The Backlash Thesis Author(S): Michael J

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How Brown Changed Race Relations: The Backlash Thesis Author(s): Michael J. Klarman Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of American History, Vol. 81, No. 1 (Jun., 1994), pp. 81-118 Published by: Organization of American Historians Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2080994 . Accessed: 07/02/2013 12:22

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This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions How BrownChanged Race Relations: The BacklashThesis

MichaelJ. Klarman

Constitutionallawyers and historians generally deem Brown v. Board ofEducation to be themost important United States Supreme Court decision of the twentieth century,and possiblyof all time.Surprisingly little attention, however, has been devotedto analyzing precisely how Brown was important. Yet Supreme Court deci- sionscan be significantinmany different ways. First, as a directcause, Brown could havedesegregated the public schools. Alternatively, oradditionally, Brown might havehad indirecteffects - thrusting the desegregationissue onto the national agenda,searing the conscience of previously indifferent northern whites, providing legitimacyto desegregationdemands by blacks, or inspiring (especially southern) blacksto challengethe racial status quo.1 Thisarticle has two objectives. First, I wish to raise questions about the usual ac- countsof how Brown mattered. It is widelyacknowledged that Brown's direct im- pacton school desegregation was limited. Yet Brown's indirect contribution toracial changecontinues to be moregenerally assumed than demonstrated. I wish to sug- gestthat scholars may have exaggerated the extent to whichthe Supreme Court's schooldesegregation ruling provided critical inspiration tothe civil rights movement.

MichaelJ. Klarmanis professorof law and Class of 1966 ResearchProfessor, University of Virginia. I havebenefited in differentways during the gestation of this project from the inputof Barry Adler, Ed Ayers, Alan Brinkley,Dan Carter,Lance Conn, BarryCushman, Matt Dillard, John Hart Ely, Jon Entin, David Garrow, Paul Gaston,Sam Issacharoff,John Jeffries, Walter Kamiat, Pam Karlan,Herbert Klarman, Hal Krent,Chuck McCurdy,Neil McMillen,Dan Ortiz,Gerald Rosenberg, Jim Ryan, Reuel Schiller,Bruce Schulman, Bill Stuntz, David Thelen,J. MillsThornton III, MarkTushnet, and Ted White,as well as participantsin facultyworkshops at Case WesternUniversity School of Law and at theUniversity of Virginia Department of History and twoanony- mousreaders for theJournalofAmerican History. Superb research assistance was provided by WijdanJreisat, Reuel Schiller,Leslie Shaunty, and Joel Straka.I would also liketo thankSusan Armenyfor her excellent copyediting and KentOlson forreference assistance above and beyondthe call ofduty. Finally, it wouldnot have been possible forme to haveread as widelyas I havefor this project without the cheerfuland efficientdictation transcription of KathyBurton, Evelyn Gray, Christine Moll, Susan Simches,and (especially)Phyllis Ware.

1 Brownv. Board ofEducation of Topeka,347 U.S. 483 (1954). Forstatements of Brown's overarching importance,seeJ. Harvie Wilkinson, From Brown to Bakke:The Supreme Court and SchoolIntegration,1954-1978 (New York,1979), 6; MaryL. Dudziak,"Desegregation as a Cold WarImperative," StanfordLaw Review, 41 (Nov. 1988), 62; Lino Graglia,"Remarks at RoundtableDiscussion of theJudiciary Act of 1789,"Nova Law Review,14 (Fall 1989),271; Robert L. Gill, "The Impact,Implications, and Prospectsof Brown v. Board of Education: Twenty-Five YearsAfter," Negro Educational Review, 30 (April-July1979), 64; HowardA. Glickstein,"The Impactof Brown v. Boardof Education and Its Progeny,"Howard Law Journal, 23 (no. 1, 1980),55; and NathanielR. Jones,"The Desegregationof Urban Schools Thirty Years after Brown," University of ColoradoLaw Review,55 (Summer1984), 553.

The Journalof AmericanHistory June 1994 81

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The second,and morefundamental, objective of this article is to providean alter- nativeaccount of Brown'sindirect contribution to racialchange, one thatfocuses on the backlashagainst Brown. In thisview, Brown was indirectlyresponsible for thetransformative civil rights legislation of the mid-1960s by setting in motionthe followingpattern of events.2 Brown crystallized southern resistance to racialchange, which-from at leastthe time of Harry S. Truman'scivil rights proposals in 1948- had been scatteredand episodic.The unificationof southernracial intransigence, whichbecame knownas massiveresistance, propelled politics in virtuallyevery southernstate several notches to the righton racialissues; Brown temporarily de- stroyedsouthern racial moderation. In thisextremist political environment, men who wereunswervingly committed to preservationof the racialstatus quo were catapultedinto public office.These massiveresistance politicians were both per- sonallyand politicallypredisposed to use whatevermeasures were necessary to main- tainJim Crow,including the brutalsuppression of civil rightsdemonstrations. There followednationally televised scenes of southernlaw enforcementofficers usingpolice dogs, high-pressure fire hoses, tear gas, and truncheonsagainst peaceful,prayerful black demonstrators (often children), which converted millions of pre- viouslyindifferent northern whites into enthusiastic proponents of civil rights legislation. It is crucialto emphasizethe limited claim to originalitythat I am makingin pro- posingthe backlash thesis. Many historians and politicalscientists -for example, Earl Black,Numan V. Bartley,Hugh D. Graham,and Neil R. McMillen-have copiously documentedthe racialfanaticism that Brown induced in southernpolitics. Other scholars-for example, DavidJ. Garrow, Harvard Sitkoff, and Doug McAdam-have convincinglydemonstrated the connectionbetween suppression of civil rights demonstrationsat Birminghamand Selma, Alabama, and the enactmentof the CivilRights Act of 1964and theVoting Rights Act of 1965.Thus, I claimno origi- nalityin establishingthe particular links in theproferred chain of causation. To my knowledge,however, nobody has assembledthese links into a causalchain that con-

2 Anyevaluation of the extent to whichthe civil rights legislation of the mid-1960s altered the racial landscape ofthis nation is controversial.Plainly the Civil Rights Act of 1964had a dramaticeffect on southernschool segregation;the Voting Rights Act of 1965had similarlyrevolutionary implications for black voter registration, especially in theDeep South.For example, the percentage of eligible blacks registered to votein Mississippiincreased from 6.7% in 1964to 32.9% in 1966and to 59.4% in 1968,while the corresponding figures for Alabama were 23.0%, 51.2%,and 56.7%. Thesefigures are uncontroverted; what is controversialis evaluating how much difference school desegregationand voterregistration have made to thelives of blacks. Heightened black voter registration has failed to produceblack elected officials in proportionto the blackpercentage of the population(though the numbers continueto increaseannually), and evenblack elected officials have failed significantly to mitigate the enormous economicand socialproblems facing the nation's black community. The statisticson blackvoting are from David J. Garrow,Protest at Selma.:Martin Luther King, Jr., and the VotingRights Act of 1965 (New Haven, 1978), 19, table 1-3,189, table 6-1.Statistics on blackelected officials are in StevenF Lawson,Running for Freedom: Civil Rightsand BlackPolitics in Americasince 1941(Philadelphia, 1991), 260, table 5, 261. On the limitedcapacity of blackvoting to remedythe ills of the blackcommunity, see Garrow,Protest at Se/ma,190-91, 210-11; Lawson, Runningfor Freedom, 261-64; Andrew Hacker, Two Nations: Black and White,Separate, Hostile, Unequal (New York,1992); RobertJ. Norrell, Reaping the Whirlwind.The CivilRights Movement in Tuskegee(New York,1985), 206-8; HarvardSitkoff, The Strugglefor Black Equality, 11954-1980 (New York,1981), 230-34; and Numan V. Bartley,The Creationof Modern Ga. (Athens,Ga., 1983), 203-4.

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Whitestudents protest the Brown decision, which destroyed racial liberalism amongsouthern whites and fomentedmassive resistance. CourtesyBirmingham News. nectsBrown, in an indirectand indeedalmost perverse manner, with the landmark civilrights legislation of the mid-1960s.Finally, whether the Browndecision was a profoundor a minorinspiration for the civil rights movement, the backlash thesis has explanatorypower, since the criticalfederal legislative intervention occurred onlyafter the civil rightsmovement intersected, at places like Birminghamand Selma, withthe southernracial backlash.3 Anyevaluation of Brown's contribution to racialchange must consider the decision'sdirect impact: How muchschool desegregation did Brownproduce? Clearly Brownhad a significantand fairlyimmediate effect on schoolsegregation in the

3 See, amongothers in thisrich body of scholarship,Numan V. Bartley,The Rise ofMassive Resistance: Race and Politicsin the South duringthe 1950's (Baton Rouge, 1969); Numan V. Bartleyand Hugh D. Graham, SouthernPolitics and theSecondReconstruction (Baltimore, 1975); Neil R. McMillen,The Citizens' Council: Orga- nized Resistanceto the SecondReconstruction, 1954-1964 (Urbana, 1971);Earl Black,Southern Governors and CivilRights: Racial Segregation as a CampaignIssue in theSecond Reconstruction (Cambridge, Mass., 1976); and Doug McAdam,Political Process and the Developmentof Black Insurgency,1930-1970 (Chicago, 1982).

This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 84 TheJournal of American History June1994 borderstates and in isolatedportions of the peripheral South. For example, in Ken- tuckythe percentage of blacksattending public schools with whites increased from 0 percentat the time of the firstBrown decision in 1954 to 28.4 percentin 1957-1958and 54.4 percentin 1963-1964;the analogousfigures from Oklahoma were0 percentin 1954,18.2 percent in 1957-1958,and 28.0 percentin 1963-1964. Moreover,in theperipheral South, roughly seventy-five school districts in Texasand tenin Arkansashad desegregatedby 1957, though these districts were in areaswith verysmall black populations, and theythus yielded little desegregation in absolute numbersor statewidepercentages (in 1957-1958, 0.09 percentof black students at- tendedschool with whites in Arkansasand 1.4 percentin Texas).4 Throughoutthe rest of the South, Brown had almostno immediatedirect impact on desegregation.In upperSouth states such as Tennesseeand NorthCarolina, the percentageof blacksattending desegregated schools was, respectively, 0.12 percent and 0.01percent in 1959-1960,and 2.7 percentand 0.54 percentin 1963-1964.Even morerevealing, in the Deep Southstates of SouthCarolina, Alabama, and Missis- sippi, not a single black child attendedan integratedpublic grade school in 1962-1963.Across the Southas a whole,roughly 0.16 percentof school-ageblacks wereattending school with whites in 1959-1960and 1.2percent in 1963-1964.Thus, whileit is truethat lower court rulings in Arkansasand Virginiain 1959 brokethe backof massive resistance in thosestates, only trivial amounts of desegregation en- sued, as defianceof Brownwas replaced,not withcompliance, but withevasion.5 Only afterthe 1964 Civil RightsAct threatenedto cut offfederal educational fundingfor segregated school districts and theDepartment of Health,Education, and Welfarein 1966adopted stringent enforcement guidelines, did thepercentage of southernblack children attending public school with whites rise to 6.1 percent in 1965-1966,32.0 percentin 1968-1969,and 91.3percent in 1972-1973.After the Elementaryand SecondaryEducation Act of 1965vastly increased federal spending on publiceducation, southern states found it increasinglydifficult to resistschool desegregation,which became a conditionfor receipt of federal funds. In the three

4 The percentagefigures are fromGerald N. Rosenberg,The Hollow Hope: Can CourtsBring About Social Change?(Chicago, 1991), appendix 1. The figureson Texasand Arkansasschool districts are provided,with some variationin theprecise numbers, in Bartley,Rise of Massive Resistance, 138; Black,Southern Governors and Civil Rights,373n73; McMillen, Citizens' Council, 93-94, 103; RichardE. Yates,"Arkansas: Independent and Unpre- dictable,"in The ChangingPolitics of the South,ed. WilliamC. Havard(Baton Rouge,1972), 271. On the im- mediate,preliminary steps toward compliance with Brown in borderstates, as wellas in theDistrict of Columbia, see BenjaminMuse, Ten Years of Prelude: The Story of Integration since the Supreme Court's 1954 Decision (New York,1964), 23, 30-37; Rosenberg,Hollow Hope, 50-51; McMillen,Citizens' Council, 7-9; RobertFredrick Burk, TheEisenhower Administration and BlackCivil Rights (Knoxville, 1984), 55-56; WilliamHenry Chafe, Civilities and CivilRights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and theBlack Struggle for Freedom (New York,1980), 16; August Meier,"The SuccessfulSit-ins in a BorderCity: A Studyin Social Causation,"Journal of IntergroupRelations, 2 (Summer1961), 231; and George C. Wright,"Desegregation of Public Accommodationsin Louisville,"in SouthernBusinessmen and Desegregation,ed. ElizabethJacoway and David R. Colburn(Baton Rouge, 1982), 192-93. 5 Rosenberg,Hollow Hope, 50, table2.1, appendix 1; McMillen,Citizens' Council, 9-10; Bartley,Rise of Mas- siveResistance, 323-32; James W. Ely,The Crisisof ConservativeVirginia: The Byrd Organization and thePolitics of MassiveResistance (Knoxville, 1976), 88-89, 123-24, 128-29, 132-33;J. HarvieWilkinson, Harry Byrd and the ChangingFace of VirginiaPolitics, 1945-1966 (Charlottesville, 1968), 145-46; Lee Powell,"Massive Resistance in Arkansas:A Tale of Race Relationsin an UndemocraticPolitical System in the 1950s,"1992 (in MichaelJ. Klarman'spossession), 93.

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Deep Southstates most resistant to schooldesegregation - Mississippi, Alabama, and SouthCarolina-federal funds constituted 16.8 percent, 20.2 percent,and 17.5 percentof the public schoolbudgets as of 1967-1968.Though the federalcourts aggressivelyreentered the school desegregation fray in themid-1960s (as did theSu- premeCourt in 1968),it seemsclear that legislative and executive,more than judicial,action prompted the sea changein schooldesegregation in themiddle and late 1960s.6 ThatBrown had littledirect impact on schooldesegregation is apparent,yet the decisionmay still have been tremendously important because of its indirect effects. Not onlydid manyparticipants in thecivil rights demonstrations of the 1950sand 1960semphasize Brown's inspirational effect, but mostscholars believe that Brown was verysignificant in thisregard. Notwithstanding the powerfulrecent historio- graphictrend toward locating the origins of the modern civil rights movement well beforeBrown - usuallyin WorldWar II, but occasionallyeven earlier- historians, legalscholars, political scientists, sociologists, and informedjournalists continue to assumethat Brown inspired the civil rights movement.7 This pervasive assumption of Brown'sindirect causal significancehas been evidencedboth implicitly,by the use of 1954as thestarting or endingpoint for many period studies, and explicitly, byclaims regarding Brown's importance. Scholars have told us thatthe commence- mentof theSecond Reconstruction is traceable to Brown,that Brown "profoundly affectednational thinking and servedas theprincipal ideological engine" of the civil rightsmovement, that Brown "raised black awareness" and "strengthenedresolve amongsouthern blacks to takecontrol of theirdestiny," and thatwithout Brown therewould have been no 1964 CivilRights Act. Even those recent historians who

6 All statisticsare from Rosenberg, Hollow Hope, 50, table2.1, 52-54, 97-100,table 3.2. These desegregation figuresfail to distinguishbetween actual and tokenintegration -that is, theyfail to identifyhow many white chil- drenwere in the "integrated"schools-but theyare usefulin makingthe timeseries comparison. 7 On thehistoriographic trend toward locating the origins of the civil rights movement in the 1930sor 1940s, see Norrell,Reaping the Whirlwind, x; Chafe,Civilities and CivilRights,32-39; EarlLewis, In TheirOwn Interests: Race, Class,and Powerin Twentieth-CenturyNorfolk, Virginia (Berkeley, 1991), 184-201;Albert S. Broussard, BlackSan Francisco:The Strugglefor Racial Equality in the West,1900-1954 (Lawrence, 1993), chs. 8-11;Robert Korstadand NelsonLichtenstein, "Opportunities Found and Lost:Labor, Radicals, and theEarly Civil Rights Move- ment,"Journal of American History, 75 (Dec. 1988), 786; RobertJ. Norrell,"Labor at the BallotBox: Alabama Politicsfrom the New Deal to theDixiecrat Movement,"Journal ofSouthern History, 57 (May 1991),201; Morton Sosna,"More Important than the Civil War? The Impactof World War II on theSouth," Perspectives on theAmer- ican South,4 (1987), 145; ElizabethJacoway, "Taken By Surprise,"in SouthernBusinessmen and Desegregation, ed. Jacowayand Colburn,19-20; PeterJ. Kellogg,"Civil Rights Consciousness in the 1940s,"Historian, 42 (Nov. 1979), 28-29; PatriciaSullivan, "Southern Reformers, the New Deal, and the MovementFoundation," in New Directionsin CivilRights Studies, ed. ArmsteadL. Robinsonand PatriciaSullivan (Charlottesville, 1991); and J. MillsThornton III, "MunicipalPolitics and the Courseof the Movement," ibid., 45-48. On thestill pervasive ten- dencyof scholars to attributegreat indirect causal significance to Brown,see also MarkTushnet, "The Significance ofBrown v. Board ofEducation," Virginia Law Review,80 (Feb. 1994),173; Mark Tushnet, "What Really Happened in Brownv. BoardofEducation," ColumbiaLaw Review, 91 (Dec. 1991),1867; DavidJ. Garrow, "Hopelessly Hollow History:Revisionist Devaluing of Brown v. Boardof Education of Topeka,"Virginia Law Review,80 (Feb. 1994), 151;Burk, Eisenhower Administration and Black CivilRights, 143; BradleyC. Canon, "The SupremeCourt as a Cheerleaderin Politico-MoralDisputes," Journal of Politics, 54 (Aug. 1992),648-49; GlennT. Eskew,"The Ala- bama ChristianMovement for Human Rightsand the BirminghamStruggle for Civil Rights, 1956-1963," in Bir- mingham,Alabama, 1956-1963:The BlackStruggle for CivilRights, ed. David J. Garrow(Brooklyn, 1989), 11; and KennethClark, "Racial Justice in Education:Continuing Struggle in a New Era,"Howard Law Journal, 23 (no. 1, 1980), 95.

