One for Whites, One for Blacks: Public Parks and Desegregation in Charlottesville, Virginia Margaret Sue Echols Keswick, VA B.A
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One for Whites, One for Blacks: Public Parks and Desegregation in Charlottesville, Virginia Margaret Sue Echols Keswick, VA B.A., in History with Honors Research Distinction, The Ohio State University, 2015 A Thesis presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Master of Arts Department of History University of Virginia May, 2019 Table of Contents I. Formation of Public Space in Charlottesville..................................................................... 4 A. City Beautiful in Charlottesville ............................................................................................... 4 B. Charlottesville’s First Parks ..................................................................................................... 8 C. The Creation of McIntire and Washington Parks ................................................................. 14 II. Parks Management: The Colored Recreation Board and the Development of Public Space ........................................................................................................................................ 18 III. Civil Rights, Integration, and the Development of a Modern Parks System ................. 28 IV. Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 37 At the meeting of the city council on Monday night announcement was made of the gift to the city by Mr. Paul Goodloe McIntire of two tracts of land near the city for parks and playgrounds – one for white and the other for colored people.1 Charlottesville Daily Progress, 1926 In 1926, Paul G. McIntire donated two public parks to the city – one for whites, and one for blacks – and ushered in an era of public recreation in the city.2 In the deeds of the property to the city, McIntire included racially restrictive covenants to ensure that one park was legally for whites, while the other was legally for blacks.3 The segregated system created by McIntire was in place in the city until the 1960s. Despite never being litigated against the city of Charlottesville, two legal questions operated behind the scenes of Charlottesville’s segregated parks system. The first question was whether the racial restrictions placed in the deeds were legally enforceable. In 1948, the Supreme Court held in Shelley v. Kraemer that racially restrictive covenants were not judicially 1 M’Intire Gives City Sites For Two Parks, CHARLOTTESVILLE DAILY PROGRESS, (Jan. 21, 1926). 2 Id. 3 Deed of January 7, 1926, in 52 CITY OF CHARLOTTESVILLE DEED BOOK 344, 347 (1926). Page 1 of 38 enforceable because they violated the state action doctrine.4 Despite no apparent conversation about the role of the Supreme Court’s opinion, it was now illegal to enforce the language in the respective deeds that the tracts of land be used as a park and playground for white and colored people because doing so would have violated the state action doctrine.5 The second question, and like most cases of segregation, was whether segregation in public recreation violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Prior to the decision in Brown v. Board of Education, it seemed plausible that Charlottesville’s parks system was constitutional.6 After all, there were two parks systems, thereby eliminating the argument that blacks were excluded entirely from public recreation and consistent with the language used by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson.7 The Supreme Court’s affirmance of the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Dawson v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore City, however, declared segregation of public recreation unconstitutional.8 Thus, denying access of blacks to McIntire Park would have violated the Equal Protection Clause.9 So, how could Charlottesville’s public recreation system remain racially segregated until the 1960s, even if it was no longer legally enforceable on two grounds? To answer this question, we must understand the history of public recreation in Charlottesville. It was not uncommon for localities to actively resist Supreme Court decisions declaring Jim Crow era laws unconstitutional. One need look no further than developments following Brown v. Board of 4 Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948). 5 Deed of January 7, 1926, in 52 CITY OF CHARLOTTESVILLE DEED BOOK 344, 347 (1926). 6 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 7 Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). 