University of South Florida University of South Florida

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FORUM : the Magazine of the Florida Humanities Florida Humanities

4-1-2004

Forum : Vol. 28, No. 02 (Spring : 2004) Forum : Vol. 28, No. 02 (Spring : 2004)

Florida Humanities Council.

Bill Belleville

Darryl Paulson

Bill Maxwell

Pamela Greiner Leavy

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Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Florida Humanities Council.; Belleville, Bill; Paulson, Darryl; Maxwell, Bill; Leavy, Pamela Greiner; Rowland, Monica; O'Reilley, Barbara; Arsenault, Raymond; and Mohl, Raymond A., "Forum : Vol. 28, No. 02 (Spring : 2004)" (2004). FORUM : the Magazine of the Florida Humanities. 36. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/forum_magazine/36

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Florida Humanities at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FORUM : the Magazine of the Florida Humanities by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact scholarcommons@usf.edu.

Authors Authors Florida Humanities Council., Bill Belleville, Darryl Paulson, Bill Maxwell, Pamela Greiner Leavy, Monica Rowland, Barbara O'Reilley, Raymond Arsenault, and Raymond A. Mohl

This article is available at Scholar Commons: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/forum_magazine/36

FLORIDA ‘ .HumanfliesCO UN C IL

Exploring the Florida Experience

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

FRANK BILLINGSLEY, Orlando

IAN CADDIE Winter Springs

JIM CLARK Orlando

DAVID COLBURN Gainessille

JACK CROCKER Fort Myers

KATHLEEN DEAGAN Gainesville Chisr

NANCY DECKER Winter Park

ENA DIAl Miami

JON FISHBANE Naples

JEANNE GODWIN Pensacola

JUDY HAtLJaclssonville Wice.Chasr

CARY HARDEE Madison

SUZAN HARRISON St. Petersburg

ROGER KAUFHAN Taflahassee

KEVIN KNUTSON Coral Springs

TODD KOCOUREK Tallahassee

KIM LONG Naples

LESLIE NORTHUP Miami

HOWARD PARDUE Tallahassee

CYNTHIA SAMAHA St. Petersburg

HENRY THOMAS Jacksonville

ELLEN VINSON Pensacola

STAFF

FRANCINE CURRO CARY txecutive Director

JANINE FARVER Associate Director

SUSAN LOCKWOOD Director of Grants

ANN SCHOENACHER Director. Florida Center for Teachers

LAURIE BERLIN Director of Administration

PATRICIA PUTMAN Oevelopment Officer

BRENDA OHARA Fiscal Officer

KAREN JACKSON Program & Fiscal Assistant

RENÉ RENO Program Assleant

BARBARA BAHR Development & Information Systems Assistant

BARBARA O’REILLEY FORUM Editor

RUSS KR.AtIER FORUM Deaign & Production

FHC FORUM / Vol. XXVIII, No.2, SPRING 2004Cl 2004 FMC

The magazine of

THE FLORIDA HUMANITIES COUNCIL

599 Second Street South, St. Petersburg, FL 33701.5005

727 553.38W

Website address: www.flahum.org

The Florida Humanities Council is a nonprofitorganization, funded by the National Endowment for theHumanities, the state of Florida. and private contributors.Fl-C FORUM is published four times a year and distributed to the friends of the Florida Humanities Council andinterested Floridiant. If you with to be added to the mailing list, please request so in writing. ‘.‘ews expressed bycontributors to the FORUM are not necessarily those ofthe Florida Humanities Council.

NC 2004

Humanities Alive!

News of the Florida Humanities Council

Favorite florida PlacesMosquito LagoonBy Bill Belleville

Unfinished JourneyAfter 50 years, the legacy of Brown vs. Board ofEducationin Florida is still unclearBy Darryl Paulson

The Dream Becomes a ‘Hollow Hope’integrationdidn’t changemany hearts

By Bill Maxwell

Out in FrontTrailblazers in the struggle to desegregateFlorida schools

rememberthe personalcosts andpublic gainsBy Pamela Greiner Leavy and Monica Rowland

18 Harold Knowles

19 Doby Flowers

20 Goliath Davis

21 LaVon Bracy

22 Michael Haygood

22 Reubin Askew

23 Alvin and Daphne Porter family

Putting it in Black and WhiteA moonlightingGainesvilleptofessortakeson Jim CrowBy Barbara O’Reilley

Taking the Road to FreedomActivists ride busesto test desegregation

By Raymond Arsenault

Bend the Sunny FaçadeMiami wasa key civil rights arenaBy Raymond A. MohI

On the cover: This historical image,

photographed in Dade County in

1937, Serves to illustrate the schooldesegregation issue in Florida. It is fromthe Florida Photographic Collection ofThe Florida Archives.

LetterFROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

HOW CAN HOPE TURN SO HOLLOW? Whenpeople talk about the legacy of the U.S. Supreme

Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision of 50 years

ago, they express mixed feelings, often more negative

than positive. "The great experiment in bringing theraces together in education has mostly failed," writes

journalist Bill Maxwell. On the other hand, some people

see in Brown a major victory in the long and ongoingstruggle for racial justice.

In 1954, the question before the Court was simple:

"Was segregated education unconstitutional?" The opin

ion, written by then-Chief Justice Earl Warren, while not

commenting directly on that question, decreed that "sep

arate is inherently unequal," that segregation denied

black children equal educational opportunity. It took

many more years of deliberation to decide how to imple

ment that far-reaching decision, and it’s still not over But

Brown helped launch the modern civil rights movementand led, over time, to other court decisions that struck

down all forms of legalized racial discrimination.

The aftermath of Brown, however, is anything but

simple. The dissonant chords of slow, painful struggle in

race relations linger in education and in all walks of life.

Segregation seems more firmly entrenched than ever in

our social fabric, and the dream of an integrated societymore elusive than ever This is so in Florida, as elsewhere.

This issue of FORUM examines the ramifications of

the Brown decision in Florida and recounts some of the

events that led to and resulted from it. Ray MohI’s article

provides a look at the role of Jewish activists in the civilrights movement in 1950s Miami. Darryl Paulson

describes the "long journey" to school integration inFlorida, and Ray Arsenault tells the dramatic story of the

Freedom Riders who traveled through parts of Florida in

their efforts to desegregate interstate bus travel.This issue also will introduce you to some of the

courageous Floridians who integrated Florida schools.

Their personal accounts put a face on what was gained

and what was lost as the result of this historic ruling.Writer David Halberstam wrote recently, "The

Brown decision began the birth process.. .of a newAmerica." Perhaps the best way to commemorate Brown

on its 50th anniversary, then, is to preserve that legacy

dissonantchords of slow, painful

struggle in race relations linger in

education and in all walks of life.

C * C

A Final Word:

This editorial will be my last for FORUM, as I retire

from the Florida Humanities Council in early June. It

seems fitting that the theme is civil rights. Prior to joiningthe NEH state councils in 1986, first in D.C., then in

Florida, I taught women’s history in Toledo, reconstruct

ed the story of black Nantucketers who had left no writ

ten records, did research at the National Archives for

the Freedom History Project, and examined the grue

some NAACP anti-lynching campaign files at the Library

of Congress. This issue of FORUM thus takes me full

circle from my days as a historian, teaching and

researching the social history of the American people, to

my work in the public humanities. And that’s one of the

things I have loved most about this work, that it makes

the historians’ role more meaningful, because it brings

scholarly work into the public domain in the form ofgrant projects, speakers bureau engagements, seminars

for K- 12 teachers, reading and discussion series, and

publications such as FORUM. It makes history and otherhumanities disciplines accessible to a broader audience,beyond the academy.