This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 86 TheJournal of American History June1994 havepersuasively traced the origins of the modern civil rights movement to an earlierperiod have generallybeen loath to downplaythe significanceof Brown.8 Brownmight have indirectly contributed to thesuccess of the civilrights move- mentin a varietyof ways. First, perhaps Brown forced the civil rights issue onto the nationalagenda. Brown plainly increased the salience of the civil rights issue in the South,though there the short-termeffect was to retard,not to advance,the cause. Browncommanded significantly less attentionin the North.One opinionsurvey conductedin thesummer of 1955revealed that only 17 percentof northern whites, as comparedwith 60 percentof southern whites, had discussedthe Supreme Court decisionduring the precedingweek. Whereas 33 percentof southernersin that surveydeemed segregation a more important issue than crime, atomic bombs, and hightaxes, only 6 percentof northernersfelt that way. Moreover, analyses of print mediacoverage of civil rights events suggest that court decisions, including Brown, attractedrelatively little attention as comparedwith demonstrations producing con- frontationand violence,such as theMontgomery bus boycottof 1955-1956,which had littleconnection to the Browndecision. The New YorkTimes gave more coverageto civilrights issues in 1952than in 1954or 1955(the years of the first and secondBrown decisions). The percentageof respondentsidentifying civil rights as the nation'smost urgent problem surged after the Montgomerybus boycott,not afterBrown, and eventhat increase was dwarfed by the explosion in publicattention to civilrights after the Birminghamdemonstrations in the springof 1963.9

8 JackGreenberg, "The SupremeCourt, Civil Rights, and CivilDissonance," Yale LawJournal, 77 (July1968), 1522;David R. Goldfield,Black, White, and Southern:Race Relations and SouthernCulture, 1940 to thePresent (BatonRouge, 1990), 91-92; C. HermanPritchett, "Equal Protectionand theUrban Majority," American Political ScienceReview, 58 (Dec. 1964),869. Forthe choice of 1954as a relevantdate, see TaylorBranch, Parting the Waters: Americain theKing Years,1945-1963 (New York, 1988); Sitkoff, Struggle for Black Equality (1954-1980);John Dittmer,"The Politicsof the MississippiMovement, 1954-1964," in The CivilRights Movement in America,ed. CharlesW. Eagles (Jackson,1986); Broussard,Black San Francisco(1900-1954), esp. ch. 13; and JuanWilliams, Eyeson thePrize: America's CivilRights Years, 1954-1965 (New York,1987). For the explicit statement that Brown launchedthe Second Reconstruction, see Black,Southern Governors and CivilRights, 4; Paul Gaston,"The South and the Quest forEquality," New South,27 (Spring1972), 9; and WilliamC. Havard,"The South: A Shifting Perspective,"in ChangingPolitics of the South,ed. Havard,10. For historianswho tracethe originsof the civil rightsmovement to an earlierperiod but stillemphasize the significanceof Brown,see Lee E. Bains,Jr., "Bir- mingham,1963: Confrontationover Civil Rights," in Birmingham,Alabama, ed. Garrow,159; Dittmer,"Politics of the MississippiMovement," 67; RobertJ. Norrell,"One ThingWe Did Right:Reflections on the Movement," in NewDirectionsinCivilRights Studies, ed. Robinsonand Sullivan,70; Sitkoff,StruggleforBlack Equality, 11-13, 37-38; J. MillsThornton III, "Challengeand Responsein the MontgomeryBus Boycottof 1955-1956,"Alabama Review,33 (July1980), 172-74; and AldonD. Morris,The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communi- ties Organizingfor Change(New York,1984), 81. 9 Rosenberg,Hollow Hope, 111,113, 116, 129-30, fig. 4.2; ThomasF. Pettigrew,"Desegregation and ItsChances forSuccess: Northern and SouthernViews," SocialForces, 35 (May 1957),340, 341,table 3. Forexplicit statements thatBrown increased the salience of thecivil rights issue, see Canon, "SupremeCourt as a Cheerleader,"648; and AryehNeier, OnlyJudgment: The Limits ofLitigation in Social Change(Middletown, Conn., 1982), 241-42. While manyparticipants in theMontgomery bus boycottsubsequently claimed that Brown had providedan important sourceof inspiration for their actions, the historical record casts significant doubt on anycausal connection between Brownand the boycott.First, black leaders in Montgomeryhad been challengingseating practices on citybuses sincewell before Brown. Second, the Montgomeryboycott was patterned after one thatoccurred in BatonRouge in 1953(the year before Brown). Third, the initial objective of the protesters was not an end to segregatedseating but rathera less degradingform of segregation.Fourth, the lawsuitin Gaylev. Browderwas not fileduntil the bus boycotthad been underwayfor two months and had not been seriouslycontemplated during the first month of the boycott.Gayle v. Browder,352 U.S. 903 (1956). See Rosenberg,Hollow Hope, 134-38; Goldfield,Black, White,and Southern,93-95; Thornton,"Challenge and Response,"174-76, 211n49,229; Branch,Parting the

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Relatedly,perhaps Brown indirectly contributed to thesuccess of the civil rights movementbecause it pricked the conscience of northern whites by placing the moral authorityof the Court and the Constitutionbehind the black demand for desegregation.Yet there is littleevidence that Brown made whitenortherners significantly moresympathetic to thecivil rights cause. One opinionpoll conductedinJuly 1959 recordedonly a fivepercentage point increase (to 59 percent)in publicsupport for theBrown decision over the preceding five years. One usefulreflection of constituent sentimentis a congressman'swillingness to sponsorlegislation; the number of con- gressionalsponsors for civil rights legislation rose steadily through the late 1940s and peakedin 1951-1952,before declining throughout the remainder of the 1950s (Brownnotwithstanding) and reachinga newlow in 1959-1960.Another indication thatthere was no criticalawakening of civilrights consciousness among northern whitesin theyears after Brown comparable to theawakening after Birmingham and Selma was the willingnessof the presidentand the Senateto see the Eisenhower administration's1956-1957 civil rights bill emasculatedin the upperhouse. Simi- larly,Emma Lou Thornbrough'sstudy of civil rights in Indianareveals that the state legislaturetalked more about civil rights issues during the 1950sthan in the 1940s, but it did not enactmeaningful legislation until after the civil rights revolution of the early1960s.10 Perhaps the most popular assumptionregarding Brown's indirectcausal significanceis that the decision inspired black protest by legitimizing the civil rights causeor byimproving the prospects for its success. Recent historical scholarship has assuredus thatBrown "stimulated black hope," served as a "catalyst"for blacks, "awokea newactivism within the blackcommunity," "provided both a rallyingcry and a focusfor black men and womenworking for social change," and "gavea great boostto blackexpectations, even a sensethat equality was now inevitable."Many participantsin the civilrights movement have also giventhis account of Brown's significance.Thus, forexample, Martin Luther King, Jr., declared in 1958 that Brownhad "broughthope to millionsof disinheritedNegroes who had formerly daredonly to dreamof freedom." Fred Shuttlesworth, leader of the indigenous civil rightsmovement in Birmingham,subsequently dated his rolein themovement to Brown.The decision,he recalled,"stirred up in me whatI knewall the time.""1

Waters,144, 151;DavidJ. Garrow, Bearing the Cross:Martin Luther King, Jr., and theSouthern Christian Leader- ship Conference(New York,1986), 54, 63, 71; and Morris,Origins of the CivilRights Movement, 7-25, 52-53. 10 Burk,Eisenhower Administration and Black CivilRights, 202; Rosenberg,Hollow Hope, 124; Emma Lou Thornbrough,"Breaking Racial Barriers to PublicAccommodations in Indiana,1935 to 1963,"Indiana Magazine ofHistory, 83 (Dec. 1987), 327-30, 336-39. For the viewthat Brown pricked the conscienceof whiteAmerica, see Pritchett,"Equal Protectionand theUrban Majority," 869. On the Senate'semasculation of the 1956-1957civil rightsbill, see Burk,Eisenhower Administration and BlackCivilRights, 223-24; RobertDallek, Lone StarRising: LyndonJohnson and His Times,1908-1960 (New York,1991), 522-26; JohnFrederick Martin, Civil Rights and the CrisisofLiberalism: The Democratic Party, 1945-1976 (Boulder, 1979), 162-63; and C. VannWoodward, "The GreatCivil RightsDebate," Commentary,24 (Oct. 1957), 286-89. 11 Sitkoff,Struggle for Black Equality,37-38; Bains, "Birmingham,1963," 159; Eskew,"Alabama Christian Movement,"11; Dittmer, "Politics of the Mississippi Movement," 67; Norrell,"One ThingWe Did Right,"70. The King and Shuttlesworthquotations are fromMartin Luther King, Jr., Stride toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story(New York,1958), 191; and LewisW. Jones,"Fred L. Shuttlesworth:Indigenous Leader," in Birmingham, Alabama,ed. Garrow,132. For other attributions of inspirational significance to Brownby movement participants,

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Sincemeasuring the legitimizing effect of a SupremeCourt decision is virtually impossible,it is difficulteither to defendor to rejectthis interpretation ofBrown's causalsignificance. Martin Luther King, Jr., and A. PhilipRandolph led prayerpil- grimagesto Washington,D.C., on theanniversary of Brown in thelate 1950s,thus testifyingthat blacks regarded Brown as an importantsymbol. Moreover, Brown clearlyinspired much litigationchallenging state-sponsored segregation. For example,local branchesof the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP) filed roughly sixty desegregation petitions with school boards in the Deep Southduring the summer of 1955. AfterBrown, blacks in Greensboro,North Carolina,sought to desegregatethe city golf course, and blacksin Birminghamand Montgomery,Alabama, broughtcourt suits challenging segregation in cityparks and on citybuses.12 Yetthe pervasive assumption that Brown played a vitallysignificant inspirational functionis troublingfor several reasons. First, it is notclear that in 1954a Supreme Courtdecision was needed to legitimizecivil rights demands in theeyes of blacks. The democraticideology of World War II and thegreater opportunities for political and economicadvance that the war afforded had alreadyfostered a civilrights con- sciousnessin mostAmerican blacks. Thus one blackveteran returning to Alabama afterthe war observed as he registeredto vote:"After having been overseasfighting fordemocracy, I thought that when we got backhere we shouldenjoy a littleof it."Blacks meeting in Durham,North Carolina, in 1942issued the SouthernBlack Declarationof Independence (also knownas theDurham Manifesto), endorsing the FairEmployment Practices Committee (FEPC) and callingfor an end to segregation and to inequalitiesin housing,medicine, and education.During the war Norfolk, Virginia,blacks protested segregation in busingand streetcars,served on war-related boardsand councils,joined voter leagues, paid thepoll taxin recordnumbers, and successfullylobbied for the appointment of two blacks to the citypolice force (the firstto servein seventyyears). In theNorth, the ideology of the war, combined with thegrowing political power of urban blacks, led to theenactment in thelate 1940s and early1950s of a floodof state and local antidiscriminationlegislation, most of it promotingfair employment practices and open public accommodations,but some actuallyforbidding racial segregation in public schools.13 see Garrow,"Hopelessly Hollow History," 154-57;James Laue, "DirectAction and Desegregation,1960-62: Toward a Theoryof the Rationalization of Protest,' in MartinLuther King, Jr., and the CivilRights Movement, ed. David J.Garrow (Brooklyn, 1989), 62-63, fig.1; McAdam,Freedom Summer, 48; and Sitkoff,Struggle forBlack Equality, 69-70, 83-84. 12 Laue,"Direct Action and Desegregation,"70-71;Jack L. Walker,Sit-ins in Atlanta([New York], 1964), 11-12; Bartley,Rise ofMassive Resistance, 82-83; McMillen,Citizens' Council, 30-31, 62-63; StephenJ. Whitfield,A Death in the Delta: The Storyof EmmettTill (Baltimore,1988), 61; Chafe,Civilities and CivilRights, 83-86; Eskew,"Alabama Christian Movement," 21, 38;Jones, "Fred L. Shuttlesworth,"136; Garrow,Bearing the Cross, 113. 13 Norrell,Reaping the Whirlwind,60-61; Lewis,In TheirOwn Interests, 184, 188-97. For additional examples ofthe heightened civil rights consciousness that grew out ofWorld War II, see Neil A. Wynn,The Afro-American and the Second WorldWar (New York,1976), 28-29, 100, 106;Jules Tygiel, Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinsonand His Legacy(New York,1983), 69, 74; Dudziak, "Desegregationas a Cold War Imperative,"72; Dittmer,"Politics of the Mississippi Movement," 68; Thornbrough,"Breaking Racial Barriers," 310-11; Sosna, "More Importantthan the CivilWar?," 155; and Norrell,Reaping the Whirlwind,57. On the greaterpolitical and eco- nomicopportunities afforded to blacksby the war, see Wynn,Afro-American and theSecond WorldWar, passim;

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The existenceof a vibrantcivil rights movement during and afterthe war confirms thatBrown was not necessary as an impetusto challengethe racial status quo. Over thepast decade or so, historianshave demonstrated just how potent the black chal- lengeto Jim Crow was from1940 to 1954 in a wide arrayof southernlocales, in- cludingGreensboro and Winston-Salem,North Carolina,Louisville, Kentucky, Norfolk,Virginia, Little Rock, Arkansas, and Tuskegee,Montgomery, and Birming- ham,Alabama. Southernblack voter registration "jumped by leaps and boundsin the 1940s";the number of blacks registered to votein theeleven states of the former Confederacyincreased from 151,000 in 1940 to 900,000in 1950. NAACP member- shipgrew nearly ninefold during the war, increasing from 50,000 in 1940to 450,000 in 1946.By the late 1940s,black candidates were standing for public office in many citiesin the upperSouth and occasionallywinning. Moreover, black challenges to variousaspects ofJim Crow were beginning to bearfruit in the early1950s- there wasdesegregation of theMontgomery police force, of elevatorsin downtownoffice buildingsin Birmingham,of federal juries in LittleRock, of some department stores and downtownpublic facilities in Greensboro,of public libraries, parks, and swimmingpools in Louisville.14 Conversely,ifBrown gave a vitalinspirational spark to thecivil rights movement, whydid thevolume of civil rights protest activity decrease during the 1950s,except in the periodimmediately following the Montgomerybus boycott?The average numberof civil rights demonstrations per year reported by the New YorkTimes was higherin 1946-1948than in 1957-1959.The 1957prayer pilgrimage commemorat- ingBrown, which seems to confirmthe decision'ssymbolic importance, was note- worthymainly for its "disappointing" turnout. Nor were the voter registration cam-

