Evolving Jim Crow: an Analysis of the Consolidation Movement on the Virginia Peninsula, 1940-1958
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
EVOLVING JIM CROW: AN ANALYSIS OF THE CONSOLIDATION MOVEMENT ON THE VIRGINIA PENINSULA, 1940-1958 R. Joshua Sipe A thesis submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts in the of the Department of History in the College of Arts and Sciences Chapel Hill 2019 Approved by: Jim Leloudis Fitz Brundage Erik Gellman © 2019 R. Joshua Sipe ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT R. Joshua Sipe: Evolving Jim Crow: An Analysis of the Consolidation Movement on the Virginia Peninsula, 1940-1958 (Under the direction of Jim Leloudis) In the decades after the Second World War, amidst a growing number of attacks on Jim Crow by African Americans, Southern leaders employed a variety of strategies to preserve white supremacy. In Newport News, Virginia, local white leaders and citizens used consolidation with Warwick County to reinforce white supremacy against a growing politically active black community on the Virginia Peninsula. The case of Newport News from World War II through consolidation in 1958 and the decades after depicts not only the frailty of Jim Crow, but also white citizens’ fear of a collapsing system and their attempts to re-inscribe white supremacy. It also portrays the long lasting effects and damage of white supremacy even after the end of Jim Crow. iii To my parents Rick and Michele and my wife Jenn. Without your constant support and encouragement this would not be possible. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………...1 THE RISE OF WHITE ANXIETIES OVER A GROWING BLACK POPULATION IN NEWPORT NEWS………………………………………………………………………………..3 CONSOLIDATION: AN ANTIDOTE FOR WHITE ANXIETIES…………………………….19 JIM CROW EVOLVES ON THE PENINSULA………………………………………………..25 CODA: A NEW CITY, LITTLE CHANGE—NEWPORT NEWS AFTER CONSOLIDATION……………………………………………………………………………...37 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………..42 v INTRODUCTION On July 1, 1958, a little over a year after citizens of Newport News and Warwick voted to consolidate into a single city on the Virginia Peninsula, a young James Hershman, Jr. and his friends gathered on Warwick Boulevard near the former border between the City of Newport News and Warwick. The day marked the beginning of a newly unified city with a large ceremony to celebrate the momentous occasion planned for that afternoon. While Hershman and his friends sat talking an roar began to fill the air. As the rumbling grew louder and moved towards the group, James turned to identify the source of the sound. As he turned, James witnessed a caravan of Newport News’ police officers clad in jackboots and sunglasses astride motorcycles led by Police Chief William F. Peach heading up Warwick Boulevard from downtown Newport News towards their newly acquired territory. Though a young boy, Hershman recalled the spectacle had an appearance of malice.1 The officers jackbooted ride into their new jurisdiction that James witnessed on July 1st linked the old city of Newport News’ legacy of white supremacy with the newly unified city. The Newport News’ police embodied more overt forms of white supremacy on the Virginia Peninsula during the 1950s and 1960s, such as racial profiling and police brutality, while the creation of the newly unified city of Newport News and Warwick demonstrated a more covert form of white supremacy. Across the South during World War II, Jim Crow came under attack by politically active African Americans. With the emergence of wartime defense industries, blacks moved to cities in 1 James Hershman, Jr., oral comments at Virginia Forum, March 15, 2019. 1 search of employment. As local black communities developed, African Americans influenced by the war’s rhetoric of democracy began to challenge systems of Jim Crow by paying poll taxes, voting, and demanding equal access to facilities.2 This increase in political activism continued throughout the post-war years as the civil rights movement began to emerge.3 White citizens and leaders across the South responded to African Americans’ attack on Jim Crow in a variety of ways. In Mobile, Alabama, white workers at the Alabama Dry Dock and Shipyard assaulted approximately 50 black workers in an attempt to make Shipyard leadership reinforce traditional Jim Crow hiring practices.4 Many of the South’s white leaders turned towards the strategy of massive resistance in response to Brown v. Boards’ challenge to Jim Crow.5 While other white leaders and citizens turned towards different methods as Jim Crow “demanded a multifaceted defense.”6 In Washington D.C., Theodore Bilbo as the District Committee chairman used the guise of “law and order” to reduce black political activity in the city and displace African Americans in the city.7 While James Francis Byrnes of South Carolina employed reformist rhetoric and a drive to equalize segregated school spending in order to attempt to stave off desegregation.8 2 Patricia Sullivan, Days of Hope: Race and Democracy in the New Deal Era, (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 136. 