You, dear readers, have been a wonderful audience;

I have learned more from you than the other wayaround. I will continue to share your commitment as Imove on to other adventures on this journey of discov

ery. It’s a journey that, happily, never ends.

The aftermath of Brown is

anything but simple. The

of striving and struggle and to keep the dream alive.

HUMANITIE

FHC SeeksNomineesfor Board

FHC is seeking nominations for threeboard positions to be filled in SeptemberThe FHC board, which meets quarterly,sets policy, evaluates grant proposals, participates in fundraising activities, and promotes the activities of the Council,

Letters of nomination should includebiographical information on the nominee,a resume, an explanation of the specialqualities the person would bring to theboard, and an indication of the nominee’swillingness to serve.

Nominations should be sent to JanineFarver, Acting Director, FHC, 599 SecondStreet South, St. Petersburg, FL 33701.The deadline for applications is Aug. I -

Thanks to our Teacher CenterSupporters

The following corporations andorganizations have made generous contributions enabling Florida teachers toattend FHC’s Florida Center for Teacherseminars, this summer Our thanks go outto them for helping us to reward andretain Florida’s best teachers:

Bank of AmericaSt. Petersburg Times FundNew York Times Company

Foundation/The Gainesville SunThe Tampa Bay History CenterFlorida Studies Center at the

University of South Florida LibrariesThe Daytona Beach News-journalAlachua County Public

Schools FoundationBaker County Education FoundationBrevard Schools FoundationBroward Education FoundationColumbia Public Schools FoundationDeSoto County Education FoundationEscambia County School DistrictHighlands County Education

FoundationHillsborough Education FoundationLeon County Schools FoundationMadison County Foundation for

Excellence in EducationPublic Education Foundation of

Marion CountyPasco Education FoundationPolk Education FoundationSt. Johns County Education

FoundationWalton Education FoundationSouth Walton Rotary Club

S

WDNAWFSU/WFSW

Florida CouncilComings andGoings...

88.9 FM MIAMI88,9 FM TALLAHASSEE, PANAMA

CITY, MARIANNAWGCU 91.7 FM FORT MYERSW$CT 89.9 FM JACKSONVILLEWKGC 90.7 FM PANAMA CITYWKLN 1170 AM SAINT AUGUSTINEWMFE 90.7 FM ORLANDOWMNF 88.5 FM TAMPNST. PETERSBURG

88.9 FM FORT PIERCEWQCS -

WUFT 89 FM GAINESVILLEWUWF 88.1 FM PENSACOLAWwUs

A multimedia presentation of theDeBary Hall Historic Site was recentlyrecognized with an OutstandingAchievement Award from the FloridaTrust for Historic Preservation. The presentation, which was funded by FHC andFlorida’s Division of Historical Resources,includes an interactive CD-ROM with avirtual tour of DeBary Hall and DeBaryEstate, a historic site in the town ofDeBary in Volusia County. The presentation explores the history of the house, thelives of its owners and workers, and its19th-century neighborhood.

Tom Baskett, Jr., public historian forVolusia County, expressed gratitude toFHC and the Florida Bureau of HistoricResearch for their support of the project."Both funders expect grant recipients tomove beyond strictly local stories toward

104.1 FM KEY WEST

wider connections in Florida history andAmerican studies. For public historians,this is a very helpful mandate."

The monologue and paintings of anFHC-sponsored program, "Net Loss," arenow available as a full-color, coffee-tablebook. This dramatic performance and artexhibit explores the life of Fort Pierce

commercial fisherman after the banning of certain types of net fishing inFlorida. Miami writer Evelyn WildMayerson wrote the text, and thepaintings were created by Fort Piercearchitect and painter Philip S. Steel.The book is available from Long WindPublishing, 108 N. Deport Drive, FortPierce, FL 34950 orw-w-w.LongWindPubl.com.

FL0PJDAHUMANITIESc0uNCIL FORUM S

Humanities on the RadioUvely, informative programs about Florida’s history and culture can be heard on

radio stations across the state. The programs, produced by FHC, with funds from theDepartment of State, OMsion of Cultural Affairs, are aired on the following stations:

DeBary Hall PresentationWins Award

‘Net Loss’ Book Pubilshed

DeBary Hall

otmF1orida FAiMOSQIJITOLAGOON ESSAY BY BILL BELLEVILLE

I t was a typical winter day along Florida’s east-central coast,and-just for a momentthere-I felt asif I were inside a child’s giant "snowdome,"magical shards of onething or the otherraining downon me at random.

It happenedthis way: I was sitting on a softlump of dried seagrassandsand at the edge of the

sprawling MosquitoLagoon. It was windy, and I was trying to decideif I wantedto fly fish or not. At my feet, thevast estuarinelagoon spreadout before melike a giantreflection pond. It was rimmed with black mangroves,their air-seekingroots poking up from the mud like pencils.

Withoutwarning, the gray dorsalfins of a pod ofsmall bottlenosedolphinsbegin to rise and fall in deeperwater a few yards away. They seemed to bestitchingtheiraquaticworld togetherwith the one above.Overhead,aregimentof brown pelicanssoarsin a well-behavedsinglefile, veering to dive-bombsmall fish in the rich watersbelow.

The sky was the clearceruleanblue left alter a coldfront shreds the billowingwhite cumulusand blowsit tosmithereens,On the otherside of the lagoon, the lee ofthe barrier island buttressingthe Atlantic appearedas along greenserpent,freeze-framed inundulation,ancientIndian middensdisguisedas humpsin its back.

I was in the mostintact swatchof saltmarshandmangrovelagoon onFlorida’s Atlantic Coast.The historic geography heldgreatsway, and time seemed toreachback into itself. The Indians who hadgatheredoysterstocreatethe mounds-theTimucua to the north and theAis to the south-mightreappearat anymoment.

But if I could taste the past,I could also nearly touchthe future, I looked to the horizon and saw the vagueoutline of the KennedySpaceCenter’sVehicularAssemblyBuilding, flanked by its rocket-launchinggantries.

Justthen, a roseatespoonhillwith its odd duck-likebeak andits cartoonishlypink plumagesoaredabove.Within seconds,it was followed by another.Backlir bythe bright Florida sun, the lankybirds glowed as if incandescent.They flew over my spot on thesea-grasslump,overthe timelesslagoon, andtoward the spaceshiplaunchpadsbeyond.

And the landscapearoundme-this giant metaphoricsnow dome-seemedsaturatedwith the disparateshardsof all that is wondrousin this state,from rocketry toprimeval lagoonswith tropical birds just thisside of a storybook. It seemedalmostmore than the senses could bear.

The story of how the Mosquito Lagoonkept itssoul is a peculiarly Floridian one. In the 1950s, vast bufferlands were boughtby NASA to protect its space-agetin-

kering atCapeCanaveral.By 1963 avid birders andnaturalistshelpedpersuadethe U.S.Fish & Wildlife Serviceto managenon-strategicparcels of the bufferas theMerritt IslandNational Wildlife Refuge.

The 219-square-milerefuge now encirclesthe lagoonto the west of KennedySpaceCenterand, in doing so,protectsthe saltmarsh,hardwoodhammocks,scrub, andmaritime forestthat surroundit. The undulatinghump ofbarrier island is a national seashore.The lagoonretainsitsastonishinglyfrank name"Mosquito," which was alsooncethe title of an inlet and an entiresprawlingcountybackin the days before geographybecamethe domainoftourismmarketeers.

Indeed,it was the voracioussalt-marshmosquitothatkept thesewetlandsfrom developinguntil the mid-2Othcentury, makingthem more affordable for public purchase.Rocketswith preciousnose-conecargo,and mosquitoeswith annoyingprohoscises,havefooled time.