8 Dawson v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore City, 220 F.2d 386, 387 (4th Cir. 1955), aff’d 350 U.S. 844 (1955) (“With this in mind, it is obvious that racial segregation in recreational activities can no longer be sustained as a proper exercise of the police power of the State; for if that power cannot be invoked to sustain racial segregation in the schools, where attendance is compulsory and racial friction may be apprehended from the enforced commingling of the races, it cannot be sustained with respect to public beach and bathhouse facilities, the use of which is entirely optional.”)8 9 Id. Page 2 of 38 Education to see how cities actively resisted the Supreme Court’s decision.1011 A careful look at this story reveals that despite being entrenched in racial politics, the dual system of public recreation created a workable system that would last well beyond its legal enforceability. Legal historical scholarship too often focuses on how litigation shapes a story.12 This is often the case in the history of race relations in the South, particularly with regards to those surrounding segregation.13 These stories, while important to the development of race relations, are not necessarily the feature of how society worked. Rather, as historians like Robert W. Gordon have noted, law and society may be inextricably linked.14 In Gordon’s view, trying to distinguish between the two is incorrect as all of this is law.15 Law, while omnipresent, did not drive the story of the Charlottesville’s separate parks system. Social norms and the city’s desire to manage race relations did.16 The central argument of this paper is that the creation of two parks systems in Charlottesville ultimately led to its workable nature, largely reducing the role of law in a traditional sense in its operation. While racial politics have been a feature of Charlottesville’s public space since its inception, legal enforcement of racial segregation, or for that matter 10 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 11 For examples of resistance to Brown v. Board of Education, see e.g. Michael J. Klarman, How Brown Changed Race Relations: The Backlash Thesis, JOURNAL OF AMERICAN HISTORY, June 1994 at 82 (arguing Brown’s indirect and more consequential contribution to race relations was one of racial backlash); MICHAEL R. BELKNAP, FEDERAL LAW AND SOUTHERN ORDER: RACIAL VIOLENCE AND CONSTITUTIONAL CONFLICT IN THE POST-BROWN SOUTH xxxi, xxxii (arguing the failure of state and local authorities in the South to control acts against the civil rights movements was challenge to American federalism). 12 See e.g. GERALD N. ROSENBERG, THE HOLLOW HOPE: CAN COURTS BRING ABOUT SOCIAL CHANGE? (2d 2008) (arguing it is nearly impossible to generate significant reform through litigation due to the weakness and ineffectiveness of American courts). 13 See e.g. VICTORIA W. WOLCOTT, RACE, RIOTS, AND ROLLER COASTERS: THE STRUGGLE OVER SEGREGATED RECREATION IN AMERICA (2012); Christopher Coleman, Laurence D. Nee, Leonard S. Rubinowitz, Social Movements and Social-Change Litigation: Synergy in the Montgomery Bus Protest, 30 LAW & SOC. INQUIRY 663 (2005), Robert B. McKay, Segregation and Public Recreation, 40 VA. LAW REV. 697 (1954) (examining the integration of public recreational facilities). 14 Robert W. Gordon, Critical Legal Histories, 36 STAN. L. REV. 57, 58 (1984). 15 Id. 16 J. DOUGLAS SMITH, MANAGING WHITE SUPREMACY: RACE, POLITICS, AND CITIZENSHIP IN VIRGINIA 17 (2002). Page 3 of 38 desegregation, is not why Charlottesville’s parks system remained segregated for decades after being declared unconstitutional nationally. As a result, Charlottesville’s parks went form de jure segregation, to de facto segregation, to integration with relatively minimal action by traditional legal forces. Certainly the legal creation of segregated parks created the structure, but the law did not change the norms of Charlottesville when the Supreme Court declared racially restrictive covenants and segregation unconstitutional. As a result, the norms created by the law were much more powerful than the law itself. This is a story of how the law operated behind a system of segregation for decades in Charlottesville’s public parks system. Part I explains how public recreation became a part of Charlottesville and how its parks system was developed. This section explores early recreation planning and the City Beautiful Movement, and provides a history of the formation of public recreation within in the city. Part II examines how recreation was administered by the city, first through community action and later from by government boards presiding over the presence of white and black recreation in Charlottesville. Part III discusses the gradual pace of integration in the parks system, and outlines how the workable nature of the dual parks system contributed to the slow pace of desegregation. Part IV details how the history of public space in Charlottesville fits into the broader narrative of race relations in the city, and argues that racial politics have been embedded in public life for decades. I. Formation