, a long appeals process, and deal with similar laws regarding segregation, segregationist politicians, and a court case. Both, Hunter and Holmes applied for the University of Georgia July 22, 1959. Holmes wanted to study pre medical curriculum, and Hunter wanted to major in journalism. Their applications were dismissed because allegedly there was no room in the dormitories for Holmes and Hunter to live in. Their applications were not rejected, but when they applied as freshmen and when they tried to transfer university registrar Walter Danner told them they were not taking any new applicants due to “limited facilities.”[xvii] Hunter was dismissed for this reason for the following quarters: Fall quarter 1959, Winter quarter 1960, Spring quarter 1960, Fall quarter 1960, Winter quarter1961. Holmes was dismissed on the basis of limited facilities for the following quarters: Fall 1959, Winter 1960, and Spring 1960. It was UGA policy that all freshmen live on campus, and that all female students under the age of twenty-three live on campus. Thus, Hunter and Holmes both would have had to live on campus during the quarters listed above. However in the Spring quarter of 1960 there were sixty-three housing vacancies for men, and forty-one vacancies for women housing, yet Hunter and Holmes were dismissed due to the limited facilities.[xviii]

After a long appeals process a court ruled that the university had to either reject or admit the students. Walter Danner and two men from his staff gave Hunter and Holmes separate personal interviews to determine if their character was acceptable for UGA. Hunter passed her interview and could potentially be accepted for the Fall quarter of 1961. However, Holmes was denied admission to the university based on his personal interview.[xix] The interview with Holmes was carried out with the intent to find something wrong with his character. The following are some of the questions asked to Hamilton Holmes during his personal interview: Have you ever attended interracial parties? Have you ever attended houses of prostitution? Do you know about the red light district in Athens? Have you ever been arrested? Danner rejected Holmes because he was “evasive and untrustworthy” when asked about being arrested. Holmes received “average” scores on his physical appearance, poise, maturity, seriousness of purpose, and social adaptability. He received “poor” marks for his verbal expression and cooperativeness. [xx]

After two years had passed since they sent their application Hunter and Holmes took Walter Danner to court for discriminating against their race and color. The court hearing lasted from December 13-17, 1960. Judge Bootle passed his judgment on January 6, 1961 declaring “the two plaintiffs qualified for immediate admission” to the University of Georgia.[xxi] 

All seemed to be going relatively well on campus and nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.  Then disaster struck. On the date of January 11, 1961 UGA lost a basketball game at home in over time to arch rival Georgia Tech, a game that the bulldogs believed was an “unfair decision.”[xxii] After the game the angry UGA students converged on Center Myers where Charlayne Hunter was staying. A mob of over 1500 students rioted outside her dormitory for almost two years, breaking windows, yelling racial slurs, and setting off fire-crackers; finally the Georgia State Patrol arrived and dispersed the crowd with tear gas. Holmes and Hunter were immediately suspended from school to protect their safety.[xxiii]

Five days later a math teacher named Thomas Brahana was scheduled to give an exam to his class, but instead asked his students to write a brief essay concerning their thoughts on the universities integration. The reaction of the student body encompasses a wide range of actions and emotions. There are few who believe that desegregation is the best thing for the university, and there are some who view desegregation as the absolute worst thing that could have ever happened, but it seemed that most fell somewhere between the two extremes. These essays compiled together are known as the Math 254 essays. It is probably the best source to accurately assess the general feeling of the student body. It is interesting to see how the students learned about concepts such as race, racism, and integration. They did not learn about racial concepts growing up in school but through their southern tradition of white superiority. Many students wrote down “facts” and “statistics” that absolutely blow the mind to think they were actually attending a university.[xxiv]

Very few of the students expressed an optimistic view of integration helping African Americans. One student wrote several good remarks about using integration to help black people, “the damning facts are that the white and black men are not granted equal opportunity, and the very reason for this is our southern doctrine of ‘white superiority’.” This same student recalled reading a psychology paper proving that blacks and whites have the same mental capacity. The student who wrote this essay was the person who backed up a point with a reference other than the home town they grew up in. this student concluded by saying, “I believe that the only way the Negro will be able to climb up from the hole that we have thrown him in is by being permitted to secure an education which is exactly that of the white man.” This is obviously the extreme case of someone who believed in integration, other students had viewpoints from the opposite extreme.[xxv]

      At the other extreme there are these students. One student started out by saying, “I am a southerner and have lived among Negroes all my life. Some of my playmates when I was a little boy were Negroes. Through these experiences I feel that I know and understand the Negro….” Now that was a pretty bold statement. From this students experiences he said why he did not want to go to school with blacks: “It appears to me that the Negro has a lack of ambition. He does not have the desire to work and better himself but is only concerned with having enough to eat. Secondly, Negroes do not have the same morals we have….the Negro is also not as physically clean as ‘whites’.”[xxvi]

While this student falls very much on the segregationist side there were many students that did not necessarily approve of integration but only cared about getting an education. The simplest essay was only three short sentences: “I do not wish to integrate. I do not think its right. I do wish to study mathematics!” Most students seemed to have this type of attitude. Most students seemed totally resolve d to the fact that integration was inevitable and only wished to get an education with out any more violence.[xxvii]

Then there were students who would some how come up with the most irrational “facts” that are almost laughable. One student wrote that due to integration “by the year 2061 A.D. there will be little left of a distinct Negro or white race; a hybrid race will be well on its way here in America.” Referring the white race as having evolved more than black another student wrote, “Why then, does the average Negro have almost double the rhythm of a ‘white’ man in his culture. This leads me to believe it is still the ‘jungle instinct’.”

 What were not very surprising about the essays were the very prevalent ideas about race war and amalgamation. Southerners had feared these two things for a long time. These fears come up several times throughout the essays: integration “will build up so much friction in the south that there will be an outright war over race”, “…I think there will be a mixing of the races…this is the point I feel most strongly about”, “I think integration…will lead to social disaster. Mixing blacks and whites on the color wheel produces gray, and this is one of the greatest worries of the people of the south.”[xxviii] These were also fears during secession after Lincoln was elected president in 1860 and abolition of slavery was the big controversy. In 1860 abolition would produce ruinous competition between the races. Stephen Hale asked his audience in a speech in 1860, “who among us could remain passive if their inaction meant watching their wives and daughters to pollution...”[xxix] The thoughts and feelings of animosity and fear the students wrote in the essays were inherited from a southern Jim Crow society.

    The legacy of Horace T. Ward is still felt today. He set the wheels in motion for Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter to integrate the University of Georgia. His legacy is still present today as African Americans are free to attend the University of Georgia. Just as it was back in 1950 race and application acceptance is still a controversial subject where there can still be room for improvement in today’s society. Yet thanks to brave men and women like Horace Ward, Hamilton Holmes, and Charlayne Hunter we have come a long way in making the university open to students of all racial backgrounds. Only forty-three years out the University of Georgia’s 219 year existence has it been integrated. Over forty-three more years UGA will grown even more the equal rights of its students.