The lagoonremainsclear, liquid alchemystill at work

I was in the most intact swatch of

salt marsh and mangrove lagoon

on Florida’s Atlantic Coast.The

historic geography held great

sway, and time seemedto reach

back into itself.

in a seaof human-inducedsprawl. It could bea remotetractof the Evergladesor a backcountry islandin theKeys. But it is east-centralFlorida.

* * *

I plan topaddle todaywith a good friend. We put inat the end ofa dirt road that winds back fromRoute 3 tothe lagoon.To reachthe site, I haddriven my jeepthroughthick brush andwild orange trees,passingremnantsof the old Indian River groves.Onceprivatelyowned, thelandscapeherehas goneferal again.

We pushour kayaksout into scantinchesof water,Lisa and I, and move offtowardthe Intracoastal

6 FORUM FLORIDA HUMANInEScoUNcIL SPRING 2004

the routewas dredgeda centuryago, borderthe channel.Their naturalkin, irregular shapes ofmud, sand, andmangrove, clump along the inside of thebarrier islandalmost fourmiles to the east.

PonceInlet to the north allows oceantidesto reachinside the lagoon,but notvery far. Down here, the broadlagoon is moredriven by wind and rain.Today, a prevailing northeasterlyblow has pushedmost of thewater awayfrom us. And the winter chill haskept algae blooms atbay.We scuttlelike water bugs in our small boats.ln thedistance,a clammetdrags for shellfish; a sport fishermanuses a pole to pushonto the flats.Otherwise,we arealone.

Underus in the clear water,seagrassesanchorthefood chain. It is beguilingly diverse,a stunted aquaticrainforest inwhich wildlife feed and hideandprocreate.Bluecrabs dance;stingraysglide; a seasquirt hangsonto a rhizome. We spooka school oftailing red drum,andthe bigfish explodeatoundus in a sprayof coppertails andfins.The bottlenosedolphinsdo so well hetetheyno longerneedto returnto the sea.Downsizedwith smaller anatomy, they have beeninextricablyshapedby the lagoon.

As we near a spoil island, I see it rises like a shell-filled bluff, toppedwith sahal palm and redcedar, sea

grape and mulberry. Its edgestaperinto flat, sandypeninsulas.Onespit is occupiedby a flock of white pelicans,here from the west just for the winter.They seemas big asswan boats,andthey lift off aswe approach.Still in herkayak,Lisa reachesdown in thepackedsand tofeel forclams. Shedigs anddigs and comesup with a half-dozen.I use myknife to openone at thehinge. It tastes sweetandsalty.

A raucoussplashingcomes fromdeeperwater, andwepushoff to investigate.As we approach,the water calmsandthen turns suspiciously flat.It seemsas if somethingvery largeis preparingto surface.

Suddenly,my kayakrisesup atop a plume of waterand then,just as suddenly,drops backdown again.Ancient manateesnoutspushup aroundus andexhale,deeply andloudly.

"You had a ride on a manateeelevator,"saysLisa,excitedly. "You shouldseeyour face!"

I am unashamedlybeaming,as guilelessas a little boyagain.The white pelicanssettle backdown on their sandspit. And time, caughthere in an eddy of past and future,continuesits inexorablespin.

BILL BELLEVILLE is an award-winningjournalist, author,and documentaryfilmmaker.

Waterway.There,a seriesof "spoil islands,"createdwhen

SPRING 2004 FL0RJDAI-4uMANIrIEscouNclL FORUM 7

Black and white students from SeffnerElementary School near Tampa board schoolbuses at the end of day, heading home to -

their respective neighborhoods.

ifl

Theoretically, the Negro needsneither segregatedschools nor mixed schools.What he needsis Education.What he mustrememberis that there is no magic,either in mixedschools or in segregatedschools. A mixedschool with poor andunsympatheticteachers,with hostile public opinion, and no teachingof truth concerning black folk, is bad. A segregatedschool with ignorant placeholders,inadequate equipment,poor salaries, and wretchedhousing, is equally bad. Other thingsbeingequal, the mixedschool is the broader, more natural basis for the educationofall youth. - But all things are seldomequal.

-W.E.B. DuBois, 1935

prior to the Civil War,mostsouthernstates,including Florida, passedlaws prohibiting blacksfrom congregating except

for two purposes-workandchurch.Educationfor blacks was illegal.Sen. JamesVardamanD-Miss.expressedthe prevailingsentimentof white southernersby saying,"Why squandermoneyon hiseducationwhenthe only effect is tospoil a good field hand and make aninsolentcook?"

After the Civil War, theFloridaLegislaturepasseda law in 1873 thatprovided that "no citizen of thisstateshall, by reasonof race,coloror previousconditionof servitude"be "excludedfrom the full andequalenjoymentof.. commonschools andpublic institutionsof learning."Such noble sentimentsendedwiththe passageof the 1885Constitutionthat requiredthat"white childrenandcoloredchildrenshall not be taught in the sameschool,but equal provision shallbemade forboth." Florida’s "separatehut equal" policy predatedthe official establishmentof the "separatebut equal"doctrineby the U.S.SupremeCourt in the Plessyv.Fergusondecision1896 by more

than a decade.With Plessy firmly establishedas

legal doctrine, the NationalAssociationfor the AdvancementofColored PeopleNAACP pushedfor the enforcementof that policy. Itwas clear that southernschools were"separate,"but were they "equal"?

The NAACP Legal DefenseFund first attackedthe lack of"separate but equal"in highereducation.In 1949, Virgil Hawkinsapplied foradmissionto the University ofFlorida Law School.The FloridaBoard of Control, the governingbody for thestateuniversity system,rejectedHawkins’s applicationandtold him he could either attendanout-of-statelaw school at stateexpense,or Hawkinscould attendFlorida A & M Law School. At thetime, theFAMU law school existedonly on paper.

Although the U.S.SupremeCourt ordered Hawkinsto beadmitted, the FloridaSupremeCourtrefusedto comply. The statecourtinterpretedBrown v. Board ofEducation 1954 as giving the statethe authority to decide"the preciserime in any givenjurisdictionswhenmembersof the Negro raceshall beadmitted to white schools."FloridaChief JusticeWilliam Terrell wrote:

‘ISHED JOURNEY

"When God createdman,he allotted each race tohis own continentaccord

ing to color, Europe tothe yellowman,Africa to the blackman,andAmericato the red man,but we arenow advisedthat God’s plan was inerror and must bereversed."The St.PetersburgTimesranan editorial cartoon that showed anAmericanIndianconfronting Terrell and tellinghim to "Scram,paleface."

In 1958,Hawkinsabandonedhisnine-yearodysseyandenrolled in theNew EnglandSchoolof Law, Hawkinstold the Pittsburgh Courier that he wastired, broke, and frustrated."When Istartedthis, I was 39 yearsold. After10 years of delaying tactics, they talkabout gradualism andpatience!Howgradualcanwe be?" In 2001,theUniversity of Floridagrantedthe firstposthumousdegree inits history, honoring Virgil Hawkins, the "South’smostpatient man."

The NAACP was ready in 1950to launcha frontal assault inits effortto overturnPlessy. To headthis off,Florida and theothersouthernstatesundertooka massiveeffort to improvethe quality of black schools.Newschools werebuilt and teachersalarieswere equalized. Itwould be too littleand toolate.