RichardM. Dalfiume,"The 'ForgottenYears' of the NegroRevolution," Journal of AmericanHistory, 55 (June 1968),96-99; Burk,Eisenhower Administration andBlack CivilRights,90; BruceJ.Schulman, From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt:Federal Policy, Economic Development, and the Transformationof the South, 1938-1980 (New York, 1991),76-77; Goldfield,Blacd, White,andSouthern, 32-33; Sitkoff,Blac StruggleforEquality,14-15; and Norral D. Glenn, "Some Changesin the RelativeStatus of AmericanNonwhites, 1940 to 1960,"Phylon, 24 (Summer 1963), 109. On the northernantidiscrimination measures, see Bartley,Rise of MassiveResistance, 4; Sitkoff, StruggleforBlack Equality, 18; Wynn, Afro-American andthe Second WorldWar, 54-55; Thornbrough,"Breaking RacialBarriers," 311; Burk, EisenhowerAdministration and BlackCivilRights, 92; Thornton,"Municipal Politics," 38-39; and Kellogg,"Civil Rights Consciousness," 22. 14 The localstudies are Norrell, Reaping the Whirlwind(on Tuskegee,Ala.); Lewis,In TheirOwn Interests (Nor- folk,Va.); Thornton,"Municipal Politics" (Birmingham and Montgomery,Ala.); TonyAllan Freyer, The Little Rock Crisis:A ConstitutionalInterpretation(Westport, 1984) (Little Rock, Ark.); Korstad and Lichtenstein,"Opportuni- ties Found and Lost"(Winston-Salem,N.C.); Chafe, Civilitiesand Civil Rights(Greensboro, N.C.); Wright, "Desegregationof PublicAccommodations" (Louisville, Ky.). The figuresfor black voter registration, as well as the quotation,are fromAlexander Heard, A Two-PartySouth? (Chapel Hill, 1952), 181. For furtherdiscussion ofmass voter registration by blacks, see DarleneClark Hine, Black Victory:The Rise and Fall ofthe WhitePrimary in Texas(Millwood, N.Y., 1979),238; Sullivan,"Southern Reformers," 90-92, 103n29;Norrell, Reaping the Whirl- wind,60, 72-75, 86; and Chafe,Civilities and CivilRights, 35. Forthe National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) membershipfigures, see Mark V. Tushnet,The NAACP's Legal Strategyagainst SegregatedEducation, 1925-1950 (Chapel Hill, 1987),135; and Wynn,Afro-American andthe SecondWorld War, 48-49. On blackcandidacies for public office,see Heard, Two-PartySouth?, 218; HenryLee Moon, Balance of Power:The Negro Vote (Garden City, 1948), 164, 188; Korstadand Lichtenstein,"OpportunitiesFound and Lost," 793; and Chafe,Civilities and CivilRights, 32, 35-36. Forthe instancesof desegregationin the text,see ibid., 38-39; Freyer,Little Rock Crisis, 20; Thornton,"Municipal Politics," 43-46; and Wright,"Desegregation of Public Accommodations,"192. Forother instances of civilrights activity in the pre-Brownyears, see AugustMeier and ElliottRudwick, "The FirstFreedom Ride," Phylon, 30 (Fall 1969), 213; Thornbrough,"Breaking Racial Barriers," 314-15;and Laue, "DirectAction and Desegregation,"66-67.

This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 90 TheJournal of American History June1994 paignsconducted by the SouthernChristian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in the late 1950snotable successes. Indeed, a leadinghistorian of thatorganization has called 1957-1959its "fallowyears." He observedthat "in the late 1950sthe [black college]campuses seemed quiet," and mostsouthern blacks were "reluctan[t] . . . to embracedirect action." One plausibleexplanation for the relative quiescence in civilrights activity during the 1950sis the riseof the Cold Warand its domestic counterpart,McCarthyism. With the country widely perceived to be underboth in- ternaland externalattack, any social, political, or culturalmovement challenging thestatus quo wassusceptible to beinglabeled Communist-inspired. By reiningin the aggressivecivil rights campaign of the late 1940s,black leaders consciously or subconsciouslyavoided the tinctureof complicityin communism.The virtualde- miseof domesticanticommunism as a seriousconcern by 1960 renderedpossible thereemergence of a socialmovement critical of theracial status quo. In thisview, then,the civil rights revolution of the 1960shad relativelylittle to do withBrown and muchto do withthe elimination of McCarthyismas a temporaryimpediment to a civilrights movement that had been spawnedby World War 11.15 Finally,much civil rights protest activity in the 1960saimed at objectivesthat courtdecisions alone could not realize;thus it is not obviousthat Brown, by en- hancingthe prospects of judicialintervention in furtheranceof racialequality, in- spiredthese demonstrations. The SupremeCourt could not (orwould not) rule,as thesit-in demonstrators urged, that the Constitution bars racial segregation in pri- vatelyowned places of public accommodation;congressional action was necessary to outlawthat practice. Nor could a courtgive the Birmingham demonstrators most of whatthey were seeking- desegregation of facilitiesin downtownstores, equal employmentopportunities in thosestores, reopening on a desegregatedbasis of the city'sclosed recreationalfacilities, and establishmentof a biracialcommittee to pursuefurther desegregation. Likewise, the Selma demonstratorswere plainly ap- pealingto Congress,not the courts,since only new voting rights legislation could effectivelyenfranchise blacks in the ruralDeep South.In short,to the extentthat thecivil rights movement sought to changethe law, rather than to enforceexisting law,its appeal necessarilywas to legislaturesrather than to courts.Having Brown on the booksdid notsignificantly improve the prospects for success in thepolitical arena,as evidencedby the toothlesscivil rights legislation enacted by Congress in 1957and 1960and bythe Kennedy administration's abysmal pre-Birmingham civil rightsrecord.16

15 Rosenberg,Hollow Hope, 133-34, table 4.2; Adam Fairclough,To Redeem the Soul of America: The SouthernChristian Leadership Conference andMartinLutherKing, Jr. (Athens, Ga., 1987),ch. 2, (esp. 40, 53-54); Garrow,Bearing the Cross,93, 103-4, 118,120-21. For McCarthyism as an explanationfor the diminution in civil rightsactivity in the 1950s,see RichardM. Fried,Nightmare in Red: TheMcCarthy Era in Perspective(New York, 1990),29-36, 164-65, 175-78,193-94; McAdam,Freedom Summer, 20-21, 146; Korstadand Lichtenstein,"Op- portunitiesFound and Lost,"800-804, 811;Norrell:'One Thing We Did Right,"69; Bartley,Rise ofMassive Resis- tance,185-88, 213; McMillen,Citizens' Council, 195-98, 269; Norrell,Reaping the Whirlwind,105, 108, 142; Sitkoff,Struggle for Black Equality,17; Sullivan,"Southern Reformers," 98-99; and Laue, "DirectAction and Desegregation,'81. 16 Fora discussionof the justices' internal deliberations in thesit-in cases, see MichaelJ.Klarman, "An Interpre- tiveHistory of ModernEqual Protection,"Michigan Law Review,90 (Nov. 1991),272-76.

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Norare testimonials by participants in thecivil rights movement particularly con- vincingevidence of the inspirationalimpact of Brown.Similar statements were made,perhaps even in roughlyequal numbers,about the motivational force of the lynchingof EmmettTill in the MississippiDelta in 1955 (and the subsequentac- quittalof his killers),the Montgomerybus boycott,and the rapiddecolonization of Africa.Maybe what these testimonials show is thatparticipants in socialmove- ments,when asked to articulatetheir inspiration, identify concrete, highly salient eventssuch as courtdecisions, boycotts, or lynchings.It seemsunrealistic to expect themto attributecausal significanceto deep-seatedbut intangibleforces such as urbanizationand industrialization,demographic shifts, political realignments, eco- nomicadvances, and risingliteracy rates. Yet the mostpersuasive accounts of the originsof the sit-indemonstrations of 1960,for example, emphasize, not Brown or EmmettTill, but the existenceof a thriving,well-educated black middle class livingin urbancenters where Jim Crow norms already had significantlyeroded.17 In sum,I believethat political, economic, social, demographic, and ideological forces,many of which coalesced during World War II, laid thegroundwork for the civilrights movement, and thatBrown played a relativelysmall role. The Great Migration,the increasingurbanization of the black population,the declineof southernagriculture, the increasingpotency of the northernblack vote, the bur- geoningblack middle class, increasing black literacy rates, the ideologyof World WarII, theCold Warimperative for racial change, the social and economicintegra- tionof the nation-these werethe forcesthat helped createthe civilrights movement.18Yet Brown may have contributed to thetransformative racial change of the mid-1960sin anotherway that scholars have not yet sufficiently appreciated. While thecivil rights movement did notrequire Brown as a catalyst,the massive resistance movementdid. And onlythe intersection of these two movements enabled passage of the landmarkcivil rights legislation of the mid-1960s.In the remainderof this article,I hope to demonstratethat Brown contributed importantly to racialchange. But thatcontribution lay primarily in the decision'seffect on southernracial politics.By propellingsouthern politics toward racial fanaticism, Brown set the stage forthe violent suppression of civilrights demonstrations in the early1960s, which in turnaroused previously indifferent northern whites to demandfederal legislative interventionto interJim Crow.

17 Forparticipants' attribution of causal significanceto Till's murder,the Montgomerybus boycott,and the decolonizationof Africa,see Whitfield,Death in the Delta, 89-100; Rosenberg,Hollow Hope, 144-45; Sitkoff, StruggleforBlack Equality, 16, 82-83; Laue, "DirectAction and Desegregation,"62-63, fig.1; ClayborneCarson, In Struggle:SNCC and theBlack Awakening of the 1960s(Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 16; HaroldRobert Isaacs, The New Worldof Negro Americans (New York,[1963]), 50-5 3, 290-93; MartinLuther King, Jr., "The BurningTruth in the South,"Progressive, 24 (May 1960),9; and Wynn,Afro-American and the Second WorldWar, 125. Forac- countsof the sit-insthat emphasize the growthof a blackmiddle class for whom Jim Crow restrictions appeared increasinglyincongruous, see Walker,Sit-ins in Atlanta,1-3, 5, 14; Sitkoff,Struggle for Black Equality, 49, 84-85; Laue, "DirectAction and Desegregation,"73-78; RuthSearles andJ. Allen Williams, Jr., "Negro College Students' Participationin Sit-ins,"Social Forces, 40 (March1962), 215-20; Bartley, Creation of Modern Georgia, 197; Chafe, Civilitiesand CivilRights, 22-23; Wynn,Afro-American and the Second WorldWar, 127; and King, "Burning Truthin the South,"9. 18 Fordetailed accounts of the political,economic, social, demographic, and ideologicalforces impelling the nationtoward racial change, see MichaelJ. Klarman,"Brown, Racial Change,and the Civil RightsMovement," VirginiaLaw Review,80 (Feb. 1994), 7-75; Rosenberg,Hollow Hope, ch. 4; and McAdam,Political Process.

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The firststep in establishingthis backlash thesis is to showthat southern resistanceto racialchange was of different orders of magnitude before and afterBrown. The stressplaced upon southernracial norms, first by World War II and thenby PresidentTruman's 1948 civilrights proposals, unquestionably stiffened the resistanceto racialchange. But thatbacklash pales in significance,both in depthand breadth,when compared with what transpired after Brown. Racialchanges inspired by World War II fomentedan incipientbacklash, as white southernerssought to counteractblack wartime militancy and to preemptantici- pated postwardemands for the dismantlingof Jim Crow. The most horrific manifestationof this racial backlash was heightened racial violence, including a rise in thenumber of lynchings, in thepostwar South. In 1948,when President Truman unveiledhis landmark civil rights proposals and theDemocratic convention adopted a civil rightsplank even more liberalthan the one Trumandesired, the most notoriousmanifestation of the pre-Brownbacklash materialized: the Dixiecratre- volt. Afterthe Mississippiand part of the Alabama delegationsbolted the Democraticconvention, the Dixiecratsfielded their own presidentialticket, con- sistingof GovernorsStrom Thurmond of South Carolinaand FieldingWright of Mississippi,which carried four southern states in thefall election. The otherfamous indiciaof a pre-Brownsouthern racial backlash were the Democratic senatorial pri- marydefeats in the springof 1950of FrankPorter Graham in NorthCarolina and Claude Pepperin Florida.By contemporaneoussouthern standards, both defeated incumbentswere extremely liberal on therace issue. Racial demagoguery also char- acterizedother, less widelynoted pre-Brownsouthern electoral contests. For example,Eugene Talmadge in his 1946Democratic primary campaign for the Georgia governorshiphighlighted racial issues, especially black suffrage; two years later in anotherGeorgia gubernatorial primary, his son Hermanappealed to states'rights and whitesupremacy in oppositionto "Yankeemeddling and a federalcivil rights program."19 Theseevents confirm the existence of growingwhite southern resistance to racial changeprior to Brown.Yet we mostnot lose sightof the relativelylimited scope of thatresistance, especially when compared with the tidalwave of racialhysteria thatswept the Southafter the Browndecision. There was a Dixiecratrevolt from the Democraticparty in 1948, but it failed.The Dixiecratscarried only the four

19 Goldfield,Blach, White,and Southern,37, 42, 52, 67-70; Heard, Two-PartySouth?, 20, 25-27, 147-48, 183, 192;Norrell, Reaping the Whirlwind,56-57, 77-78; Wynn,Afro-American andthe Second WorldWar, 109, 116;Eskew, "Alabama Christian Movement," 14; Sullivan,"Southern Reformers," 86, 93-94, 96-97; Martin,Civil Rightsand the Crisisof Liberalism, 69-70, 81-88; MortonSosna, In Searchof the Silent South: Southern Liberals and the Race Issue (New York,1977), 106-7; McAdam,Political Process, 89, table 5.5; Bartleyand Graham, SouthernPolitics, 25, 51-52,85; Schulman,From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt,121-22, 132; John R. Skates,Jr., "World War II as a Watershedin MississippiHistory," Journal of MississippiHistory, 37 (May 1975), 141; William C. Berman,The Politics of CivlRights in the TrumanAdministration (Columbus, 1970), 101-2,107-15, 125, 132-33; Bartley,Rise of Massive Resistance, 40; JulianM. Pleasantsand AugustusM. BurnsIII, FrankPorter Graham and the 1950 SenateRace in NorthCarolina (Chapel Hill, 1990), 91, 93-96, 139-42, 147-48, 226; RobertSherrill, GothicPolitics in the Deep South: Starsof the New Confederacy(New York,1968), 49, 138; Black,Southern Governorsand CivilRights, 35-41; Joseph L. Bernd,"Georgia: Static and Dynamic,"in ChangingPolitics of the South,ed. Havard,314-15; Joseph L. Bernd,"White Supremacy and the Disfranchisementof Blacksin Georgia, 1946,"Georgia Historical Quarterly, 66 (Winter1982), 494-95, 498.

This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Howthe Brown Decision Changed Race Relations 93 stateswhere the percentageof blacks in the whole populationwas largest- Mississippi,Alabama, South Carolina, and Louisiana.The Dixiecratappeal wases- sentiallyconfined to the Deep South black belt; in metropolitanareas and throughoutthe peripheralSouth, the New Deal/FairDeal coalitionheld up reasonablywell forPresident Truman.20 Moreover,the Dixiecratswon only those states where they controlledthe Democraticparty machinery, enabling them to run slatesof electorspledged to Thurmondand Wrightunder the Democraticparty label. In otherwords, where theywon, the Dixiecratsbenefited from the intense,traditional Democratic party loyaltyof Deep Southvoters. In thefour states where Thurmond ran as theregular Democrat,he won 55.3 percentof the vote; in sixof the other seven southern states wherehe appearedon an independentticket, his vote trailed not just that of Truman butthat of the Republican nominee, Thomas E. Dewey.States such as Arkansasand Virginia,which a decadelater led themassive resistance crusade against Brown, gave only 16.5 percentand 10.3 percentof theirvote, respectively,to Thurmond. Moreover,in 1950 the Dixiecratparty was rockedby electoraldefeats across the South,the most ignominious of which was Thurmond's failure to upend Sen. Olin Johnstonof SouthCarolina. A leadingcontemporary political scientist concluded, "The failureof the Dixiecratsin 1948 and 1950 demonstratedthat the greatmass of southernerswould no longerbe bamboozledby racistappeals."21 Witha fewexceptions such as Grahamand Pepper(and eventhey were at most partialexceptions, as we shall see), economicallyliberal and raciallymoderate southernpoliticians continued to thrivein the late 1940sand early1950s-figures such as BigJim Folsom, John Sparkman, and ListerHill in Alabama; LyndonB. Johnsonin Texas;Earl Long in Louisiana;W. KerrScott in NorthCarolina; Sid McMath,J. WilliamFulbright, and (the early)Orval Faubus in Arkansas;and Al- bert Gore, Estes Kefauver,and FrankClement in Tennessee.As the historians NumanV. Bartleyand Hugh D. Grahamhave noted, "Generally during the post- wardecade the politicsof economicclass made considerableheadway against the inertiaof the politicsof raceand caste."22 Coalitionsuniting the relativelyfew enfranchised blacks with economically dis- possessedwhites often produced electoral victories for populist candidates who es- chewedracial conflict and supportedhigher government spending on education, roads,public health, and old-agepensions. In Louisiana,at roughlythe time when Thurmonddefeated Truman in thepresidential contest, at thestate level Earl Long,

20 Bartleyand Graham,Southern Politics, 85-86; Bartley,Rise of MassiveResistance, 33; Heard, Two-Party South?,27-28, 246; EmileB. Ader,"Why the Dixiecrats Failed ," Journal of Politics, 15 (Aug. 1953),358, 366-69; RichardS. Kirkendall,"Election of 1948,"in Historyof American Presidential Elections, 1789-1968, ed. Arthur M. Schlesinger,Jr., and FredL. Israel(4 vols.,New York,1971), IV, 3140-41. 21 Bartley,Rise ofMassive Resistance, 35-37; Heard,Two-Party South?, 22-23, 25-26, esp. 148, 164,246, 278; PerryH. Howard,"Louisiana: Resistance and Change,"in ChangingPolitics of theSouth, ed. Havard,548; V. 0. Key,Jr., Southern Politics in Stateand Nation(New York,1949), 671; Berman,Politics of CivilRights, 133; Ader, "Whythe DixiecratsFailed," 366-69. 22 Bartleyand Graham,Southern Politics, 25; Black,Southern Governors and CivilRights, 41-45; Goldfield, Black, White,and Southern,48-49; Dallek, Lone StarRising, 288-89, 368-70.

