University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 6-30-2016 G.I. Joe v. Jim Crow: Legal Battles Over Off-Base School Segregation Of Military Children In The American South, 1962-1964 Randall George Owens University of South Carolina Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Owens, R. G.(2016). G.I. Joe v. Jim Crow: Legal Battles Over Off-Base School Segregation Of Military Children In The American South, 1962-1964. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/3434 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. G.I. JOE V. JIM CROW: LEGAL BATTLES OVER OFF-BASE SCHOOL SEGREGATION OF MILITARY CHILDREN IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH, 1962-1964 by Randall George Owens Bachelor of Arts The Florida State University, 1989 Master of Arts University of South Carolina, 1991 Master of Science Troy State University, 2000 Master of Military Operational Art and Science United States Air Force Command and Staff College, 2005 Master of Liberal Studies The University of Oklahoma, 2008 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2016 Accepted by: Marjorie J. Spruill, Major Professor Kent B. Germany, Committee Member Patricia A. Sullivan, Committee Member W. Lewis Burke, Committee Member Lacy Ford, Senior Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies © Copyright by Randall George Owens, 2016 All Rights Reserved. ii DEDICATION To America’s current and former Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen. I am honored to be among your ranks. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I give thanks to the Lord for loving and lifting me despite my shortcomings. I am forever grateful to my parents, Isom Owens† and Ruby Owens, who inspired me as survivors of the evils of Jim Crow. I thank my sister and brothers, Valerie Cloud-Driver, Richard Jones, Jr., and Michael Jones†, for their unconditional sibling support. I am indebted to my dissertation committee members, Marjorie Spruill, Kent Germany, Patricia Sullivan, and W. Lewis Burke. Their counsel and encouragement broadened my academic and personal horizons. In particular, I want to thank Marjorie Spruill for showing early interest in my ideas. James Rinehart† of Troy University opened my eyes to critical thinking. I am grateful for his positive influence on the way I assess the past. Andrew Myers of the University of South Carolina Upstate gave my topic an early push in the right direction. I thank him for pointing the way. There are several faculty members from the University of South Carolina department of history who contributed to my professional and academic growth. They include: Matt Childs, Bobby Donaldson, Don Doyle, Kathryn Edwards, S.P. MacKenzie, and Lauren Sklaroff. I give credit to several organizations for providing financial support to my academic endeavors. Their assistance made course work, research, and travel possible. iv From the University of South Carolina, I thank the Office of the Vice President for Research (particularly, Lauren Clark), the Department of History, the Institute for Southern Studies (particularly, Bob Ellis), the South Caroliniana Library (particularly Allen Stokes and Henry Fulmer), and the Office of Veterans Services. I also recognize the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for its generous and critical support to veterans through academic funding programs. Numerous archivists, librarians, and school administrators assisted me in developing my research. Their help proved invaluable. They include: Maureen Hill (National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)-Atlanta), Barbara Rust, Ketina Taylor, and Beverly Moody (NARA-Fort Worth), Stephen Charla, Gail Farr, and Matthew Dibiase (NARA-Philadelphia), Ann Middleton and Pam Carter Carlisle (Bossier Parish Library Historical Center), Carol Ellis, Barbara Asmus, and Kristina Polizzi (University of South Alabama Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library), Fran Morris (Barksdale Air Force Base Library), Dr. Laura Lyons McLemore, Domenica Carriere, and Fermand Garlington (Louisiana State University in Shreveport (LSUS) Special Collections Library), Sharon Taylor (LSUS Microforms Division), Dr. Allen Stokes and Henry Fulmer (South Caroliniana Library), Herb Hartsook (South Carolina Political Collections), Luther Hanson (U.S. Army Quartermaster Museum), D.C. Machen, Scott Smith, and Brenda St. André (Bossier Parish School Board), Robert Smalls and Darlene Calloway Chambers (Mobile County Public Schools), Dr. Joseph Melvin and Jeanette Berrios (Petersburg City Public Schools), Renee Williams and Becky Kirk (Prince George County School Board), and Dr. J. Frank Baker and Amy Hansen (Sumter County School District). v I want to express my appreciation to the following individuals for corresponding with me or allowing me to interview them as I researched this dissertation. Their first- hand accounts energized the narrative with personal insight. They include: Chief Justice (Retired) Ernest A. Finney, Jr., Professor (Emeritus) Jack Greenberg, Colonel (Retired) James Randall, Louise Lawler, Roberta Rollins, and William Randall. I thank my fellow graduate students who amazed me with their intellect and privileged me with their friendship. They include: Megan Bennett, Katie Crosby, Oscar Doward, Robert Greene, Jennifer Gunter, Antony Keane-Dawson, Andrew Kettler, Mitch Oxford, Neal Polhemus, Gary Sellick, Meg Southern, Jen Taylor, Mark VanDriel, and Chaz Yingling. Finally, I wish to reaffirm my perpetual love for Rosa and Rhoslyn. They show me every day that family is everything. vi ABSTRACT Between 1962 and 1964, the U.S. Justice Department, African American military members stationed on southern military bases, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed six federal civil suits to end off-base segregation of military children in public schools. These cases took place in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia. Plaintiffs sought to bring civilian cities near federal military bases into compliance with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown decision. The presence of federal military bases, which had been integrated since a 1948 Executive Order issued by President Harry S. Truman, provided leverage against ongoing southern resistance to national policy and played a crucial role in ending de jure segregation in five southern school districts almost a decade after Brown and before other districts in each state fully desegregated. Although these cases were historic in outcome, they are underappreciated in scholarship. This dissertation assesses the local and national significance of each case. Analysis of these cases addresses questions about how the Kennedy administration used southern military bases to advance social change; how African American military members and their NAACP attorneys extended the Brown fight by launching a new type of legal challenge to school segregation; how segregationists in southern military communities continued to resist Brown while simultaneously recognizing the importance of military presence in their cities; and what influence these cases had on the legal and social trajectory of public school desegregation in the South. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication………………………………………………………...………………………iii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………….iv Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………..vii Chapter 1: Introduction……………………………………………………………………1 Chapter 2: Fort Lee and Prince George County, Virginia………………………………...8 Chapter 3: Brookley Air Force Base and Mobile County, Alabama………………...…..39 Chapter 4: Keesler Air Force Base-Naval Construction Battalion Center and Biloxi-Gulfport, Mississippi……………………………...….61 Chapter 5: Barksdale Air Force Base and Bossier Parish, Louisiana………………...….83 Chapter 6: Shaw Air Force Base and Sumter County, South Carolina………………...112 Chapter 7: Conclusion………………………………………………………………......137 Epilogue: A Distant and Close Flag………………………………………………….…145 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………...….147 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In his 1995 autobiography, My American Journey, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, recalled the personal experience of being an African American soldier stationed in the South during the early 1960s. On base, Powell was a respected captain who led black and white soldiers in an integrated unit. Off base, however, Powell was treated as a second-class citizen and subjected to the injustices of segregation. He commented later, “For me, the real world began on the [base]. I regarded military installations in the South as healthy cells in an otherwise sick body.”1 Powell worked in a racially inclusive environment; his base and all others had been integrated since 1948, when President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9981 which mandated desegregation and equal opportunity within the armed forced. This action made federal military bases, and all organizations and places on them, into integrated spaces—even in the segregated South. Later, in 1951, Congress, with support from several pro-segregation members, sent a defense housing bill to President Truman that included a provision to segregate federally operated schools on military bases. President Truman vetoed it in keeping with