Brown was argued before theU.S.SupremeCourt in Decemberof 1952.In Juneof 1953, the Courtannouncedthat it could notreachadecision.The inability to decidealsoreflectedthe fact that the Court wasdeadlockedin overturningPlessy.Justice FelixFrankfurtertold a friendin the justicedepartment,PhilipElman, that therewerenot five surevotes tooverturnPlessy.Chief JusticeFred Vinson was one ofthe justicesreluctantto overrule a precedentthatstood for morethan a half-century.When Vinson died suddenly inSeptemberof 1953,FrankfurtertoldElman that Vinson’s passingwas "thefirst solid piece ofevidenceI’ve everhadthat therereally is a God." OnMay 17, 1954, in a unanimousdecision written by new ChiefJusticeEarlWarren, the Court stuck downPlessyand wrote, "in the field of public edu

cation the doctrineof ‘separatebutequal’ has no place.Separateeducational facilities are inherentlyunequal."

The Court askedthe statesoperating dual schoolsto submitbriefs onhow to implementBrown. Florida filedthe mostextensivebrief andaskedforgradualimplementationof Brown.Desegregation shouldnot proceeduntil "communityattitudes"supportedit. The SunshineState arguedthat itsschool segregationlaws hadbeen"rigidly" enforcedfor 69 years,andimmediatedesegregationmight cause"a tornadowhich would devastate theentireschoolsystem."The Legislatureappropriated$10,000for a poll thatshowedthree-quartersof "white opinion leaders" opposedBrown.

In Brown 111955 the Courtsided with the advocatesof gradualism. The Court did not impose anytimetablefor desegregation,but urgedstates to "makea promptand reasonablestart towardfull compliance"andto proceed"with all deliberatespeed."To Floridapolicymakers,"all deliberatespeed"meantdelay. It would takefive years afterBrown before the firstblack studentwas admittedto a DadeCountyschool.The pace ofdesegregation was so slow in the South thattwo political scientistsestimateditwould take3,180 yearsto integratethe schools atthat currentrate.

From 1954 to 1960,Floridaengaged inmassiveresistance toschool desegregation.The Legislature

p

The Uourt did notimposeany timetablefor desegregation,huturged statesto "makea prompt and reasonable start toward fullcompliance" and toproceed "with all deliberate speed." ToFlorida policymakers,"all deliberate speed"meant delay.

repealedcompulsoryschool attendancelaws, passedan "interpositionandnullification" law declaringBrownto be null andvoid, andpassedapupil-placementlaw giving schoolhoards theauthority to assignstudentsto schoolsbased ontheir academic

10 FORUM FL0R,DAHONIAN,TIEscour4c,L SPRING 2004

After nine yeas of fighting to be admitted to the University of florida law school. Virgil Hawkins far left gaveup and enrolled

instead in the New England School of Law. Gov. ClaudeKirk above, left engagesin an Impromptu debate with activist H. Rap Brown

at a civil rights rally in Jacksonville in 1967. In 1972. florida Sen. Chuck Weber, one of the co-sponsorsof the state’s "anti-busing"

straw vote, engagesin a mock phonecall during which he invites President Nixon to join him in a usedbus business above,right.

preparation,psychological makeup,and the impactof the admission onthe faculty, students,andgeneralcommunity. The state launchedan attackon theNAACP andnearlyput it outof business.Every memberof theFlorida Congressionaldelegationsigned the SouthernManifesto,a document attackingBrown and arguingthat outside agitatorswere destroyingthe good racerelationsof the South.

Massive resistancewas replacedby "token compliance"from 1960 to1968. Undertoken compliance,ahandful of black studentswereadmitted to white schools. Forexample,inAugust of 1962, the PinellasCountySchoolBoard admitted threeof 11black studentsrequestingtransfertowhite schools.The following year, 73blacks out of a student populationof62,131 attendednine "white" Pinellasschools. Eightyears after Brown, lessthan two-tenthsof 1 percentofFlorida’s black studentsattendedintegratedschools.

Fifteen yearsafter Brown, theSupreme Court grewweary of the

snail’s pace ofdesegregation.Gradualismhad failed. In Alexanderv.HolmesCounty1969, the Courtdeclaredthat the "obligation of everyschool district is to terminatedualschool systemsat onceand to operatenow andhereafteronly unitaryschools."The "all deliberatespeed"standardof Brown was now replacedby the mandateto comply "at once."Schooldistricts throughoutthe Southwere givenaboutfour months,untilFeb. 1, 1970, to comply. The primaryvehicle of desegregationwas busing.

Anti-businggroups quickly mobilized. In Florida, they includedtheFreedomof ChoiceCommitteeinManatee Countyand Parents AgainstForcedBusing in Pinellas County.In1970, facing a tough reelectionfight,Florida Gov. ClaudeKirk intervenedin the Manatee Countydesegregationcaseand orderedthe school boardnotto complywith the busing ruling ofFederal DistrictCourt JudgeBenKrentzman.To preventbusing, Kirktwice suspendedManatee’s schoolhoardandits superintendent.

KrentzmanorderedKirk to appearbefore hisCourt, but Kirk refused,saying, "nofederal judge..canorder asovereignheadof a sovereignstate toappearpersonally."KrentzmanfinedKirk $10,000a day, and "KingClaudius"relentedand returnedcontrol to the Manateeschool board.Kirk’s anti-busing anticsdid not helphis quest forreelection.As thepatienceof Florida votersevaporated,so did Kirk’s political support.DemocraticnewcomerReubinAskewwon 57% of the vote.

Only 9.8 percentof blacks inFlorida attendedintegratedschools in1965-66. Just fiveyearslater, utilizingbusing,the numberof blacks enrolledin integratedschools jumped to 90.2percent.Critics arguedthat the numbers weremisleading.Althoughtheschoolsmay have integrated,"tracking" or other forms of placementsegregatedthe studentswithinthe schools.

Busing was an effectivetool for desegregatingschools, butit lackedpopu

SPRING 2004 EL0RIDAHUNIANITIESc0UNcFL FORUM II

Plan ReplacesAffirmative Action

I n 1999, Ward Connerly, a black conservativefrom California, announced that Florida wasthe next battleground in his quest to endaffirmative action. Connerly, with the sup

port of Gov. Pete Wilson, succeeded in gettingCalifornia voters to pass Proposition 209 outlawing affirmative action. Two years later, Connerly’sinitiative was approved in Washington. If itpassed in Florida, Connerly believed it wouldsweep the nation.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Connerly discussedthe proposal, and Bush called the initiative "divisive" and said he would not support it. Bush alsorealized that if the Connerly proposal reachedthe ballot, polls indicated that more than 60 percent of Florida voters would support the initiative.

On Nov. 9, 1999, Bush issued an executiveorder eliminating affirmative action and replacedit with a program called "One Florida." Insteadof using race as a criterion in university admissions, Bush substituted his "Talented 20" plan.Under this plan,the top 20 percentof every highschool class wouldbe guaranteedadmission to oneof the state universities. AdamHerbert, then university chancellor,praised the plan,saying it "acknowledges Florida’spast, but also connects us toFlorida’s future."

On Jan. 18,2000, two blacklawmakers,Anthony Hill andKendrick Meek,both Democratsfrom Miami, conducted a well-publicized sit-in atLt. Gov. Frank Brogan’s office. Bush was quotedas calling the lawmakers "childish." Reportersstreamed into Brogan’s office to cover the breaking news story. At one point, according to newsreports, Bush said to a staffer, "Kick their assesout." The reports made it appear that the governor’s comments were directed at Hill and Meek,although both the governor and his staff assistantmaintained that Bush was referring to reporters.The 25-hour standoff ended when the governoragreed to hold a series of public hearings acrossthe state concerning affirmative action and hisOne Florida plan.

