Publisher's Synopsis
The Development of Law Pertaining to Desegregation of Public Schools in North Carolina: Circumvention of the Supreme Court's 1954 "Brown v. Board of Education" Ruling for Ten Years in North Carolina
Includes Interviews with
Gov. Luther H. Hodges,
Gov. Terry Sanford,
Thomas J. Pearsall,
William Medford,
Conrad O. Pearson,
James E. Miller,
Larry I. Moore
This book is the dissertation submitted to Duke University, Durham, North Carolina in 1966 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education by Elton D. "E. D." Winstead. The information in this book has historical significance and deserves to be more readily available as a contemporary perspective during that time period leading up to the desegregation of the North Carolina school system. A reflection on this perspective is especially appropriate now on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in the "Brown v. Board of Education" case and on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The 1964 Civil Rights Act basically ended North Carolina's Pearsall Plan, not only as a way to preserve the North Carolina school system, but also as a way to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling in the "Brown v. Board of Education" case.
The Pearsall Plan, as the vehicle for the circumvention of the Brown decision, was declared to be unconstitutional by two federal courts in 1966 and 1969 after this study was completed, and two of the people interviewed in this study were instrumental in those cases.
Some of the persons closest to, and most influential in shaping, North Carolina's official reaction to the 1954 Supreme Court decision in the Brown case were interviewed.
A few selected quotes from the interviews:
Question: The Report of the Supreme Court Decision of May 17, 1954 by the Institute of Government at Chapel Hill discussed the alternatives open to the State, and the alternatives appear to boil down to three possibilities; that is, as stated in the report, defiance, compliance, or to play for time, making haste slowly enough to avoid litigation, and yet make haste fast enough to come within the law; thereby keeping the peace and keeping the schools.
I have simplified the third alternative by calling it what it appears to be - circumvention, which of course, means to go around, to gain advantage over by artfulness or stratagem.
Do you agree that the three possibilities cover the alternatives available to North Carolina at the time?
Mr. Conrad O. Pearson (General Counsel, NAACP for North Carolina): "Yes, and North Carolina followed the alternative offered by circumvention."
Mr. Conrad O. Pearson:
"The committee [The Special Advisory Committee appointed by the Governor] took a negative approach. They made no effort to influence public opinion toward compliance with the Court's decision."
Gov. Luther H. Hodges:
"I did not practice circumvention. We did make an effort to play for time."
Question: Did the committee [Special Advisory Committee, chaired by you] ever seriously consider immediate desegregation as a possible solution?
Dr. Thomas J. Pearsall: "No."
Mr. Larry I. Moore: "The Pearsall Plan made possible a more orderly transition."
"At that time, if North Carolina had integrated the schools in proportion to population ratios, the school system would have been destroyed and there would have been riots. The people would not have accepted integration."
The modern reader will notice that word choice has changed since 1966, when the word "Negro" was standard terminology, for example, as used by Mr. Conrad O. Pearson, the General Counsel for the North Carolina NAACP in his interview published in the appendix of this book.
Ray L. Winstead
Editor