This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 94 TheJournal of American History June1994 theyounger brother of Huey Long, the Kingfish, was perpetuating the family tradi- tion.He alliedpoor whites and blacks(a higherpercentage of blacks were permitted to votein Louisianathan in anyother Deep Southstate) by highlighting economic issuesand downplayingrace. In Arkansasin 1948and 1950,Sid McMath,empha- sizingpopulist economic policies and ignoringrace, defeated more overtly segrega- tionistcandidates who highlightedracial issues such as thepending congressional legislationthat would establish a fairemployment practices commission. In thelate 1940sand early195 Os, North Carolina's governor was W. KerrScott, who assembled a successfulcoalition of farmers,organized labor, and blacksbehind a programof increasedspending on road construction,education, and ruralelectrification. Just weeksafter the Brown decision, Scott won a Democraticsenatorial primary against opponentswho portrayed him as softon theissue of segregation. In Virginia,Theo- doreDalton, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in 1953,won roughly 45 percentof the voteon a platformof higherteachers' salaries, repeal of the poll tax, and increasedspending on statemental institutions; neither party discussed racial segregationin the campaign.23 The mostoutstanding example of suchracial moderation, BigJim Folsom, won resoundingvictories in Alabama'sDemocratic gubernatorial primaries in 1946and 1954on populistplatforms of higher state spending on schools,roads, and old-age pensions,as wellas abolitionof the poll taxand reapportionmentof thestate legislature.Folsom's posture toward blacks was one ofgenuine fraternity, invoking their rightto a fairshare of Alabama's wealth, speaking-of "fellowship and brotherlylove," and disparagingracial divisions on thegrounds that "all menare just alike." Folsom urgedliberalization of voter qualification requirements, appointed voting registrars who administeredexisting requirements in a color-blindfashion, worked to equal- ize the salariesof whiteand blackteachers, and supportedcreation of morestate parksfor blacks. He defeatedwith ease candidateswho tooka muchharder line on segregation,while Folsom continued to stressthe congruity of interests between poor whitesand poor blacks.24 Even the notorious1950 Democraticsenatorial primary defeats of Grahamin NorthCarolina and Pepperin Floridaare flimsy evidence of a sweepingpre-Brown racialbacklash. A closelook at theelections reveals an ambiguousmessage regarding the southernracial climate in 1950. First,the electionswere not simplereferenda on thecandidates' liberal racial views. In his senatorialprimary win over Pepper in

23 Black,Southern Governors and CivilRights,37-39, 72; Howard,"Louisiana," 546-47; Bartleyand Graham, SouthernPolitics, 33, 35-37, 50; Sherrill,Gothic Politics in theDeep South,77-78; Bartley,Rise of Massive Resis- tance,72-73; Chafe,Civilities and CivilRights,66; Pleasantsand Burns,Frank Porter Graham, 6; PrestonW. Edsall and J. OliverWilliams, "North Carolina: Bipartisan Paradox," in ChangingPolitics of the South,ed. Havard, 370-71, 373; Wilkinson,Harry Byrd, 102-3, 105; RalphEisenberg, "Virginia: The Emergenceof Two-PartyPoli- tics,"in ChangingPolitics of the South,ed. Havard,48-49. 24 Bartleyand Graham,Southern Politics, 38; MarshallFrady, Wallace (New York,1968), 102, 111;Norrell, Reapingthe Whirlwind,64, 72-74, 86, 88-89; Schulman,From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt,125; GeorgeE. Sims, TheLittle Man's Big Friend.-JamesE. Folsomin AlabamaPolitics, 1946-1958 (University, Ala., 1985),26, 30, 58, 154, 163-66, 168, 171;Sherrill, Gothic Politics in the Deep South,275; Donald S. Strong,"Alabama: Transition and Alienation,"in ChangingPolitics of the South, ed. Havard,446, 448-49; Sullivan,"Southern Reformers," 96.

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IN SOCIALIST YOU'RE ON THE \\ ENGLAND WHERE J>WRONG SIDE OF THE \\ I STUDIED, THEY HIGHWAY -FOLK S IN)\\ DRIVE ON THE M.tZC. DRIVE ON THE \ LEFT_ , ATM ' RIGHT!

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Duringthe 1950 Democraticsenatorial primary in Florida,the Willis Smithcampaign portrayedFrank Porter Graham as a dangerouspolitical leftist. CourtesyJulian M. Pleasantsand Gus Burns,University of Florida.

Florida,George Smathers devoted greater attention to Pepper'ssupport for New Deal/FairDeal redistributivepolicies, his close ties to labor unions, and his moderatestance toward the SovietUnion thanto the raceissue. Similarly,in the firstprimary in NorthCarolina's 1950 Democratic senatorial contest (and to a re- duced extentin the runoffprimary), Willis Smith focusedhis attackless on Graham'srelatively liberal racial record than on his past affiliationswith allegedly subversiveorganizations ("Frank the Front")and his presentassociation with Truman'sallegedly socialist Fair Deal policies,some of which -particularly national healthinsurance and repealof theTaft-Hartley Act -were distinctlyunpopular in NorthCarolina. In short,the tacticsof Smathersin Floridaand Smithin North Carolinaclosely resembled those used by Republicansthroughout the nationin 1950:attacks on Truman'sdomestic policies as socialistand McCarthyitechallenges to the administration'salleged softness on communism,foreign and domestic.It is thusunwarranted to treatthe defeats of Grahamand Pepperentirely, or perhaps even principally,as manifestationsof a southernracial backlash,rather than as

This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 96 TheJournal of American History June1994 confirmationof PresidentTruman's unpopularity in 1950 and of the potencyof McCarthyismas an electoralweapon.25 Second,to theextent that race played a criticalrole in Graham'sdefeat -and in therunoff primary it plainly did - Grahamwas more exposed on thisissue than any othersouthern politician of the period. Widely identified as theforemost southern liberalof his time, Graham had been a memberof Truman's civil rights committee (a groupthe president appointed in 1946to studyracial conflict and to recommend legislation)in 1946-1947,the firstpresident of the interracialand integrationist SouthernConference on Human Welfare,and one ofonly three southern senators (the otherswere Pepper and Kefauver)to oppose the southernfilibuster against FEPC.Graham was, moreover, one ofthe few southern politicians of the period who daredto endorsethe eventual abolition of racial segregation (though even he opposed federalcompulsion to securethat end). Thus, ratherthan highlighting Graham's defeatas evidenceof a racialbacklash, one mightinstead find it remarkablethat someoneof Graham'shigh-profile racial liberalism could comewithin a whiskerof winningan outrightmajority in the firstprimary-leading Smith by 48.9 percent to 40.5 percent-and in the race-baitingsecond primary still poll over48 percent ofthe vote. It isvery difficult to imagine Graham polling equally well in thefrenzied racialpolitics of the post-Brownperiod.26 Finally,and perhapsmost significantly, the factor transforming Smith's Truman- bashing,McCarthyite first primary campaign into a predominantlyrace-baiting runoffcampaign appears to have been interveningdecisions by the United States SupremeCourt. Smith, soundly defeated in the firstprimary, was on the vergeof withdrawingfrom the race when the Supreme Court onJune 5, 1950,handed down decisions,in thegraduate school and railroadsegregation cases, that insisted on ei- therstrict equality of facilitieswithin a segregatedsystem or integration.These rulingsnot onlypersuaded Smith to demandthe runoffelection to whichhe was entitledbut also enabledhim to makerace the dominantissue of the campaign. Smithmoved quickly to takeelectoral advantage of the Court decisions, blanketing thestate with letters stressing their importance. Against the backdrop of the segre- gationrulings, FEPC and thealleged racial bloc vote for Graham in thefirst primary assumeda new dimensionin voters'minds. In the firstprimary, Smith had been unable to convinceeastern North Carolina black belt whites-a coreconstituency in GovernorScott's populist economic coalition -to desertGraham over the race issue,but in therunoff primary Graham was badly defeated in theeastern counties. Manycontemporary observers and campaignparticipants pointed to the Supreme Courtdecisions as thedecisive factor in therunoff primary. Thus, the Court's 1950

25 Pleasantsand Burns,Frank Porter Graham, 24, 42-43, 76, 89, 91, 96, 98-99, 122, 129-32, 147-48, 171, 218-19,263; Sherrill,Gothic Politics in theDeep South,147-51; ManningJ. Dauer, "Florida:The DifferentState," in ChangingPolitics of the South,ed. Havard,133; Bartleyand Graham,Southern Politics, 52; Chafe,Civilities and CivilRights, 77-78; Edsalland Williams,"North Carolina," 373-74; StephenE. Ambrose,Nixon, vol. I: The Educationof a Politician,1913-1962 (New York,1987), 213-23; Fried,Nightmare in Red, 129-30. 26 Pleasantsand Burns,Frank Porter Graham, 12, 25-27, 41-42, 56-57, 85, 151,189, 216, 219,221, 226, 228, 244, 255, 263; Samuel Lubell, The Futureof AmericanPolitics (New York,1951), 101-6;Edsall and Williams, "NorthCarolina," 373, 375; Bartley,Rise ofMassive Resistance, 37; Bartleyand Graham,Southern Politics, 52.

This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Howthe Brown Decision Changed Race Relations 97 graduateschool and railroadsegregation decisions may have catalyzed white racial opinionin the same mannerthat Brown did laterand on a largerscale.27 LikeSmith's 1950 victory over Graham in NorthCarolina, most other race-baiting southernelection campaigns of the time emphasized Supreme Court interventions in southernracial practices. Herman Talmadge's demagogic 1950 Georgia guberna- torialprimary campaign invoked the same SupremeCourt decisions that played a vitalrole in Graham'sdefeat. Earlier, in 1944,the Court'sinvalidation of thewhite primaryin Smithv. Alwright had generatedits own racial backlash across the Deep South.When 135,000blacks registered to votein the GeorgiaDemocratic guber- natorialprimary in 1946,Eugene Talmadge converted the threat of mass black voter participationinto the centerpieceof his campaign.Similarly, in Mississippi's1951 Democraticgubernatorial primary, the emergence of an unusuallylarge number of blackvoters (by Mississippistandards), in a delayedresponse to Smith,produced a whitebacklash. In sum,the Dixiecratrevolt of 1948,the 1950 Democraticsena- torialprimary defeats of Graham and Pepper,and otherrace-baiting political cam- paignsof the postwar era do notdemonstrate the existence of a southernracial backlash beforeBrown comparable in powerto whatfollowed Brown.28 Throughoutthe South the pattern of response to Brownwas consistent: Race became the decisivefocus of southernpolitics, and massiveresistance its dominant theme.Adam Fairclough has observedthat Brown "unleashed a waveof racism that reachedhysterical proportions"; David Garrowhas statedthat Brown produced a "quantumchange literally overnight" in the southernracial climate. Virtually no southernpolitician could survivein thispolitical environment without toeing the massiveresistance line, and in moststates politicians competed to occupythe most extremeposition on the racial spectrum.Racial moderationwas submerged,as Browncollapsed southern racial opinion into two polar positions, integrationist and segregationist.Roy Harris, president of the Citizens'Councils of America,warned that"if you're a whiteman, thenit's time to standup withus, or blackyour face and get on the otherside." One residentof Tuskegeeobserved that there was no conceivablemiddle ground; one eitheragreed with the racial policies of Sam Engel- hardt,a massiveresistance leader from black belt Macon County, Alabama, or else one wasportrayed as "a nigger-lovingcommunist." Since no integrationistpolitician couldsurvive anywhere in the Southin themiddle or late 1950s,moderates neces- sarilygravitated toward the right,as evidenced,for example, by the decisionearly in 1956of suchmen as Fulbright,Hill, and Sparkmanto join thevast majority of southernrepresentatives and senatorsin signingthe Southern Manifesto, which con-

27 Pleasantsand Burns,Frank Porter Graham, 190-95, 197-201,208, 216, 219, 226-27, 234-36, 248, 250, 254-55, 259-63, 268-69; Lubell,Future of American Politics, 104, 120; Edsall and Williams,"North Carolina," 375. 28 Bartley,Rise ofMassive Resistance, 29-32, 40-41; Black,Southern Governors and CivilRights,12-13, 35-36; Hine,Black Victory,223-25; Norrell,Reaping the Whirlwind,55; Heard,Two-Party South?, 192; Bernd,"White Supremacyand the Disfranchisementof Blacksin Georgia,"492, 494-95, 498; Sullivan,"Southern Reformers," 93-94; CharlesN. Fortenberryand F. GlennAbney, "Mississippi: Unreconstructed and Unredeemed,"in Changing Politicsof the South,ed. Havard,505.

This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 98 TheJournal of American History June1994 demnedBrown as a "clearabuse ofjudicial power" and calledfor resistance "by any lawfulmeans."29 Evenin NorthCarolina, widely regarded as the prototypeof southernmodera- tion,political opinion shifted dramatically to the rightin the mid-1950s.In 1956, twocongressmen who had declinedto signthe SouthernManifesto were defeated forreelection in Democraticprimaries, and Gov. LutherHodges, seeking to fend offsegregationist opposition in hisreelection bid, disavowedhis earlier moderation and beganattacking the NAACP, broachingthe possibility of school closures (which he earlierhad condemned),and endorsinga legislativedenunciation of the Brown decision.Similarly in Florida,where high urbanizationand relativelylow black populationdensity seemed to predicta raciallymoderate climate, segregation became a dominantcampaign theme in thepost-Brown era. The formerlymoderate LeRoyCollins was forced far to theright in the 1956gubernatorial primary to protect hisflank against a rabidsegregationist. In thetwo succeeding Florida gubernatorial contests,the strongest segregationist candidate won byattacking his opponentsfor beingtoo moderateon the raceissue.30 Threepoints regarding the post-Brownsouthern political backlash deserve spe- cial emphasis.First, Brown elevated race overclass for the relativelyless affluent whiteswho werethe backboneof the populistcoalitions that had been ascendant in severalsouthern states. Second, Brown inspired rural black belt whites to exert theirdisproportionate power in statepolitics to exactracial conformity from whites less preoccupiedwith race. Third,many whites who wereless transfixedby race nonethelessfelt obliged to rallyaround the whitesupremacist banner when the issuewas federalcompulsion versus states' rights, as it was afterBrown, and even morecompellingly, after Little Rock. I shall considerthese three points in turn. Brownelevated race over class in southernpolitics, just as southernconservatives had done a halfcentury earlier when confronted with the Populist threat of inter- racialeconomic alliances. Those lower-classwhites who had providedmuch of the backingfor the populist/NewDeal economicpolicies of the late 1940sand early 1950swere also the people most likely to feelthreatened by integration. Thus, coali- tionsthat had formerlyjoined togetherthe fewsouthern black voters with lower- classwhites in oppositionto theeconomic elite began to disintegrate.As racebegan to preponderateover class, these coalitionsoften gave wayto alliancesbetween blacksand upper-classwhites, whose commitment to segregationwas tempered by a concernfor economic growth, as wellas bythe knowledge that segregated housing

29 Fairclough,To Redeemthe Soul ofAmerica, 21; Garrow,Protest at Selma,9; Bartley,Rise of MassiveResis- tance,17, 68, 116-17,esp. 192, 247; Norrell,Reaping the Whirlwind,102, 112; Bartleyand Graham,Southern Politics,51, 53; McMillen,Citizens' Council, 235, 361; Bernd,"Georgia:' 327; Eisenberg,"Virginia:' 39-40; For- tenberryand Abney,"Mississippi," 506, 517-18;Norrell, "One Thing We Did Right,"81-82; Black,Southern Governorsand CivilRights, 31, 52; MichaelBarone, Our Country:The Shapingof Americafrom Roosevelt to Reagan(New York,1990), 276; Strong,"Alabama' 446; Frady,Wallace, 207; EarleJohnston, I Rolled with Ross: A PoliticalPortrait (Baton Rouge, 1980), 73; 102Congressional Record, 84 Cong.,2 sess.,March 12, 1956,pp. 4515-16. 30 Chafe,Civilities and CivilRights, 66-73, 366n13;Bartley, Rise ofMassive Resistance, 97n48, 142-43, 342; Powell,"Massive Resistance in Arkansas,"29; Bartleyand Graham,Southern Politics, 63-66; Black,Southern Governorsand CivilRights, 90-96; Helen L. Jacobstein,The Segregation Factor in theFlorida Democratic Guber- natorialPrimary of 1956 (Gainesville,1972), 27-40.