3 For information on the Long Civil Rights Movement see: Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “The Long Civil Rights Movement,” The Journal of American History 91, no. 4 (March 2005): 1233-1263. 4 Harvard Sitkoff, “African American Militancy in the World War II South,” in Remaking Dixie: The Impact of World War II on the American South, ed. Neil R. McMillen (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1997), 83. 5 For more on massive resistance see: John Kyle Day, The Southern Manifesto: Massive Resistance and the Fight to Preserve Segregation, (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2014); George Lewis, Massive Resistance: The White Response to the Civil Rights Movement, (London: Oxford University Press, 2006). 6 Jason Morgan Ward, Defending White Democracy: The Making of a Segregationist Movement and the Remaking of Racial Politics, 1936-1965, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 68. 7 Ibid., 71. 8 Ibid., 122-123. 2 In Newport News, Virginia, local white leaders and citizens turned towards the tactic of reconfiguring local government on the Virginia Peninsula by way of consolidation to attempt to save Jim Crow. Exploring the evolution of tactics used by white citizens to maintain racial control in Newport News illustrates the determination and creativity of white southerners to protect Jim Crow. With an expanded and politically active black population after the war, Newport News’ leaders also faced white flight into neighboring counties and cities threatening the white control of the city. Therefore, consolidation of surrounding counties and cities became the main solution adopted to impede potential black political influence. White city leaders and citizens believed consolidation could bolster the white population of the city to offset the increase in the African American population. Beginning in 1947 with the launching of a study on consolidation, Newport News’ white citizens fought black advancement for rights until consolidation with Warwick became a reality a decade later, thereby, solidifying white control of the Peninsula and limiting black political influence. The process of consolidation was tumultuous and influenced by economic, social, infrastructural, and political concerns, but none of these were far removed from race, especially by 1956. The case of Newport News from World War II through consolidation in 1958 and the decades after depicts not only the frailty of Jim Crow, but also white citizens’ fear of a collapsing system and their attempts to re-inscribe white supremacy. It also portrays the long lasting effects and damage of white supremacy even after the end of Jim Crow. The Rise of White Anxieties Over a Growing Black Population in Newport News In 1880, railroad and industrial investor Collis P. Huntington viewed the sleepy rural area on the Virginia Peninsula known as Newport News as the perfect place to build an industrial center. With a population just over 2,000, Newport News sat northwest across the mouth of the 3 James River from the developing city of Norfolk, Virginia.9 Huntington recognized the areas close proximity to Norfolk and its deep-water access provided the opportunity to establish a ship- building hub supplied by a railway connection. Therefore, Huntington established a Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and created the Newport News Drydock and Shipbuilding Company. During the first decade of the twentieth century, the shipyard, railroad, and other developing industries nourished the city of Newport News’ growth to a population of 20,000 citizens.10 The thirty-year period of growth allowed for the infrastructure of the city and the population to rise in tandem. The First World War challenged the city of Newport News greatly and ignited its first crisis over blackness. American involvement in World War I led to a demand for “man power in Newport News to be used for shipbuilding.”11 Homer L. Ferguson, the Lieutenant of the Newport News Drydock and Shipbuilding Company, began hiring African Americans to help the shipyard meet the rising labor needs. With the new infusion of black and white labor the number of shipyard employees rose from 5,000 to 12,500 by the end of the war.12 The large increase in Newport News’ population created a severe housing shortage.13 To address the problem shipyard leaders, local officials, and private citizens rapidly constructed housing units. The far east end of the Peninsula became the location for cheap and hastily built African American housing.14 9 U.S. Census Bureau, “Population in Each State and Territory, by Counties,” 1880. 10 U.S. Census Bureau, “Population-Virginia, Washington, West Virginia,” 1910. 11 “Build Ships and Win the War,” Daily Press, July 12, 1917. 12 “The Greatest Ship; The Greatest Shipyard,” Daily Press, March 17, 1915; Joint Employee-Management War Production Drive Committee, The Shipyard in Peace and War, (Newport News Virginia: Newport News Dry Dock and Shipping Company, 1944), 16.