On March 7, 2000, the opening day of the

legislative session, some 10,000 protestersmarched on Tallahassee to challenge the abandonment of affirmative action. Carrying placardsthat read "Jeb Crow," "Pharaoh Bush, let mypeople go," and "the first step to resegregation,"the demonstrators pledged to take their wrathout on Republican presidential candidate GeorgeW. Bush in November. They probably did, sinceblack turnout was up 50 percent over that of the1996 election.

But the One Florida plan took effect. In2000, blacks constituted 14.8 percent of studentsin the state university system, a number veryclose to their percentage in the general population. Three years after One Florida was introduced, the number of minority students in thestate university system has actually shown asmall increase. Blacks now comprise 16.7 percentof freshmen enrolled statewide; and the overallminority enrollment is 37.3 percent of the freshman class.

Just as Hispanics have become Florida’slargest minority group, they also comprise thelargest number of minority students in the

state’s public universities.Black enrollment, which didfall 45 percent at theUniversity of Florida in theyear after One Florida wasintroduced, has now recovered; the percentage ofblacks enrolled is nowslightly higher than prior toOne Florida.

-Darryl Paulson

Gov.Bush visits with Anthony Hilland Kendrick Meek during theirwell.publicized 2000 sit-in. Later.thousandsof protestors would taketo the streets of Tallahasseetochallenge the abandonment ofaffirmative action.

lar support.Florida votersoverwhelmingly approvedan anti-businginitiative in the 1970 election. White parentsattackedthe notion of "forcedbusing,"eventhoughonly a smallpercentageof all studentswere busedfor desegregation.Black parentsgrewincreasinglyfrustratedwith the burden of busing. In PinellasCounty,forexample,almostall black studentswere busedevery year,from kindergartenthroughgrade 12. But whitestudentswere bused ona rotationbasis,with most being busedfor onlytwo of their K-12 years.

As their "busingfatigue" set in,black parentscalled for the returntoneighborhoodschools. In thesegregation era, the black schoolwas oftenthe centerpieceof the blackcommunity. Elijah Gosier, African-Americancolumnistfor the St. PetersburgTimes,wrote that "the truth is that shippingchildren out of neighborhoodsto goto schools in somebodyelse’s"neighborhoods"breaksthe cycle of community formedby the family, church,and other institutionsat a time whentoo much of that cycle is missing."

This mandatorybusingcontinuedfor more than 20 years.Then, duringthe l990s, school districtsacrossFlorida soughtreleasefrom federalsupervision. To succeed,they had toprove that they operated unitarysystems and hadplans to maintainintegratedschoolsin the flature. PinellasCountydevelopeda "controlledchoice" planwherebyeachschoolhadto developsomeunique curricula thatwould attracta diversestudentbody.Pinellasschools agreedthat no schoolwould becomemorethan 42 percentblack through2007.At that time theracial requirementswill be dropped,andsomeschoolswill likely becomeprimarily white or black. The NAACPagreedto the choice plan inexchangefor promisesfrom the schoolboard thatadditional resourceswould be madeavailableto diminish theachievementgap between white and black students.As a result of this agreement, Pinellasschools were releasedfrom federalsupervisionin 2000.

During the 1998gubernatorialrace,RepublicancandidateJeb

Bushunveiledhis A+ Planfor educational accountability.Underhis plan,all schools wouldreceivea lettergrade rangingfrom A to F, based ontheir performanceon statewidestandardized tests.Schoolsearningan Aor showing improvementin theirscoreswould earna cashbonus.Studentsattendingschools that failedtwice in a four-yearperiodwere entitled to receivean "OpportunityScholarship"or voucher that could beusedin private schools.Critics contendedthat the Bushplan would

As their "busingfatigue" set in,black parents calledfor the return toneighborhoodschools. In thesegregationera,the black schoolwas often thecenterpieceof theblack community.

result in the"rich gettingricher,"since educational performanceisrelatedto socioeconomicbackground.They also contendedthat voucherswould drain scarce resources frompublic schools.

Since many of theprivate schoolsthat wound up receivingvoucherswere religious schools,opponentsarguedthat vouchers violateda provision ofthe Florida Constitutionthatsaysno statefunds may he used"directly or indirectly in aid of anychurch,sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarianinstitution." Supportersarguedthat schoolsshouldhe held accountablefor theirperformance,especiallysince educa

UNFINISHED JOURtion expenditurescommandthe largest shareofthe statebudget.

Supportersalso contendedthatmost of thebeneficiariesof thevoucherswould be studentsfromlower-class andminority backgroundswho disproportionatelyattendfailingschools.On March 14, 2000, CircuitJudgeRalph Smithdeclared vouchersviolated the FloridaConstitutioninBush v. Holmes. In October2000, theFirst District Court of Appealsreversedthis decision.The casewilllikely reachthe U.S. SupremeCourt.

In 1999, after the first year oftestingunderthe A+ Plan,202schoolsstatewide receivedan A, 313a B, 1,230 a C, 601 aD, and 76 an Fgrade.Basedon thefirst-yeartestresults,it appearedthat tens ofthousandsof studentsmight qualify forvouchers.Test scoresrose eachyear,and in 2003,1,230 schoolsacross thestate receivedan A, 569 a B, 527 a C,141 a D, and 35 an E The numberof"A" schools increasedsix-fold overthe numberin 1999. Basedon the2003 results, 13,700studentsin ninefailing schoolsqualified for vouchers.

As federalcourts haverelinquishedcontrol overFlorida schooldistricts, resegregationis on the rise.As in PinellasCounty,many schooldistrictsare adopting "choice"plansthat will createsome all-whiteschools,some all-blackschools, andsome integratedschools.

Maybe,as WEB. DuBoiswrote in1935, mixed schoolsmay provide thebestenvironmentto achieveboth integrationand qualityschools.As BrunoManno, a seniorfellow at the Annie E.CaseyFoundation,argues,a shift awayfrom racial busingwill makeschoolsbettercommunity institutions."Neighborhoodschoolscreatelinksbetweenfamilies andschools.Communityinvolvement is an important ingredient to enhancingschoolperformanceand increasingfamilystrength. If the communityaspectisnot there, it’s pointless tobus kidsacrossthe street to boost performance."

DARRYL PAULSON is a professorofgovernmentat the University of SouthFlorida St. Petersburg.

SPRING 2004 FL0RIDAHUFlANmEscouNcIL FORUM 13

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The Dream Becomesa ‘Hollow Hope’By BiU Maxwell

orn in 1945, I ama survivor of

Florida’s Jim Crow schoolsys

tem, the intentionallycruel,

separate-but-equalmonster

that permanentlyinjured its white perpe

tratorsand its black victims alike. No

one-thenor now-escapedthe inhu

manity of Jim Crow’s reach.My class

matesand I never hadthe opportunityto

attendpublic schoolwith white children,

and I haveno way of knowing thedepth

of what we missed orwhat whitechil

dren missedby not getting to know us.

I vividly rememberthosebadold days,whenschoolbusingmeantthe oppositeof what it meansnow, beforeBrown v. Board of Education shook thefoundationof life in the Southas we knew it 50yearsago. During my public schoolyears,Negroandwhite childrenwere busedaway from eachanother.We were legally separated.Now, black andwhiteschoolchildrenare busedto be together.Unfortunately,recentandcurrent court actions,school boardpolicies,and publicopinion spell areturn to the segregationof my childhood,nowreferredto as "resegregation."