This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Howthe Brown Decision Changed Race Relations 99 patternswould render school desegregation largely irrelevant to theirlives. Thus, forexample, in Norfolk,Virginia, in 1958,lower-class whites voted by a nine-to-one marginin favorof school closuresover desegregation, while upper-classwhites dividedevenly on the issue.Indeed, both the Little Rock and New Orleansschool criseswere exacerbated by the designof the proposeddesegregation plans, which called for only lower-classwhites to attendschool with blacks.As Bartleyand Grahamhave noted, "In stateafter state the populist-New Deal alignmentsof the earlypost war years broke apart, as ruraland low-incomewhites shifted from supportof economicreform to defenseof social conservatism."'31 In Arkansas,the economicallypopulist and raciallymoderate policies of gover- norsMcMath and (the early)Faubus were replaced by massive resistance policies in 1957-1958,as Faubusshifted his base ofpolitical support from hill countrywhites and urbanblacks to delta plantersand lower-classurban whites. In Louisiana,the Longcoalition of blacks and poorwhites collapsed under the pressure of racial politics.There, in the Democraticgubernatorial primary of 1959-1960,race replaced classas thedominant issue for the first time in a generation,with the Long faction candidatesfailing even to makethe runoff primary. In Mississippi,a traditional geo- graphiccleavage between Delta conservativesand hill countrypopulists was over- shadowedafter Brown by a statewidepreoccupation with the raceissue, which enabled conservativeforces to gainthe upper hand. Similarvoting patterns developed in Georgia,as poorrural whites were pitted against coalitions of metropolitan blacks and moreaffluent whites.32 In Alabama as well, the postwarrural populism that had sustainedBig Jim Folsomfell victim to the race issue.Folsom's racial liberalism put him badlyout oftouch with the times; he refusedto condemnthe Brown decision, vetoed several piecesof massive resistance legislation, ridiculed the state legislature's nullification resolutionas "justa bunchof hogwash," lambasted the Citizens' Councils as "haters and baiters,"and invitedthe Harlem congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., to the governor'smansion for a drink.In 1956Alabama voters overwhelmingly repudiated Folsom'sracial progressivism, defeating him by a three-to-onemargin in his race for Democraticnational committeeman- a contestthat turnedinto a virtual referendumon racial issues and "unmistakeabl[y]indicat[ed] . . . the damage that the civilrights movement had done to his popularity."In 1958,all candidatesfor the Democraticgubernatorial nomination repudiated Folsom's moderation and competedto adopt themost extreme segregationist position. John Patterson, who as attorneygeneral had shutdown NAACP operations in thestate, proved the most adept at exploitingthe raceissue and rodeit to an easyvictory. In 1962,the rural

31 Bartleyand Graham,Southern Politics, 53, 80, 186-87;William C. Havard,"From Past to Future:An Over- viewof Southern Politics:' in ChangingPolitics of the South, ed. Havard,706; CarlAbbott, "The NorfolkBusiness Community,"in SouthernBusinessmen and Desegregation,ed. Jacowayand Colburn,108; MortonInger, "The New OrleansSchool Crisisof 1960,"ibid, 88-89; McMillen,Citizens' Council, 292-93; Sherrill,Gothic Politics in the Deep South,280; Bartley,Rise of MassiveResistance, 253-54, 337. 32 Bartley,Rise of Massive Resistance, 287; Bartleyand Graham,Southern Politics, 59-60, 68; Black,Southern Governorsand CivilRights, 76; Howard,"Louisiana," 555-59; Fortenberryand Abney,"Mississippi," 474-75, 485, 502-4, 506.

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411 1

I 4I

BigJim Folsom, whose populist brand of raciallymoderate politics was shattered by the Browndecision, campaigns in Warrior,Alabama, in the Democraticgubernatorial primary of 1954. CourtesyBirmingham News.

lower-classwhites who had supportedJim Folsom's populism in thelate 1940sand early1950s tended to supportGeorge Wallace, who knewno equal whenit came to exploitingthe racialhysteria of the post-Brownera.33 In Virginiapolitics, too, Brown abruptly halted "the moderating process at work." In the 1949Democratic gubernatorial primary, the machine led bySen. HarryByrd had facedits first serious challenge in recentmemory from within the party. In 1954, younglegislators favoring expanded public services had revoltedagainst its leadership. Most significantly,though, in 1953 a Republicangubernatorial candidate, TheodoreDalton, had wonroughly 45 percentof the votein the generalelection, runningon a platformof increasedstate services and repealof thepoll tax. After Brownraised the specterof integration,though, antimachine leaders found it ex- tremelydifficult to arousea popularfollowing for progressive, nonracial causes; the Byrdmachine adeptly reinvigorated race as Virginia'sdominant political issue. In

33 Sims,Little Man's Big Friend,169-70, 173-77,esp. 183-86; Bartley,Rise of MassiveResistance, 280n39, 282-83, 286; Black, SouthernGovernors and Civil Rights,52; Frady,Wallace, 103, 108; McMillen,Citizens' Council,316; Strong,"Alabama:' 449-50, 452; Bartleyand Graham,Southern Politics, 67-68; Norrell,Reaping the Whirlwind,98.

This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Howthe Brown Decision Changed Race Relations 101 thispolitical environment, the sameRepublican candidate who had come so close to winningin 1953 suffereda shatteringdefeat in the 1957 gubernatorialelection at thehands of the Byrd machine candidate, Lindsay Almond, who ran on a strong massiveresistance platform.34 Brownnot only elevated race over class as thedominant issue in southernpolitics but also energizedblack belt whites to exerttheir disproportionate political power to compelwhite unity on racialmatters. While the vast majority of southern whites in the 1950sfavored racial segregation, the depth of their commitment varied enor- mously,depending primarily on theirdemographic situation. Even in southern stateswith relatively large black populations, portions of each statewere populated almostentirely by whites. While residentsof such areas generally supported white supremacy,they were principally concerned with other issues that affected their lives moredirectly. Thus, forexample, in westernTexas and the hillsof northwestAr- kansas,areas with minuscule black populations, compliance with Brown was often swiftand painless.35 One ofthe momentous facts of southern political history is thatblack belt whites have alwaysenjoyed disproportionate political influence, owing both to the mal- apportionmentof statelegislatures in favorof ruralcounties and to thepractice of apportioningrepresentatives according to total (ratherthan voting)population, whichin effectenabled blackbelt whites to castvotes for their disfranchised black neighbors.A startlingblow like the Brown decision awakened black belt whites to theimminent threat posed to theirwhite supremacist world view, and theymoved quicklyto reasserttheir traditional dominance over southern politics. In Virginia, the Southsideblack belt defeated a statelegislative proposal espousing local pupil allocation(the Gray Commissionproposal) that would have permittedliberal northernVirginia school boards to complywith Brown. Similarly, the state legisla- turerevoked Arlington County's right to electschool board members after the board publishedan outlineof its desegregationplan forthe 1956-1957school year. In Georgiain 1961,Atlanta businessmen were seeking peaceful school desegregation in compliancewith a federalcourt order, while Gov. ErnestVandiver, elected via the county-unitsystem, which grossly exaggerated rural voting power, was still promisingto preservesegregation forever. Florida at midcenturyhad one of the most malapportionedlegislatures in the country.A rapidlyexpanding urban majorityin southFlorida, whose racial views were tempered both by relocated north- ernersand byurban norms, was rendered "all butvoiceless" in a rural-biasedlegisla- turedominated by northern Florida counties committed to preservingtraditional

34 Eisenberg,"Virginia," 39-40, 46, esp. 50-51; Wilkinson,Harry Byrd, 89, 92-97, 106-12,137-38; Bartley, Rise of MassiveResistance, 270-71; Black,Southern Governors and CivilRights, 45. 35 Bartley,Rise of MassiveResistance, 13-14, 138; Ely,Crisis of ConservativeVirginia, 5, 34-36; McMillen, Citizens'Council, 6-9, 45-46, 93, 94n4, 103, 309-10;Fortenberry and Abney,"Mississippi," 517-18; Yates, "Ar- kansas,"235-36, 271; ThomasF. Pettigrewand ErnestQ. Campbell,"Faubus and Segregation:An Analysisof Ar- kansasVoting, 'Public OpinionQuarterly, 24 (Fall 1960),441, 443; 0. DouglasWeeks, "Texas: Land of Conservative Expansiveness' in ChangingPolitics of the South, ed. Havard,201n2; Black, Southern Governors and CivilRights, 125, 373n73.

This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 102 TheJournal of American History June1994 racialmores. As a result,a seriesof legislative sessions in thelate 1950sfocused on maintainingsegregated schools.36 Justas withina singlestate the black belt could pull more moderateracial opinionalong with it, so withinthe South as a whole,extremist states could pressure theirmore moderate neighbors. Governor Faubus of Arkansas found himself backed intoa cornerover desegregation of Little Rock schools in 1957. Alabamaand Texas had successfullyflouted desegregationorders in 1956, and other states' politicians- mostnotably, Georgia's "roving ambassadors of segregation,"Marvin Griffinand RoyHarris-came to LittleRock in the summerof 1957 to fan the segregationistfury. Governor Griffin of Georgiadeclared at LittleRock his shock thatany southern governor with troops at his disposalwould allow school integration.After Griffin's speech, Faubus later reported, Arkansans would come up to him in the streetto ask whytheir schools were about to be integratedwhen Georgia's werenot.37 Yetit wasnot simply Citizens' Council intimidation or blackbelt political domi- nationthat silencedthe voicesof moderationafter Brown. Rather, many racial moderatesrallied around the bannerof resistanceto outsideintervention, a cause thatresonated deeply in a southernpolitical consciousness for which the CivilWar and Reconstructionremained seminal events. Just as southernracial progressives in the 1920sand 1930shad supportedstate, but notfederal, antilynching legislation, so manysouthern liberals in thepostwar years favored local initiatives to ameliorate JimCrow practices, while warning that federal intervention would cause more harm thangood.38 Thatresistance to outsideinterference remained a powerfulsouthern rallying cry is demonstratedby the virulent response to PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower'sdis- patchof federal troops to LittleRock in thefall of 1957.Many Arkansas businessmen and otherracial moderates, who had resentedGovernor Faubus's efforts to instigate racialdiscord in LittleRock, felt obliged to rallyaround him once Eisenhowerhad sentin the 101stAirborne Division. The confrontationwith the federal government

36 Bartley,Rise of MassiveResistance, 18-19, 42, 94, 109-15,144, 278-79, 333-34; Frady,Wallace, 101; Key, SouthernPolitics in StateandNation, 517, 666; McMillen,Citizens' Council, esp. 99-100;Schulman, From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt,121; Bernd,"Georgia:' 296-97; Eisenberg,"Virginia:' 52, 56-57; Lee S. Greeneand JackE. Holmes,"Tennessee: A Politicsof PeacefulChange," in ChangingPolitics of the South,ed. Havard,169-70; Ely, Crisisof ConservativeVirginia, 37-39; Wilkinson,Harry Byrd, 114, 127, 132-33,151-52; Mark Howard, "An His- toricalStudy of the Desegregation of the Alexandria, Virginia, City Public Schools, 1954-73" (Ed.D. diss.,George WashingtonUniversity, 1976), 154; Abbott, "Norfolk Business Community," 114; Alton Hornsby, Jr., "A CityThat WasToo Busyto Hate:' in SouthernBusinessmen andDesegregation, ed. Jacowayand Colburn,125; Bartley, Crea- tionofModern Georgia, 194; Sherrill,Gothic Politics in theDeep South,91; Black,Southern Governors and Civil Rights,37. 37 McMillen,Citizens' Council, 40, esp. 65, 271-74;Bartley, Rise ofMassive Resistance, 258; Sherrill,Gothic Politicsin theDeep South,87-89, 98, 207-8;Jacoway,"Taken by Surprise:' 21-22; StephenL. Longenecker,Selma's Peacemaker:Ralph Smeltzer'sCivil Rights Mediation (Philadelphia, 1987), 170-71. 38 Goldfield,Black, White, and Southern,22, 71; Key,Southern Politics in Stateand Nation,668; Sosna,In Searchof the Silent South, 31, 158-59,199-200; Ader, "Why the Dixiecrats Failed," 356, 367; McMillen,Citizens' Council,358-59; Sherrill,Gothic Politics in the Deep South, 107; RobertL. Zangrando,The NAACP Crusade AgainstLynching, 1909-1950 (Philadelphia, 1980), 126-27;George C. Rable,"The Southand thePolitics of Anti- LynchingLegislation:'Journal ofSouthern History, 51 (May 1985),203-4, 208; Pleasantsand Burns,Frank Porter Graham,41, 85, 151-52.

This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Howthe Brown Decision Changed Race Relations 103 leftFaubus so popularin Arkansasthat he wonfour additional consecutive terms as governor,for a grandtotal of six,in a statewith a half-century-longtradition of limitingits chiefexecutives to twosuccessive terms. Perhaps even more striking is theimpact of Little Rock elsewhere in theSouth. Faubus quickly became a regional hero, receivingstanding ovations at speakingengagements through the Deep South, and (amazingly)appearing, along with WinstonChurchill, Charles de Gaulle,and Truman,on a nationalGallup Polllist of Americans' ten most admired world statesmen.Across the South, the gubernatorialsuccess rate of militant segregationistspeaked after the confrontation in LittleRock, as Faubus'slandslide 1958victory in Arkansasrendered unmistakable the electoral advantages of overtly defyingfederal authority.39 In sum,Brown produced a southernpolitical climate in whichracial extremism flourished.It is smallwonder that southern politicians drew the lesson that uncom- promisingobstruction of racialchange would probably win the plauditsof voters. Each of the high-profilecivil rights conflagrations of the post-Browndecade fea- turedsouthern politicians who had been electedto officeon the strengthof the post-Brownbacklash and who fullyappreciated the political gains to be had from fosteringviolent clashes with federal authorities and brutallysuppressing civil rights demonstrations.The relevantfigures are OrvalFaubus, Ross Barnett,T. Eugene ("Bull") Connor,Jim Clark, and GeorgeWallace. Thatmassive resistance should peak in theLittle Rock crisis of 1957-1958 is ironic. Arkansas,in 1954,was one of the mostracially moderate southern states. In the postwaryears, Arkansas was underthe politicalcontrol of racialmoderates, who soughtto encourageindustrial development by avoiding racial strife. In 1948,Ar- kansasbecame the first southern state to desegregateits state university without federalcourt compulsion. Blacks voted in largenumbers in Arkansas(not just in Little Rock,but also in the easternplantation belt), and theysat on previouslyall-white statecommissions. Educational funding disparities for black and whiteschools were underattack. Little Rock was one of the South'smost racially progressive cities. Blacksserved on thecity police force and frequentlyon federalcourt juries as well; thecity's public transport system had beenintegrated in themid-1950s; department storeshad desegregatedtheir lunch counters.40 Brownthen intervened, with the usual consequences. Eastern black belt planters reassertedtheir traditional political dominance, propelling state politics far to the righton racial issuesand squelchingracially moderate urban sentiment.Orval Faubushad firstbeen electedgovernor in 1954on a populisteconomic program of

39 StephenE. Ambrose,Eisenhower, vol. II: ThePresident (New York,1984), 420-23; Bartley,Rise ofMassive Resistance,270, 277-78, 287; Sherrill,Gothic Politics in the Deep South, 106-8;Jacoway, "Taken by Surprise," 23-25; Bartleyand Graham,Southern Politics, 55; Yates,"Arkansas," 254, 274; Black,Southern Governors and CivilRights, 103, 118-22, 128-29; Ely,Crisis of ConservativeVirginia, 59-61, 65; Wilkinson,Harry Byrd, 138; Eisenberg,"Virginia," 53. 40 Bartley,Rise of MassiveResistance, 251, 260; Goldfield,Black, White,and Southern,107-8; McMillen, Citizens'Council, 94, 274; Sherrill,GothicPolitics in theDeep South,77-78, 82-83; Yates,"Arkansas," 271; Powell, "MassiveResistance in Arkansas,"5-6, 12, 97-98; Burk,Eisenhower Administration and Black CivilRights, 176; Jacoway,"Taken by Surprise,"19-20; Freyer,Little Rock Crisis,20-24.