One legal scholarlaments that "resegregation"manifestsBrown’s "hollow hope." I agree.I hadbelieved-asdid ThurgoodMarshalland the otherattorneysand black leaderswho arguedvaliantly forschoolintegration-thatBrown andthe 1964 CivilRights Act would changethe racial compositionand

Maybeintegration

openedsomeeyes,

but it just didn’t

changemanyhearts

the very nature ofour public schoolsforever, thatAmerica itself would cometo resemblethe image oftogethernessthat dominatedMartin Luther King’s "1Have a Dream" speech.But during a 50-yearspan,the greatexperimentwith bringing theracestogether in educationhasmostly failed.

The resultsof two recentreportsare soberingremindersof Brown’s hollowness.One study, by theHarvardCivil Rights Project issuedfor this year’sanniversaryof King’s assassination,showsthatschoolsacrossthe nation, not just in the South,arealmost as segregatedas they were at the time ofKing’s death in1969. Desegregationspiked in thelate 1980swhencourts decidedthat the goals ofBrown had substantiallybeenachieved.Now, thetrendhas gone in the oppositedirection,with mostwhite studentshaving "little contact"with minoritystudentsin many parts of the United States.

The otherstudy, by the National CenterforEducationStatistics,showsthat, for the first timeever, minority groupsare now the numericalmajority in Floridaschools.A yearly headcount of theracial balanceshows that 50.3 percentof the state’s

SPRING 2004 FLORIDAHUF-lANIrIEscouNcIL FORUM IS

2.6 million studentsare minorities. Pamela Peralta,principal of Tampa’sChamberlainHigh School,recently offered this laconicjolt of reality: "Schoolsare mini-societies.We representwhat the worldlooks like."

Earnestobserversare not surprisedthat minorities now outnumberwhites in our public schools.Whites are fleeing ourschools in droves. "Whiteflight," then, is attitude and resentmenttransformedinto action.White studentsare increasinglyenrolling in private schoolsto get away from minorities. In 2000, almostone-in-six white studentsinFloridawasenrolled in a private school, comparedtoone-in-il Hispanics,and fewer than one-in-20African Americans.

Regrettably,I watchour public schoolsbecomecontemporarysegregationacademies,much as theydid shortly afrerBrown and the 1964 Civil RightsAct. And I do not seehow this trend will stop orturn around. Individualsandsociety at largewill paya heavypricefor our collective myopia. The chasmbetweenwhites and minoritieswill continuetowiden on every front.

In his brilliant bookJim Crow’s Children: TheBrokenPromiseof the Brown Decision, PeterIronsframesour loss of resolveto integrateour schools:

"The failure of school integration,largely a consequenceof the brokenpromiseofBrown, becomesan evenmore bitterpill to swallow in light of the clearevidencethat integration works. Moreprecisely,attendingschoolwith substantialnumbersof white studentsimprovesthe academicperformanceofblack children. This reflects,of course,the advantagesthat majority-whiteschoolshavein terms of better-trained,more experienced,more highly paid teachers,with access tobetterlaboratory andlibrary resources,awider rangeof courses,particularly theAdvancedPlacementcoursesthatchallengestudentsandprepare themfor college-levelwork, and greaternumberand varietyof extracurricularactivities."

A new, groundbreakingreportbyAmy StuartWells, a professoratTeachersCollege,Columbia University, contendsthat while racial integrationhas not lived up to theexplicit promiseof Brown in societyas a whole, theexperiencehas had a mostly positiveeffect on people’s personallives. Entitled How Desegregation

16 FORUM FLORIDAHUMANITIESCOLJNCIL SPRING 2004

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ChangedUs: LessonsFrom Six AmericanHigh Schoolsand the Classof 1980, the reportexaminesthe highschool class of1980-whosegraduates,now in their40s, entered kindergartenin 1966 and 1967, at thevery beginning of the integration experiment.

The reportfocusedon schools in Austin, Texas;Inglewood,N.J.; Pasadena,CaliL; ShakerHeights,Ohio; Topeka,Kan.; and Charlotte,NC. Theresearchteam trackeddown and interviewedhundreds ofthesestudentsover the years about thelasting impact of their experiencewith racial integration in school.During an interviewbroadcaston theNational Public Radio programAll ThingsConsidered,Wells noted that nearlyall of the interviewees,eventhosewho hadseriousproblemsintheir schoolsand had troublemeetingpeopleof different backgrounds,said that interactingwith otherracesandethnicitieswas a valuableexperience.

Wells told NPR that the 20 yearsafter graduation gavethe subjectsample time to appreciatecompletely what the desegregationexperiencehadmeantto them andhow it hadchangedthem in fundamentalways, especiallywhenthey comparedthemselvesto spousesand friendsof the sameracialbackground whohad not had desegregatedexperiences.Most of them believedthat their experienceshelpedthem to feel morecomfortablewith racialdiversity in what they referredto as the "teal world."The irony, Wells said, wasthat the studentsfoundthe realworld to be far more segregatedthan theirpublic schoolshadbeen.

Many of thosewho attendedcollegesaid their campuseswere extremelysegregated,especiallythe studentsocial groups,suchas sororitiesandfraternitiesand otherextracurricular

organizations,Wells said in the broadcastinterview.Similar groupshad beenintegratedin their highschools.A sad discoveryfor Wells andthe otherresearcherswasthat some studentsof different racialbackgroundsfrom the samehigh schoolhad gone tothe samecollege andwereunableto maintain theirfriendships becausethe campuseswere soraciallydivided.

Wells foundthat after most of the studentsreachedadulthood andsettled into their careersandcommunities,the majorityof the white graduateslive in predominantlywhite neighborhoods,whileabout 56 percentof the blacks live in desegregated

neighborhoods.But 20 percentof theseAfricanAmericanssay their neighborhoodsare experiencingwhite flight.

What do thesepost-Brown trendsmeanandportend?

"I think our studyspeaksto.. .what is the role ofschools in society,andhow much burdencanwe puton the schools tochangethese colorlinesandthesegregationthat’s somuch a part of our history, andlives on today in our housingmarkets,"Wells said inthe interview. She further commentedthat the studyreflectsthat schooldesegregationwas important"becausethe studentswho lived through it fundamentally valued it andsaid it was oneof the most important experiencesof their lives. But clearly,it wasn’tenough.The rest ofsocietyhad to beworking towardsthesegoals,as well. And that just didn’t happen."

Indeed,Brown wasa bold, social-engineeringeffort that neverfully took root on or off campus.Many whites, bitter that their children have beenforced into contactwith black children, are permanently removing their children from the publicschools.Many African-Americanparents,angry thattheir children-throughforcedbusing-havecarriedmostof the burdento desegregatethe schools,areincreasingly demandingneighborhoodschoolsthat,in all likelihood, will be all black.

In 1996, KennethW. Jenkins,headof theNAACP chapter inYonkers,N.Y., wasfired whenhe spokecandidly about thestateof school integration in his city. A growing numberof blacksnowagreewith Jenkins: "Thisthing is not working. I support integration,but I don’t think integration is thegoal.The goal is quality education."

NAACP attorneyTed Shaw,who hasspenthisentirecareerworking for school integration, hascometo a conclusionthat I and most otherblacksagree with:"You’re beatingyour headup againstthewall until it’s bloody. At somepoint, you havetoask, ‘Should I continueto beat [my head] up againstthis wall?’ To askthat questionis not a terriblething."

The Brown decisionchanged theracial landscape,but it could not changethe heartsof thoseinthe majoritywho opposedbringing theracestogether. As a result,U.S. society is living out Brown’s"hollow hope."

BILL MAXWELL is a columnistand an editorial writerfor the St. PetersburgTimes.

SPRING 2004 FL0RIDAHut-IANmES COUNCIL FORUM 17

INFRONTThe trailblazersrememberthepersonalcostsand publicgains, the opendoors and closedminds, thesacrificesandbenefitsof beingthe first to stepacrosscolorlines in Floridaschools.