This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 104 TheJournal of American History June1994 higherspending on public educationand old-agepensions. Neither candidate in thatelection had highlightedthe segregation issue, and as a candidate,Faubus had promisedblacks state jobs and accessto the governor'soffice. During his firstyear in office,Faubus paid virtuallyno attentionto the segregationissue and, indeed, becamethe first Arkansas governor to appointblacks to thestate Democratic Central Committee.During this time, several Arkansas school districts began to desegregate in compliancewith Brown. During his 1956reelection campaign, Faubus's principal oppositioncame fromJim Johnson, one of the state'sleading segregationists and thechief organizer of the Arkansas Citizens' Council. Johnson's allusions to Faubus's softnesson therace issue and an opinionpoll indicatinga rightwardshift in public attitudeson it inducedFaubus to reconsider.Faubus, who was not a "segregationist by philosophy,"became one "bypolitical necessity."41 Faubusrapidly converted himself from a candidateof the white hill country who alsowon large majorities in blackurban districts into a candidateof the eastern black belt and urbanlower-class white neighborhoods. Rather than permittingimple- mentationof the token desegregation plan ofthe Little Rock school board, Faubus manufactureda racial crisis that was in no senseinevitable. The governorcalled out theNational Guard to preventthe admission of blackstudents to LittleRock High School;the pretext was preservationof order,but it was theposting of guardsmen outsidethe schoolthat fomented the mob atmosphere.When Eisenhowerfinally respondedby dispatching federal troops, even local white moderates rallied behind the governor.He not onlywon a landslidevictory in his gubernatorialcontest the followingyear but also became virtuallyunbeatable in Arkansaspolitics for the betterpart of a decade. While Faubus tolerated,rather than instigated,violence againstblacks asserting their constitutional rights, the lessonfor other southern politicianswas clear:The moreextreme a politician'sresistance to the civilrights movement,the greaterthe rewardshe mightexpect at the polls. As theArkansas Gazettenoted following Faubus's sweeping victory in the 1958 gubernatorialpri- mary,moderation "is clearlyuntenable for any man in publiclife anywhere in the region."42 The raceriot attendant upon theadmission ofJames Meredith to theUniversity of Mississippiin the fallof 1962 was anotherof the greatracial conflagrations of thecivil rights era. It is interestingto note thatMississippi, the most racially reac- tionarysouthern state at midcentury,had underthe stewardshipof Gov.James Coleman(1955-1959) avoided some of the fanaticismof otherDeep Southstates. While any seriousMississippi politician of the era was necessarilya committed segregationist,Coleman had vetoedsome of the moreextreme massive resistance

41 Bartleyand Graham,Southern Politics, 54-5 5; Black,Southern Governors and CivilRights, 100; Goldfield, Black, White,and Southern,107-8; Sherrill,Gothic Politics in the Deep South,77-78, 84-85, esp. 102; Yates, "Arkansas,"235, 264-65; Powell,"Massive Resistance in Arkansas,"8-9; Bartley,Rise of MassiveResistance, 142, 260-62. 42 Bartleyand Graham,Southern Politics, 57, fig.3.1; Black,Southern Governors and CivilRights, 103; Pet- tigrewand Campbell,"Faubus and Segregation,"437-39, 445; Yates,"Arkansas," 258-59, 272-73, 281; Sherrill, GothicPolitics in the Deep South,75-76, 82, 89, 101,108-9; Powell,"Massive Resistance in Arkansas,"42-44; Bartley,Rise of MassiveResistance, esp. 268-69, 273.

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measurespresented to himby the legislature, resisted pressure to outlawthe NAACP (as neighboringAlabama had done), and disparagedthe doctrineof nullification as "legalpoppycock." With massive resistance cresting in the aftermathof thecon- frontationat LittleRock, the 1959 MississippiDemocratic gubernatorial primary featuredfour strong segregationists; Ross Barnettwas the most extreme.In the runoffcampaign, the dominant issue was the candidates' relative devotion to segregation,and Barnettsought to tiehis opponent, Lt. Gov.Carroll Gartin, to therela- tivelymoderate racial policies of the Coleman administration,while portraying himselfas a "one hundredpercent" segregationist. At campaignspeeches Barnett spokeopenly and proudlyof his Citizens'Council membership. He promisedthat therewould be no integratedschools in Mississippiso longas he wasgovernor and attributedthe downfall of Egyptian culture to mongrelizationof the races. Barnett won in a landslide.43 In thisracial climate, Barnett stood to gainpolitically by obstructing implemen- tationof the orderfrom the UnitedStates Court of Appealsfor the FifthCircuit thatdesegregated Ole Missand mandatedthe admission of Meredith. Not onlythe governorbut local public officials as wellfound it politically advantageous to declare theirwillingness to go to jail ratherthan complywith the desegregationorder. When GovernorBarnett announced on Mississippitelevision that he wouldinter- posethe state's rights against the federal court order and wouldsuffer imprisonment ratherthan permit integration of Ole Miss,virtually the entire white polity and the statepolitical hierarchy lined up solidlybehind him. Barnett twice blocked the en- tranceof Meredith into Ole Missbefore, faced with the threat of imprisonment for contemptof court,he arrangeda charadewith the Kennedyadministration by whichhe would surrenderto explicitthreats of superiorfederal force. But when eventsspun out of Barnett'scontrol, two were killed and hundredsmore wounded in a full-scalerace riot.44 Ole Misshad roughlythe samepolitical consequences for Ross Barnett as Little Rockhad forOrval Faubus. Barnettbecame, in the wordsof one journalist,"the dominantpolitical figure in Mississippias long as he lives."The politicalbenefits of condoningviolent resistance to desegregationwere evident in the 1963 Missis- sippigubernatorial election. With Barnett ineligible to succeedhimself, the leading segregationistcandidate was his lieutenant governor, PaulJohnson, who highlighted hisphysical obstruction of Meredith's admission to Ole Missthe preceding year and portrayedhis opponent,former governor Coleman, as raciallymoderate and pro- black.The majorissue in the campaignwas which candidate could betterdefend segregation.Coleman arguedfor circumvention, rather than blatantdefiance, of federalauthority, while Johnson embraced the viewthat "we mustfight fire with

43 Bartley,Rise ofMassive Resistance, 136, 211; Black, Southern Governors and CivilRights, 60, 63; McMillen, Citizens'Council,322, 326-28; Sherrill,Gothic Politics in theDeep South,176-78; Bartley and Graham,Southern Politics,74; Johnston,I Rolled withRoss, 78, 82-83; Fortenberryand Abney,"Mississippi:' esp. 506-7. 44 CarlM. Brauer,John F Kennedyand theSecond Reconstruction (New York,1977), 183-87, 192-96;John- ston,I Rolledwith Ross, 91-92, 95, 97-98, 102-3; Branch,Parting the Waters,647-53, 659-70; Sherrill,Gothic Politicsin the Deep South,185-86.

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fire."Mississippi voters sided decisivelywith the racial extremist. The lessonof Ole Misswas thatit was virtuallyimpossible for a Mississippipolitician in the post- Brownperiod to espousea racialposition too extremefor his whiteconstituents.45 Bull Connorhad firstbeen electedto theBirmingham City Commission in 1937, pledgedto crushthe Communist/integrationistthreat posed bythe unionization effortsof the Committeefor Industrial Organization. By the early1950s, though, Connorhad "becomea genuineembarrassment to Birmingham'swealthy economic and socialleaders." The local chamberof commercein 1950 formeda committee to encourageindustrial relocations to Birmingham,but its taskwas hamperedby theracial violence that plagued the city and bythe reputation for racial extremism ofits political leaders, most notably Bull Connor.In thespring and summerof 1951, raciallymoderate businessmen organized an interracialcommittee of community leadersto fosterimprovement in the livingconditions of the city'sblack citizens. Overthe nextseveral years, the firsthospital for blacks was established,elevators in downtownoffice buildings were desegregated, and a muchpublicized (though ultimatelyunsuccessful) campaign to desegregatethe city'spolice forcewas launched.Then, in 1951-1952,the business progressives orchestrated the public hu- miliationof Connor for an illicitsexual encounter. He decidednot to seekreelection to thecity commission in 1953,and a racialmoderate replaced him. By Birmingham standards,substantial progress had been made.46 Outsideevents, most notably the Brown decision (but also theMontgomery bus boycott),then precipitated a dramaticshift in Birminghampolitics. For example, in early1954 the city commission, eager to exploitthe financial opportunities that wouldaccompany a springtraining visit by the Brooklyn Dodgers -Jackie Robinson's team-voted to repealthe local ban on interracialsporting contests. Within two weeksof theBrown decision, however, a cityreferendum reinstituted that ban by a three-to-onemargin. Other signs of racial progress from the early 1950s were also quicklyreversed after Brown. Birmingham's interracial committee disbanded in April 1956 afteran energeticcampaign against it, as the formerlypreponderant, raciallymoderate businessmen now disappeared from the political scene. All formal biracialconsultation in Birminghamended, not to resumeagain for nearly six years. The citycommission refused to negotiatean end to segregationon citybuses, even afterthe Supreme Court ruled such segregation unconstitutional in thecase arising fromthe Montgomerybus boycott.47 In the tide of racialvenom that swept over the cityduring massive resistance, Connorwas able to resurrecthis politicalcareer; he regainedhis seat on the city commissionin 1957 witha race-baitingcampaign. During the late 1950s,Bir-

45 Forthe statement on RossBarnett by the journalist Hodding Carter, see Sherrill,Gothic Politics in theDeep South, 185-86. Bartleyand Graham,Southern Politics, 75; Black,Southern Governors and CivilRights, 63, 208-11;Johnston,IRolled withRoss, 102; McMillen, Citizens Council, 348; Fortenberryand Abney,"Mississippi," esp. 508-9. 46 Thornton,"Municipal Politics:' esp. 47-48; Eskew,"Alabama Christian Movement, '23; Pleasantsand Burns, FrankPorter Graham, 25. 47 Tygiel,Baseball's GreatExperiment, 275-77; Thornton,"Municipal Politics," 48-49; Eskew,"Alabama Chris- tian Movement,'23-28; Gaylev. Browder,352 U.S. 903 (1956).

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minghamrace relations rapidly deteriorated, as a powerfulKu KluxKlan (KKK) ele- ment turnedincreasingly to bombingsand brutality,while the police, under Connor'scontrol, declined to clampdown on theiroutrages. Standing for reelection in 1961,Connor soughtto consolidatehis positionamong racial extremistsby offeringthe KKK a fifteen-to twenty-minute"open season" on theFreedom Riders, freefrom police intervention,when theyrolled into Birminghamin May 1961. Connorwon reelection in a landslide,and laterthat month, a Citizens'Council ac- tivistwas elected mayor. For the first time since the late 1930s,all threeBirmingham citycommissioners were racial intransigents, elected on strictsegregationist plat- forms.In Birminghamthe political climate fostered by the post-Brown racial backlash rewardedracial extremism almost without limit - a situationthat proved to havemomentous implications for racial change when the SCLC commenced demon- strationsthere in thespring of 1963.One ofMartin Luther King, Jr.'s principal lieu- tenants,Wyatt Walker, speculated that Connor used violenttactics on thatoccasion to bolsterhis reputation with segregationist voters in preparationfor a statewidepo- liticalrace. Connor calculated, according to Walker,"that he would be the state's mostpopular politician if he treatedthe blackviolently, bloodily, and sternly."48 Selma,located in the heartof the Alabama blackbelt, was home to the state's firstlocal Citizens'Council, founded in November1954. By its first anniversary the councilhad enrolledas membersroughly one-fourth of the adult whitemales in Dallas County.The councilmaintained close ties with the Selma citygovernment and theDallas CountyDemocratic party. Such linkages between public and private authorityboth reflected and reinforcedthe "unusuallyaggressive and unanimous commitmentof the white community of Dallas Countyto an extremistracial position."Open dissentfrom white supremacist orthodoxy simply was not toleratedin Selma.49 In 1958 Dallas Countyvoters returned Jim Clark to the sheriff'soffice in a race againsta seniorSelma police officer,Wilson Baker. Clark highlighted his coopera- tionwith the local Citizens'Council and promisedthat no racialintegration would cometo Dallas Countyunder his watch.Racial issues were not an expresspoint of differencebetween the two candidates, but the contest did turnon thepolarization ofthe electorate between city and county,with Wilson Baker representing both in- creasedprofessionalization oflaw enforcementand theSelma business elite's preoc- cupationwith preserving social order to lureindustrial relocations. As timepassed, Clark,more than any other individual in Selma,came to representthe views of die- hardsegregationists.50

48 Thornton,"Municipal Politics," 48-49; Bains,"Birmingham, 1963," 167-68, 187-88; Eskew, "Alabama Chris- tianMovement," 35-36; Branch,Parting the Waters,420-21; Garrow,Bearing the Cross,esp. 251;William A. Nun- nelley,Bull Connor(Tuscaloosa, 1991), 55-60, 74-75, 98-99, 107, 110-11,184. 49 Thornton,"Municipal Politics," esp. 55; McMillen,Citizens' Council, 43, 210; Sims,Little Man's Big Friend, 174; Longenecker,Selma's Peacemaker, 35. 50 It wouldbe inaccurateto saythat Jim Clark outmaneuvered Wilson Baker on therace issue; Baker appeared beforea Klan rally,though he laterinsisted that he did notendorse the organization's positions. See CharlesFager, Selma,1965 (New York,1974), 17; and Longenecker,Selma's Peacemaker, 18, 36. I am gratefulto ProfessorJ.Mills ThorntonIII forclarifying the racial aspects of the 1958election contest between Baker and Clarkfor me in a tele- phone conversation.

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In thepost-Brown racial hysteria, Clark had everyincentive to behavein Dallas Countyas Connorhad in Birmingham.Indeed, in 1963 Clarkhad, at Governor Wallace'srequest, traveled to Birminghamto assistConnor in suppressingthe SCLC's springdemonstrations. That the extremist Clark, rather than the more professional and raciallyrestrained Baker, occupied the Dallas Countysheriff's office in 1965had greatimport for the history of the civil rights movement. Whereas Baker responded tovoting rights demonstrations with courteous arrests, Clark demonstrated his char- acteristiclack of restraint, using violent tactics that sickened national television au- diencesand promptedimmediate congressional and presidentialintervention in theform of the 1965Voting Rights Act. Clark apparently calculated that his brutal suppressionof votingrights demonstrations would translateinto a viable guber- natorialcandidacy in 1966. Clarkwithdrew from the governor'srace onlywhen GeorgeWallace announcedthe candidacyof his wife,Lurleen; it was widelyap- preciatedthat nobody could outflankWallace as a symbolof resistanceto racial change.5" GeorgeWallace, much like Orval Faubus, was not bynature a fire-eatingwhite supremacist.Indeed, Wallacehad been a little"soft" on the segregationissue in hisearly political career, and he had notbeen in thehalf of the Alabama delegation thatwalked out ofthe Democratic national convention in 1948after it adoptedthe liberal civil rightsplank. Wallace had stronglysupported Governor Folsom's populisteconomic platform and had acquireda reputationin thestate legislature as a leadingliberal. Yet by the mid-1950s, Wallace perceived the political imperative of breakingwith Folsom on the race issue. By 1956,when federal officials inves- tigatingcharges of race discrimination in juryselection sought access to grandjury selectionrecords in Cobb County,Georgia, Wallace (then judge of the Barbour CountyCircuit Court) threatened to arrestany Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agententering his countywith similar objectives. Yet Wallace's incipient moves to theright on therace issue were insufficient to win him the Democratic gubernatorial nominationin 1958. His opponentin the runoffprimary that year,Attorney GeneralJohnPatterson, had achievedstatewide prominence by banning the NAACP fromAlabama and nowreceived the endorsement of the Ku KluxKlan, whom Wal- lace gentlyrepudiated. Patterson played the racial theme so heavilyin thecampaign thatWallace unwittingly became the candidate of moderation,and ironically,won heavyblack support in thecities. Patterson easily won the contest, leaving Wallace to ruminatethat "they out-niggered me thattime, but they will never do it again."52 Soon afterlosing this gubernatorial contest, Wallace was remindedof thepolit- icaladvantages of defying the federal government. The conflictcame when Wallace's old law schoolclassmate, Judge FrankJohnson of the federal district court, ordered him, in his capacityas BarbourCounty circuit judge, to releasecounty registrar

51Bains, "Birmingham, 1963:' 199; Longenecker,Selma's Peacemaker, 36, 112-13,123-24, 129-30, 139-42, 162-64,217; Garrow,Protest at Selma,42-45, 60-61, 73-76; Frady,Wallace, 179-202; Fager, Selma, 1965, 208-9. 52 Bartleyand Graham,Southern Politics, 67; Black,Southern Governors and CivilRights, 52-55; Frady,Wal- lace,97-98, 106-8, 116,121-22, 124-26, 141; Sherrill, Gothic Politics in theDeep South,267; Strong,"Alabama,' 448-51.

This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Howthe Brown Decision Changed Race Relations 109 votingrecords to the United StatesCivil RightsCommission, which was inves- tigatingalleged denials of blackvoting rights in Alabama.Wallace seized custody ofthe records and announcedthat he wouldarrest any federal agent seeking to ob- tain them.Facing a possiblecontempt citation for defying a federalcourt order, Wallacechose privately to surrender,returning the recordsto the grandjuries in hiscircuit, while publicly continuing his bluster a politicaltactic he wasto repeat severalyears later while standing in the schoolhousedoor at Tuscaloosa.53 Duringhis 1962 campaignfor the Democraticgubernatorial nomination, Wal- lace made politicalhay of this episode, bragging of his defiance ofJohnson's orders and callingthe federal judge "a low-down,carpet baggin, scalawaggin', race-mixin' liar."Wallace also madehis dramatic pledge to blockany attempt at schooldesegre- gationin Alabama, "evento the pointof standingin the schoolhousedoor." His opponentin therunoff primary was a moderatesegregationist who promised to re- sistthe federalgovernment in a responsiblemanner. But timesin Alabama were such"that to be moderatewas to be demolished."Wallace swept to victorywith the largestnumber of votesof anygubernatorial candidate in Alabamahistory. Then, in hisinaugural address, Wallace spoke his famous words of defiance: "In thename ofthe greatest people thathave ever trod this earth, I drawthe line in thedust and tossthe gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say,Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow!Segregation forever!"54 Once ensconcedin thegovernor's mansion, Wallace affirmatively sought out confrontationwith the federalgovernment. Wallace tried to entrapthe Kennedyad- ministrationinto using federal troops in Alabama,as it had at Ole Miss,fully ap- preciatingthe politicalgains that would accruefrom his playingto the southern traditionof foreseeable defeat before overwhelming odds. In thenow-famous cha- rade,Wallace first physically blocked the entranceto the universityand then,as plannedin advance,stepped aside beforea showof superior federal force. From the momentof his standin the schoolhousedoor, Wallace became "the apotheosis of thewill of the people" and entereda newpolitical dimension, at boththe state and nationallevels.55 Yet,for Wallace, the prospects for political advantage were not limited to nonviolent resistanceto federalauthority. During the Birminghamdemonstrations of Apriland May1963, Wallace, who had covertlysupported Bull Connorin therecent mayoralrace, increased the firepowerat Connor'sdisposal by dispatchingCol. Al Lingowith several hundred Alabama state troopers. Lingo supplemented Connor's brutalitywith some of his ownin quellingthe Birmingham demonstrations. Wal- lace also askedanother racial hothead, SheriffJim Clark of Dallas County,to assist

53 Frady,Wlallace, 127-29; Norrell, Reaping the Whirlwind,114-17; Sherrill, Gothic Politics in theDeep South, 278-79. 54 Brauer,John E Kennedyand theSecond Reconstruction, esp. 252-53; Sherrill,Gothic Politics in theDeep South,279-80; Norrell,Reaping the Whirlwind,esp. 137-38; Frady,Wlallace, 129, esp. 132-33, 135, 142; Black, SouthernGovernors and CivilRights, esp. 55; Bains, "Birmingham,1963," 195. 55 Frady,Wlallace, 141, esp. 148-150,170-71; Strong, "Alabama," 452; Norrell,Reaping the Whirlwind,144, 146-48; Branch,Parting the Waters,821-22; Brauer, John E Kennedyand the SecondReconstruction, 253, 257- 9; Sherrill,Gothic Politics in the Deep South,282.

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Connor;Clark readily acquiesced. After Connor had ruthlesslysuppressed the Bir- minghamdemonstrations, Wallace saw fitto praisehis handlingof the situation. And, whilewe maynever know Wallace's precise role in the violenceat Selma on BloodySunday, his chief law enforcementlieutenant, Lingo, insists that it was Wal- lace himselfwho gavethe orderto initiatethe horse-mountedtroopers' attack on the demonstratorsat EdmundPettus Bridge. Even after Bloody Sunday and Presi- dentJohnson'sensuing "We ShallOvercome" speech to thenation, Wallace saw po- liticaladvantages to continuedresistance. He criticizedJudge Johnson's injunction againststate interference with the rescheduled voting rights march and warnedthe presidentthat if he wantedthe demonstrators protected he had betterperform the taskhimself. Wallace's posturing against the federal government and hisunyielding resistanceto local civilrights initiatives converted him into a politicalhero in Ala- bama. AlthoughWallace failed to securea stateconstitutional amendment that wouldhave enabled him to succeedhimself in officein 1966,his popularitywas evidencedby the successof the ruse of havinghis wifeelected governor in his stead- the electionbeing seen as a referendumon his firstterm in office- and by the "unanimouspolitical extinction" of thosestate senators who had blockedhis effortsto amend the constitution.56 In sum,the post-Brown racial backlash created a politicalenvironment in which southernelected officials stood to benefitat thepolls byboldly defying federal au- thorityand brutallysuppressing civil rights demonstrations. Had Brownnot elicited forprominent display the full venom of southernJim Crow, it is unlikelythat the dramatictransformation ofnorthern public opinion that followed Birmingham and Selma would have takenplace in the mid-1960s. The finallink in myproffered chain of causation connects the violent civil rights confrontationsof the early1960s with the civilrights legislation of themid-1960s. To establishthis linkage convincingly, it is necessaryto showa dramaticshift in the Kennedyadministration's civil rightspolicy after Birmingham. Neither John F. Kennedynor Richard M. Nixonhad been an unambiguouscivil rights enthusiast in 1960.Of thefive principal contenders for the Democratic nomination, Kennedy had beenthe least attractive (Texan LyndonJohnson notwithstanding) to many civil rightsleaders. Nixon, meanwhile, spent the generalelection campaign running awayfrom the liberal civil rights plank that the Nelson Rockefeller camp had forced on himat theChicago convention. When Kennedywon the electionin a squeaker, no reasonablyastute observer could help but note thathis victoryhad depended on a shakycoalition of northeastern and southernstates; it was difficultto see how Kennedycould be reelectedin 1964without strong southern support. Nixon had scoredwell in theSouth -winning three of the same southern states that Eisenhower

56 Bains, "Birmingham,1963," 192, 199; Frady,Wallace, 147-50, 203; Black,Southern Governors and Civil Rights,55-56; Sherrill,Gothic Politics in theDeep South,266; Garrow,Protest at Selma, 114.I am indebtedto Dan Carter,author of a forthcomingbiography of GeorgeWallace, and to J. MillsThornton III forconfirming theuncertainty of the historical record regarding Wallace's role at Selma. StephenLongenecker, while noting that the historicalrecord provides no definitiveanswer as to who initiatedthe violenceof BloodySunday, emphasizes thatWallace had declaredthat the march would be brokenup by"whatever measures are necessary."Longenecker, Selma'sPeacemaker, 176.

This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Howthe Brown Decision Changed Race Relations 111 had twicewon (Virginia,Tennessee, and Florida)and narrowlylosing the fourth (Texas),probably owing to Johnson'sresidency-thus proving that presidential Republicanismwas not simply a productof Eisenhower's southern appeal butrather wasthere to stay.John Tower's Republican senatorial victory in Texasin 1961(the firstin thatstate since Reconstruction) and Republicannear misses in Senateraces in Alabama and South Carolinain 1962 would have furtherconfirmed the in- creasingundependability of the South forKennedy and the Democrats.57 Thus, the perceivedimperative of recarryingthe South in 1964 was bound to influencecivil rights policy early in the Kennedypresidency; the transformative legislationof 1964-1965was anything but inevitablefrom the vantage point of the early1960s. During the 1960campaign, Kennedy had promisedto eliminaterace discriminationin federallyassisted housing with the "strokeof a pen,"through an executiveorder. Yet formore than twoyears, he declinedto executethat pledge, and whenhe finallydid so,the order was limited in scopeand prospective in applica- tion.Kennedy placated conservative southern Democrats in the Senatewith atro- cious judicial appointments,including William Harold Cox, Sen. James0. East- land'sclose friend and formercollege roommate, who referredto blacksfrom the benchas "niggers"and "chimpanzees."Rather than supporting the Freedom Riders in theirefforts to exercisefederally guaranteed rights recently articulated by the Su- premeCourt, the Kennedyadministration privately negotiated a deal withMissis- sippipublic officials, according to whichthe latter were permitted (illegally) to jail the civilrights demonstrators in exchangefor preventing the sortof mob violence thathad befallenthem in Alabama.The administrationalso declinedto intervene on behalfof civil rights demonstrators in Albany, Georgia, who were exercising fed- erallyprotected rights, including access to nonsegregatedfacilities in interstate travel,and it apparentlybroke its promise to protectcivil rights workers in Missis- sippiif theychanneled their energies into voter registration. In the firsttwo years of his presidency,Kennedy publicly declared that he would not seek civilrights legislationbecause Congress would not pass it (whichwas true); yet plainly his pri- oritieslay with foreign policy matters involving the Cold War,as wellas withother domesticissues such as taxcuts and Medicare.As of early1963, then, with the Bir- minghamdemonstrations just months away, there was little basis for predicting that the nationwas about to undergotransformative racial change.58 What happenedin the ensuingtwo years to ignitetransformative racial change throughcivil rightslegislation? The answer,in brief,is that the Kennedyand

57Brauer,John P Kennedyand the SecondReconstruction, 32-42; TheodoreHarold White, The Makingof the President,1960 (New York,1961), 203-4, 272, 315, 352, 354, 359-60; Bartley,Rise of MassiveResistance, 47-49; Bartleyand Graham,Southern Politics, 90, 95-99; Barone,Our Country,350; Whitfield,Death in the Delta, 72-73; TheodoreHarold White, The Making of thePresident, 1964 (New York,1965), 117; Strong,"Ala- bama,"438-39. 58 Branch,Parting the Wlaters,383, 405-6, 469-70, 480, 586-87, 640-43, 682-83, 685-87, 693-95; Brauer, John F Kennedyand the Second Reconstruction,43, 61-64, 84-85, 105-6, 110, 129-31,205-9; Bains, "Bir- mingham,1963," 237-38; Garrow,Protest at Selma,23-24; Sherrill,Gothic Politics in theDeep South,195; Neil R. McMillen,"Black Enfranchisement in Mississippi: Federal Enforcement and BlackProtest in the 1960s'Journal ofSouthernHistory, 43 (Aug. 1977),351, 357-60; Dittmer,"Politics of the Mississippi Movement," 76-77; Garrow, Bearingthe Cross,179-80, 182-83, 187-88,190, 192, 199,201, 216; Sitkoff,Struggle for Black Equality, 124-25.

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Johnsonadministrations were spurredinto action when the nation witnessed, throughthe immediacy of television coverage, the cruel excesses ofJim Crow, in the formof southernlaw enforcementofficials brutally suppressing generally nonvio- lentcivil rights demonstrations. The resultwas a waveof indignation that such be- haviorcould be toleratedin the mid-twentieth-centuryUnited States.59 Bythe early 1960s, King and hiscolleagues had basicallygiven up on convincing southernwhites of the wrongness of racial segregation and had redirectedtheir ener- giestoward converting northern whites to thecivil rights cause by exposing the true evilsof theJim Crow system. Yet eventsquickly demonstrated that even blatantly illegalsouthern responses to civilrights demonstrations were not sufficient to arouse nationaloutrage or to evokea presidentialresponse. Opinion polls fromthe early 1960sshow that the public beganto rankcivil rights as the mostimportant issue facingthe nation only when demonstrations produced violence and socialdisorder, notwhen they led simplyto massarrests of peaceful participants. Likewise, as noted above,the Kennedy administration acquiesced in theillegal treatment of civil rights demonstratorsin Mississippiand Georgia.Only when confronted with widespread violenceand the collapseof socialorder, as duringAlabama's violent reception of theFreedom Riders in thespring of 1961or therace riot accompanying Meredith's admissionto Ole Missin thefall of 1962,was the Kennedy administration prompted to intervene.60 To be successful,then, King's strategyrequired the unwittingassistance of southernpolice chiefs in creating,or at leasttolerating, sizable racial conflagrations. Whensouthern law enforcementofficials acted as LauriePritchett had in Albany- illegallybut peacefully arresting civil rights demonstrators - neither the country nor the administrationpaid muchheed. Moreover,because the public evidently tends to condemneven nonviolent direct action tactics -only 22 percentof those polled expressedapproval of the Freedom Rides and only 31 percentof Freedom Summer thecivil rights demonstrations could succeed only if the public's negative attitudetoward the civil rights "provokers" was outweighed by its condemnation of theirviolent repressors. Appreciating this fact, King and hislieutenants devised the strategyof "creative tension": Peaceful civil rights demonstrators would provoke and thenpassively endure violent assaults from southern law enforcementofficers and mobs, withthe hope of harvestinga public opinion windfallfrom a horrified viewingaudience. The successof thisstrategy required not onlythat the demon- stratorsremain generally nonviolent and thattheir objectives be widelyperceived as legitimatebut also thatsuch political figures as Bull Connorin Birminghamand

59Barone, Our Country,354; Garrow,Protest at Selma, 220-22; Longenecker,Selma's Peacemaker, 156-57; McAdam,Political Process, 174-76; Norrell,"One ThingWe Did Right:'72; GaryOrfield, The Reconstruction ofSouthern Education: The Schools andthe 1964 CivilRightsAct (New York, 1969), 33; Sitkoff,Struggle forBlack Equality,125; Stephen B. Oates,"The Week the World Watched Selma," American Heritage, 33 (June/July1982), 48, 50-51, 57. 60 Garrow,Protestat Selma, 2-3, 220-21,225; McAdam,Political/Process, 160, fig. 7.2, 170-71,176; Rosenberg, HollowHope, 114-15,130, fig. 4.2; Orfield,Reconstruction of SouthernEducation, 36; Brauer,John F Kennedy andthe SecondReconstruction,98-103, 109-10; Sitkoff, StruggleforBlack Equality, 124-26; Bains, "Birmingham, 1963,' 238; Laue, "DirectAction and Desegregation:'127-28; McMillen, "Black Enfranchisement in Mississippi:, 359.