IS FORUM FLORIDAHUMANITIESCOUNCIL SPRING 2004

I n biology class at Tallahassee’s all-black Lincoln High School,"thirty kids were assigned to one microscope," Harold

Knowles recently recalled.But when Knowles moved to the white Leon High School

in 1963, he was surprised to see the difference in what wasavailable to students. "When Igot to Leon, every two kids had amicroscope. Basically, that had a profound effect on me. Thecontrast was so enormous. You never had new books atLincoln. You had used books, and they were marked up andbusted up by the time you got them. The school systems wouldassign old books from Leon to the black high schools down theroad. The contrast between the two civilizations was very obvi

Knowles, now managing shareholder in Tallahassee-basedKnowles, Marks & Randolph, the oldest black law firm in NorthFlorida, said he chose to be one of the first black students tointegrate Leon because he wanted educational opportunity. "Iwasn’t trying to be a pioneer," he said. "I wasn’t handpicked byanybody. I assumed that anybody would, if given the opportunity, attend the best high school in the county."

But he found out he was one of only three Lincoln studentsto move to Leon. "It was a real surprise to me. People keptthinking this was a real courageous thing to do. I thought all ofmy buddies would be over at Leon. Why didn’t more come? Itwas a mixed bag. Some people stayed, I’m sure, because of fearof the unknown. It was certainly something new and different.There were others proud of their tradition at Lincoln."

After graduation, Knowles headed to DePauw University inGreencastle, Ind., before returning to Florida to receive hisbachelor’s and law degrees from Florida State University. Hecurrently serves on FSU’s Board of Trustees.

"I wanted to get the hell of out of the South, only to findthat the North was probably worse [regarding racism]. I spenttwo miserable years up there before I returned to Florida andwent to Florida State."

Knowles said he believes the educational hurdles for blackchildren today include the large size of schools and the lack ofpersonal support systems, "It’s not purelyrace, but certainly blackchildren have not faredas well. Missing is thatunderlying support system that was, believe itor not, there in days ofsegregation," he said."Teachers lived in yourcommunity, knew yourparents, attendedchurch or other socialorganizations. That subculture was there."

Leavy

Harold Knowles

ous."

-Pamela Griner

Harold Knowles

Doby Flowers

I n 1970, Doby Flowers stood on the 50-yard line of FloridaState University’s Doak Campbell Stadium and celebrated a

break through. She had just been elected FSU’s first blackhomecoming queen.

It was not a personal victory for her, she said, recentlyreflecting about the event. It was a victory for all black students. They had blazed a trail into the university’s top socialinstitution.

"My running for homecoming queen as the candidate ofthe black student union was not a process of, ‘Oh, we want abeauty queen," she said. "We wanted to change institutionsand the way they saw African Americans as a whole. Wewanted access. We wanted every institution to be open toanybody."

The university had already desegregated its academic andathletic programs, she noted. The last frontier was its socialprograms.

"There was one institution that was social. We thoughtthat homecoming queen was the ultimate symbol of thesocial." To win, Flowers and her supporters planned a strategy that included operating what she called a campaign-headquarters "war room,"

Their victory reinforced the choice she made to attendFSU instead of predominantly black Florida A&M, where herparents, cousins, and some siblings had attended. One of herbrothers, Fred Flowers, who had also opted to attend FSU,was one of the first 10 black students to enroll at the university, and was its first black athlete.

"In the effort of desegregation, we went to FloridaState," Doby Flowers said. "It was the closest to going awayfrom home, in terms of not knowing the environment, notknowing the people, all of that. Even though things werehighly segregated, there was a movement afoot, a wave ofchange sweeping this country, student protests. With thischange, through the eyes of students, the country, the city,the university started to change."

At FSU, she earned a bachelor’s degree in social welfarein 1971 and a master’s in urban and regional planning in 1973.In 1980, she began a decade of work in New York City forMayor Ed Koch. In 1990, as New York’s commissioner ofhuman resources administration, she oversaw child welfareand a $5-billion budget. She now is manager at theTallahassee law firm of Flowers & White.

In looking at the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education,she said, "Brown got rid of the laws that separated people. Itgave access." But she emphasized that in actuality, segregation still exists in schools. Some public schools today are virtually all black, as are the academic tracts within manyschools, Flowers said. "But the legacy of Brown v. Board ofEducation is great in spite of this. In spite of how far we haveto go, we’ve come a very long way."

-Pamela Griner Leavy

SPRING 2004 FLORIDAHUMMflTIESCOUNCTL FORUM 19

Goliath Davis

G oliath Davis, deputy mayor ofSt. Petersburg, attributes his

success in life to the mentoring andeducation he received in the segregated schools of an all-black enclaveknown as Methodist Town. "I amnot who I am in spite of MethodistTown," he said of the neighborhoodarea near downtown St. Petersburg."I am not who I am in spite of thefact that I started out in a segregated school system. I am who I ambecause of Methodist Town, becauseof the teachers and nurturing that Igot in a segregated system," he said.

The teachers in these segregated schools motivated students toexcel, he said. "Our teachers wouldtell us that when we got into theworld, we were going to have tocompete with whites. They madeus think that whites were gettingeverything and.. .were going to beprepared. They really got uspumped up to do our best." Theyalso held their students to high academic standards. "The last thingyou wanted to do when you wentto the chalk board was not to beprepared," he said. "Education wasseen as the way out, and those teachers would drill you."

In the I 960s, when St. Petersburg began token integration of its public schools, Davis was in the second classof black students admitted into the formerly all-white St.Petersburg High. "When I left 16th Street Junior High andwent to St. Pete High, I learned that our teachers had prepared us very well," he said. "I learned that, despite whatother folks said, intelligence was randomly distributed. Ourteachers had understood what the competition was. Theyalways told us, ‘You’ve got to be better than, better than,better than.’ They understood that if you were AfricanAmerican, you didn’t just walk in competing for a positionwith a white, and you were as good as a white. You had tobe better than a white."

Upon graduation from St. Petersburg High, Davisattended private Rollins College on an academic scholarship. Later, he earned a master’s degree from theUniversity of South Florida and a Ph.D. from Florida StateUniversity.

A self-proclaimed agitator for social justice, Davisdecided to pursue a career in police work after a mentorchallenged him "to stop talking, and do something." Hejoined the St. Petersburg police department, rising upthrough the ranks to become the chief of police in 1997.

Davis said he sympathizes with parents who want theirchildren to attend neighborhood schools. But he addedthat he is leery of current trends toward resegregation. "Iam not optimistic that once schools become resegregated,that the people in charge will be any more giving and equitable than they were under the old system," he said. "I feellike people are going to take care of what is close tothem."

A lack of open and honest dialogue about race feedsinto this trend, he said. ‘American culture likes closure. Welike to start something and say, ‘Okay, we’ve done that.’But when it comes to issues of integration, race, gender,and ethnicity, I don’t think most people realize that it is notnecessarily some destination that we are going to reach. Itis a journey that is life long, and it is going to be constantlyevolving."

-Monica Rowland

Four years later, he advanced to the position of deputymayor of the city. He oversees the economic developmentof Midtown, a historically black area south of downtown.The boundaries of Midtown encompass portions ofMethodist Town, the beloved neighborhood of Davis’syouth.

20 FORUM FLORIDAHUMANITIESCOUNCIL SPRING 2004

LaVon Bracy

acial slurs and painful abuse mar high school memories for LaVonWright Bracy, the first black student to integrate the Alachua Our history is

County Public School System in 1964. She was the only black graduate in the Gainesville High School class of 1965. not a reciat-"That was.. .40 years ago, and it’s still very vivid in my mind, thehatred and abuse I had taken from white folk," Bracy said.