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JimClark in Selma"cooperate" by so brutalizingpeaceful demonstrators as to mobi- lize nationalopinion behind a legislativeassault on JimCrow. As one SCLCleader put it, the movement"had calculatedfor the stupidityof a Bull Connor."61 Indeed King and his colleagueschose Birmingham as the siteof the successors to the failedAlbany demonstrations on the explicitassumption that Connor was constitutionallyincapable of duplicatingPritchett's restraint in dealingwith civil rightsdemonstrators. King was widelycriticized for refusing to deferdemonstra- tionsuntil first attempting negotiations with the new mayor, Albert Boutwell, who had recentlydefeated Connor in themayoralty race - Connorrefused to relinquish hisposition as commissionerof public safety, abolished by the recent change in Bir- mingham'sgovernmental structure, while the mayoralty election results were being challengedin court.But King's strategy required that the demonstrations take place beforeConnor was evictedfrom office. As WyattWalker observed retrospectively: "We knewthat when we came to Birminghamthat if Bull Connorwas still in con- trol,he would do somethingto benefitour movement.We didn'twant to march afterBull wasgone." The strategyproved brilliantly successful. After relatively lack- lusterinitial marches that Connor met with uncharacteristic restraint, the dam soon burst,as Connor'smen deployedvicious police dogs and high-pressurewater hoses againstthe demonstrators, many of whom were children. Television and front-page nationalnewspaper coverage immediately followed, with photographs of police dogsattacking demonstrators and editorialscondemning the violence as "a national disgrace."President Kennedy reported that the famous photograph of a policedog lungingat a nonresistingdemonstrator made him "sick."62 SeveralUnited Statescongressmen denounced the use of police dogs and fire hosesagainst peaceful demonstrators, while others introduced bills to end federal complicityin the operationof raciallysegregated schools. Public opinionsurveys conductedin thewake of Birminghamand itsspin-offs in scoresof southerncities revealedsubstantial majorities in favorof federallaws guaranteeingblack voting rights,equal employmentopportunities, and desegregatedschools and publicaccommodations.Opinion polls takentwo months before and twomonths after Bir- minghamshowed a 1,200percent increase in the numberof Americansdeeming civilrights to be the nation'smost urgent issue. The conclusionseems inescapable thatthe Birminghamdemonstrations were primarily responsible for the Kennedy administration'sreversal on civilrights legislation. After two years in office,the ad- ministrationhad introducedits civilrights package in February1963, but it bore

61 Branch,Parting the Waters,631; Fager,Selma, 1965, 19; Garrow,Bearing the Cross,187-88, 209, 216-17, esp. 251;Garrow, Protest at Selma,2, 155,159-60, 221, 225; McAdam,Political Process, 174, 176; Eskew, "Alabama ChristianMovement," 73-74; Laue, "DirectAction and Desegregation:'107; Sitkoff,Black Struggle for Equality, 29, 98; Bains,"Birmingham, 1963," 220, 239; Oates, "Weekthe World Watched Selma," 50-51; Thornton,"Chal- lenge and Response,"233; Frady,Wlallace, 147; Sherrill,Gothic Politics in the Deep South,280-81. 62 Garrow,Bearing the Cross,esp. 227-28, 231-64; Garrow,Protest at Se/ma,esp. 138-41, 166-68, 221; McAdam,Political/Process, 177-78; Bains, "Birmingham, 1963," 175-83, 189-90,217, 219, 222; Eskew,"Alabama ChristianMovement," 73-74, 77-78, 80-83; Branch,Parting the Waters,710, 725-26, 758-65; RichardLentz, "The Prophetand theCitadel: News Magazine Coverage of the 1963Birmingham Civil Rights Crisis," Communication, 10(Dec. 1987),5, 7-10,12, 16; Thornton, "Municipal Politics," 52; BrauerJohnF Kennedyandthe SecondRecon- struction,232-38; White,.Making of the President,1964, 205-6.

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A blackcivil rights demonstrator is attackedby a police dog duringthe Birmingham, Alabama,confrontation of Apriland May 1963. PresidentJohn F. Kennedy said thisphotograph made him "sick." CourtesyBirmingham News. scantresemblance to the landmarklegislation that eventually was enactedin the summerof 1964. Only afterBirmingham, with the conscienceof whiteAmerica aroused,did Kennedypropose civil rights legislation of a transformativenature, afterdeclaring on nationaltelevision that civil rights was a "moralissue as old as the scripturesand as clearas the AmericanConstitution."63

63 Garrow,Protest at Selma, 135n7,141-42, 144; Orfield,Reconstruction of SouthernEducation, 33-34, 36; Bains,"Birmingham, 1963," 195, 222-23, 238-39; Fairclough,To Redeem the SoulofAmerica, 134-35; Goldfield, Black,White, and Southern,141; Sitkoff, StruggleforBlack Equality, 124-25, 127, 148-52, 156; White,Making of the President,1964, 201, 207; Branch,Parting the Waters,808-9; Brauer,John F Kennedyand the Second Reconstruction,246-47; Garrow,Bearing the Cross,267-69; Sherrill,Gothic Politics in theDeep South,280-81; Lentz,"Prophet and the Citadel,"18-19.

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The Birminghamsuccess of 1963 was duplicatedtwo years later at Selma. The groundworkfor Selma had been laid in 1964 duringFreedom Summer in Missis- sippi,as a nationalaudience witnessed the horrifyingbrutality, including several murders,inflicted upon civil rightsworkers -many of whomwere, for strategic reasons,affluent whites attending the nation's most prestigious universities - as they endeavoredto assistMississippi blacks in exercisingthe mostelemental rights of citizenship.At Selma the followingyear, King and the SCLC furtherrefined the tacticsthat had succeededso handsomelyat Birmingham.Once again,the situs for thedemonstrations was chosento ensurethe presence of a law enforcementofficer ofBull Connor-likeproclivities. As J. MillsThornton III has put it, theSCLC deci- sionto cometo Selmawas influenced by "the presence of the bellicose Sheriff Clark, whosehot tempercould be countedon to providevivid proof of theviolent senti- mentsthat formed white supremacy's core." In contrastwith Birmingham, though, theSelma demonstrators' objective was more precisely defined -voting rights -and additionalefforts were made to ensurethat the demonstratorsremained entirely nonviolent,as theyhad not at Birmingham." The resultwas another resounding success. Sheriff Clark, after initially displaying uncharacteristicrestraint (to theprofessed "disappointment" of the SCLC staff),ulti- matelyobliged with severaldisplays of stunningbrutality against nonresisting demonstrators,culminating on BloodySunday (March 7, 1965),when the county posse and statetroopers went on a rampageagainst the marchersas theycrossed theEdmund Pettus Bridge heading toward Montgomery. ABC televisioninterrupted itsevening broadcast of (ironically)Judgmentat Nuremberg for a longfilm report of the gruesomescenes from Selma of peacefuldemonstrators being assailedby stampedinghorses, flailing clubs, and teargas. Popularrevulsion was heartfelt and nearlyuniversal. Public opinion polls showed that, except in theSouth, large plural- itiesor majoritiesfrom throughout the nationsided withcivil rights groups over the stateof Alabama withregard to theirconflict at Selma.65 Acrossthe country,public demonstrationswere held in supportof the Selma marchersin the weekafter Bloody Sunday, and constituentsbegan to presstheir congressmenfor remedial action. Within days of the event,scores of congressmen had risento condemnthe violenceand to call forvoting rights legislation. Then, on March15, PresidentJohnson went before a jointsession of Congressto deliver hisspeech in supportof voting rights legislation -the firstspecial presidential mes- sage on a piece of domesticlegislation in nineteenyears -while seventymillion Americanswatched on television.Prior to Selma, the generalsentiment in the Johnsoncamp had been to allowthe 1964Civil Rights Act time to workbefore in-

64 McAdam,Freedom Summer, 39, 81, 96-101,103, 116, 118, 150-52; AmeliaPlatts Boynton, Bridge across Jordan:The Storyof the Strugglefor CivilRights in Selma,Alabama (New York,1979), 146-47; Fager,Selma, 1965,18; Garrow,Protest at Selma,2-3, 32-34, 42, 135,146-49, 221, 223, 230; Longenecker,Se/ma's Peacemaker, 23-24, 127; McAdam,Political Process, 177-78; Sitkoff,Struggle for Black Equality, 187; Thornton,"Municipal Politics,"esp. 60; Norrell,Reaping the Whirlwind,161; Branch,Parting the Waters,779-80, 794-96; Garrow, Bearingthe Cross,250-52; Bains, "Birmingham,1963," 228-29. 65 Garrow,Protest at Selma,esp. 42-45, 60-61, 73-80, 159,table 4-1; Longenecker, Selma's Peacemaker, 139-42, 162-64, 174-77; Sitkoff,Struggle for BlackEquality, 187; Oates, "Weekthe WorldWatched Selma," 56.

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troducingadditional civil rights legislation. Thus, for the second time in lessthan twoyears, northern revulsion at southernbrutalization of peacefuldemonstrators had prompteda nationaladministration to introducecivil rights legislation that had not theretoforebeen on its immediateagenda.66 In sum,it is possibleto agreewith President Eisenhower's privately stated judg- mentthat Brown set backthe causeof racialprogress in the South(at leastin the shortterm) and withJustice Hugo L. Black'sprediction that Brown would destroy racialliberalism in the South(also in the shortterm), while continuing to believe thatBrown was indirectlyresponsible for the transformativeracial change effected bythe civil rights legislation of the mid-1960s.Brown temporarily destroyed racial moderationin theSouth, and ithalted the incipient amelioration ofJim Crow prac- ticesthat had beenoccurring in muchof the South in thelate 1940sand early1950s. Butin doingso, Brown produced a southernpolitical environment that encouraged publicofficials to use violenttactics to put downcivil rights demonstrations, to the horrorof northerntelevision audiences, who in turnmobilized in supportof na- tionallegislation to eradicateJim Crow.67 One possiblerejoinder to theBrown backlash thesis is thatit overstates the extent to whichthe SupremeCourt's ruling, rather than the civil rights movement itself, wasresponsible for creating massive resistance and theensuing violent suppression ofcivil rights demonstrations. Although the civil rights movement might well have generatedviolent southern white resistance regardless of Brown, I believethat the SupremeCourt's intervention both significantly exacerbated the levelof suchvio- lence and renderedofficially sanctioned suppression politically profitable. The dramaticrightward lurch in southernpolitics occurred before the major civil rightsinitiatives of the early1960s, and thusit is mostplausibly attributable to Brown.It is truethat the Montgomery bus boycottplayed a crucialrole in themid- 1950stransformation of Alabama's racial politics. Yet it is difficultto believethat, forexample, the reinvigorationof the Byrdpolitical machine in Virginiabetween 1953 and 1957 was attributableto anythingother than the perceivedthreat that Brownposed to schoolsegregation. Moreover, a significant shift in southernpolitical opiniontook place in the intervalbetween Brown (May 1954) and the emergence ofthe Montgomery bus boycottonto the national stage (late February 1956). In Vir- ginia, the voterreferendum that approvedamending the state constitutionto permitpublic tuitiongrants to studentsattending private schools and the state legislature'sendorsement of interpositiontook place, respectively,in Januaryand Februaryof 1956.Similarly, in Mississippiby the end of 1955,the statewide organi- zationof Citizens' Councils was claiming a membershipof 60,000, black belt coun- tieshad begunto purgeblack registrants from the voterlists, and votershad ap-

66 Garrow,Protest at Selma,36, 81-82,88, 91-99, 102-3, 106-7, 176-77;Boynton, Bridge across Jordan, 172; Sitkoff,Struggle for Black Equality, 186-87. For a slightlydifferent account of the impact of Selma on theadminis- trationand Congress,see Garrow,Protest at Selma, 36, 40, 92-93, 133-34. 67 Burk,EisenhowerAdministration andBlack CivilRights, 192; Whitfield, Death in theDelta, 72; MarkStern, "PresidentialStrategies and CivilRights: Eisenhower, the EarlyYears, 1952-54," Presidential Studies Quarterly, 19 (Fall 1989), 787; Tushnet,"What ReallyHappened," 1928.

This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Howthe Brown Decision Changed Race Relations 117 provedby a five-to-onemargin a voter-qualificationamendment to the state constitutionaimed at reducingblack suffrage (a proposalthat they had rejectedin 1952).In Louisianaand Alabama,Citizens' Council membership was mushrooming wellbefore the Montgomery bus boycottbegan, apparently in responseto thefiling of desegregationpetitions with local school boards by NAACP branchesin the summerof 1955.Moreover, the Brown decision was surely responsible for an event thatoccurred just two weeks after the Court's ruling: the reversal by referendum of the decisionmade by the Birminghamcity council earlier that year to repealthe local ban on interracialsporting events.68 Nor can thisrejoinder- that civil rights initiatives rather than Brown were pri- marilyresponsible for the racialbacklash -explain whysignificant civil rights ad- vancestook place in the Southin the pre-Brownyears without inciting a violent response.This was true not only in borderstate and upperSouth cities such as Balti- more,Louisville, Norfolk, and Greensboro,but also in middleand Deep South citiessuch as LittleRock, Montgomery, Birmingham, and Tuskegee.In Louisville, forexample, blacks were winning regular election to thecity council by the 1940s; teacherpay was equalized in 1941; and the Universityof Louisvilleand public libraries,parks, and swimmingpools had been desegregatedby the early 1950s. By thatlatter date, racial desegregation in LittleRock had cometo thecity police force, federalcourt juries, and manydepartment store lunch counters. In Montgomery, thecity police force was desegregatedin early1954; the preceding winter the city's professionalbaseball team had hiredits first black players. And in Birmingham,the mostsegregated and raciallyviolent city in the South,in the early1950s the first hospitalfor blacks was established (which provided a place forthirty black doctors to practice),elevators in downtownoffice buildings were desegregated, and thecity wasactively considering the desegregation of its police force and bustransportation. None ofthese developments incited a whitebacklash even remotely resembling that of the middleand late 1950s.In Alabama,moreover, black voter registration had increasedtenfold between the end ofWorld War II and 1953.Yet in 1954the state's votersreelected governor, by a resoundingmargin, Big Jim Folsom, the man who had appointedthe fair-mindedvoting registrars who had made possiblemuch of thatincrease.69 Whydidn't these incipient, yet pervasive, civil rights initiatives of the postwar yearsproduce the political polarization that developed in themiddle and late 195Os (and whichI have attributedto Brown)?There are threeprincipal reasons. First, Brownrepresented federal government interference in southernrace relations- somethingthat white southerners reared on CivilWar and Reconstructionresent-

68 Bartley,Rise ofMassive Resistance, 109-11; Ely, Crisis of ConservativeVirginia, 39-40; McMillen,Citizens' Council,26-31, 62, 219, 320; Whitfield,Death in the Delta, 62; Thornton,"Challenge and Response,"194n33; Thornton,"Municipal Politics," 45-46; Tygiel,Baseball's Great Experiment, 275-77. 69 Wright,"Desegregation of Public Accommodations,"192; Meier,"Successful Sit-ins in a BorderCity," 230-31;Chafe, Civilities and CivilRights, 32-39; Lewis,In TheirOwn Interests, 193-97; Korstad and Lichtenstein, "OpportunitiesFound and Lost,"793; Freyer,Little Rock Crisis, 20; Norrell,Reaping the Whirlwind, 60-62, 73-76, 86; Thornton,"Challenge and Response,"175, 180n17;Thornton, "Municipal Politics," 45, 48.

This content downloaded on Thu, 7 Feb 2013 12:22:01 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 118 TheJournal of American History June1994 mentscould not tolerate dispassionately. We haveseen, for example, that many racial moderatesin LittleRock saw no choicebut to rallyaround the obstructionist tacticsof GovernorFaubus after President Eisenhower dispatched federal troops to enforcea federalcourt desegregation order. Second, Brown was an unambiguous, highlysalient pronouncement that southern race relations were destined to change. It could not easilybe ignoredor discountedas gradual,diffuse, and less salient changescould be. Forexample, one publicopinion survey conducted in twosmall townsin Georgiaand NorthCarolina during the summerof 1955 foundthat 60 percentof intervieweesreported having discussed the Brown decision during the precedingweek. Third, and perhapsmost important, Brown decreed that racial changetake place firstin an area of life- grade schooleducation -where white southernerswere certain to be mostresistant. By the early1950s, as we haveseen, underlyingpressures were leading many southern cities gradually to eliminateor at leastto relaxJimCrow in suchareas as publictransportation, police department employment,and voterregistration. Yet public school segregation - thefocus of the Browndecision -was an issueon whichsouthern segregationists felt most intensely committed.For these three reasons, then, Brown elicited greater violence and in- transigencethan the indigenous civil rights advances of thepostwar decade. Yet in temporarilyretarding the cause of racial change in the South,Brown set in motion a sequenceof events that soon culminatedin theemergence of a nationalcommit- mentto eradicatingsouthern Jim Crow.70

70 Pettigrew,"Desegregation and ItsChances for Success," 341, table 3. On thevisceral southern white resistance to federalintervention in racialmatters, see Key,Southern Politics in Stateand Nation,668; Sosna,In Searchof theSilent South, 200; and Ader,"Why the Dixiecrats Failed," 356, 367. On thedeclining southern white opposition to blackvoting, see StevenE Lawson,Black Ballots: VotingRights in the South,1944-1969 (New York,1976), 148-49,179-80, 345; and Garrow,Bearing the Cross,102. On thenotion of a hierarchyof southern white commit- mentsto facetsofJim Crow, see GunnarMyrdal, An AmericanDilemma: The Negro Problem andModern Democ- racy(New York,1944), 60-61.

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