That year, her father, the Rev. Thomas Wright Sr., served aspresident of Gainesville’s chapter of the National Association for theAdvancement of Colored People NAACP, which won a school- IflasSeS5It tookdesegregation lawsuit in 1964. Bracy volunteered to spend her senioryear at Gainesville High after no other black students came forward. nie four years

"It was horrible," she recalled. "I was abused, misused, everyday. It was not unusual to be called ‘nigger’ at least 10 times a day, to to heal and Ibe shoved 10 times a day. My classmates acted as if I had the plague ifIwas to sit down. The library would empty. Four or five tables in the -

lunchroom would get up."They took a pact to make sure life was as horrible as possible

for me. One day, I was jumped by a white male student and his i in healedyet.friend. [After being repeatedly punched and stomped,] I was bleeding. The principal saw Iwas bleeding profusely. I told him I needed tocall my dad and get to a hospital. He said, how did he know that Ididn’t come from home that way?" LaWn Stacy

After this experience, Bracy wanted nothingto do with attending a predominantly white university. Her father urged her to attend theUniversity of Florida, but she chose instead toattend Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn.

"I needed to go where I was a majority," shesaid. "Fisk was wonderful. I think every [black] kidought to have the opportunity of going to a predominantly black school for a sense of commitment, a sense of knowing who you are, a sense ofsacrifice and history you don’t get when you go toa white-majority school. Our history is not appreciated by the masses. It took me four years toheal, and I don’t know if I’m healed yet."

Bracy earned her bachelor’s degree at Fisk, amaster’s in education from the University ofMiami, and a doctorate in higher educationadministration from the University of Florida.Now she is co-founder and administrator of NewCovenant Baptist Church of Orlando.

In assessing the situation today, Bracy saidthat despite Brown v. Board of Education, she stillfeels the races are divided. "I think the economyhas a lot to do with it. Our leadership is moreconcerned about the rich getting richer and thepoor getting poorer There’s no prescription tohelp those genuinely in need, and no one cares.No one cares if African-American kids can’t read."

-Pamela Griner Leavy

SPRING 2004 FLORIDAHUMANITIESCOUNCIL FORUM 21

Reubin AskewMichael Haygood

B lack students who integrated white schools "paid a price,"said Michael Haygood, one of 30 students to transfer in

1966 from Leesburg’s all-black Carver High School to whiteLeesburg High.

"You have to be very strong. People tend to somewhatisolate you. You make a sacrifice," he said. "I wasn’t willing todo it after high school." Though his high school guidance counselors and teachers encouraged him to go on to predominantlywhite University of Florida or Stetson or Rollins colleges, "Isaid, ‘No way," Haygood recently recalled.

"My philosophy about life issuch that all things happen for areason, whether or not the experience was a good one. I don’t judgegood or bad, because they all makeyou what you are. By the time I finished, which was two years, I wanted nothing more to do with an integrated school. I chose a predominantly black college."

Haygood earned a bachelor’sdegree in political science atHampton Institute, now HamptonUniversity, in Virginia. "I still wasn’tuniversally loved by everyone, but Iknew at least no one hated mebecause Iwas black," he said.

"They may have disliked me because I was from Florida or hadhung out with different crowds. No one disliked me because Iwas black."

He then chose to attend the University of Florida lawschool, graduating in 1975. He said attending the predominantly white professional school worked out fine, because "life isnot centered around the school as much as it is in undergraduate school. I had white friends and lots of Jewish friends."

Haygood, a lawyer in Florida for some 30 years, nowpractices real estate transaction law in West Palm Beach.During the past several years, he and another Leesburg native,Bill McBride, traveled around the state presenting publicforums about their early years during the period of racial segregation. McBride was a colleague of Haygood’s at law firmHolland & Knight and was a candidate for governor in 2002.The two men described their experiences in a program titled"Same Town, Different Lives" sponsored by the FloridaHumanities Council.

In discussing the Brown v. Board of Education decision,Haygood described it as "necessary," but said that black students have lost the benefits they had in segregated schools,where they were in the mainstream and held leadership positions in school.

"There were simply some benefits to the old system asfar as the development of black students was concerned.That’s not to say that.. the decision wasn’t necessary. Oursociety wouldn’t continue to exist being separate as it was."

-Pamela Griner Leavy

Calling school segregation a form of "apartheid," ReubinAskew, Florida’s governor for most of the I 970s, sup

ported busing as an effective way to bring about neededchange.

"We weren’t saying this was necessarily the ultimateanswer to anything," Askew said in a recent interview. "Itwas, ‘How do you break the back of the system that was socruel and inhumane?’ If you had black schools by choice, thatwould have been different; had they been equal, it might havebeen different."

Askew won election in 1970 against incumbent ClaudeKirk, whose anti-busing actions included ordering the ManateeCounty school board to defr a federal court order and twicesuspending the board and superintendent. After Askew waselected, he made his first official speech advocating busing atthe 1971 summer graduation ceremonies of his alma mater,the University of Florida law school.

"Some at the graduation and some at the universitycouldn’t understand why I made the speech. It was importantto me to make it strong and, in effect, say [that] while none ofus liked busing, black children had been bused all over town.It wasn’t until we started busing white children that it becamea real big issue. While I personally didn’t like t, I felt it was

imperative that we obeyed the courts, and it was the rightthing to do."

Askew closely monitored school openings in the fall of1971. Despite reports of bomb threats in three Florida counties, he told school superintendents to implement federalcourt orders and be a "positive part of trying to end segregation in our public schools."

"We had the quietest and most successful opening. I’m toldby those closest to the education process, [it was] the best [thestate] had since we got into accelerated desegregation."

Now a senior fellow at the John Scott Dailey FloridaInstitute of government at Florida State University, Askewsaid, "Florida was as segregated as any state in the nation. Ithink Brown was a reassurance of the worth of an individualand that the right to fair and equal education is a fundamentalconstitutional right, and by any attempt to avoid this principle,a person would have to be responsible to the federal courts."

-Pamela Griner Leavy

t

Michael Haygood

22 FORUM FLORIDAHUMANITIES COUNCIL SPRING 2004 Reubin Askew

The Porter family from left toright: JoyPorter Wright,SamahraWright, AlvinPorter, MorganRachel Smith,JenniferPorter-Smith,DaphnePorter.

The Porters

G raduation photographs and diplomas cover the walls of the Porter

home. Scrapbooks packed with newspaper clippings and pictures chroniclethe family’s accomplishments-andsome of the changes brought byBrown v. Board of Education.

Parents Alvin and Daphne Porterhave bachelor’s degrees in educationfrom Bethune-Cookman College andmaster’s degrees from Florida A&MUniversity. Both are retired educatorswith more than 40 years’ tenure insegregated, and desegregated, PinellasCounty schools.

Their son, Alvin Jr., was one of the first black students tointegrate a white school-and he suffered from the experience. "In the first and second grade at the black school here,he was thriving, a leader, outgoing and extroverted," DaphnePorter said. "When the teacher had a play, he had a lead part.Once he started at another school, his personality changed,and [this] affected him throughout his years."

Their daughters, Joy Porter Wright and Jennifer Porter-Smith, graduated from integrated Lakewood High School in St.Petersburg and pursued different paths to college.

Wright chose to attend predominantly black Florida A&Mand graduated in 1987 with a degree in broadcast journalism."It was a lot different from high school. Even thoughLakewood was integrated, black students were still in theminority. Then you attend college, and all you see are beautifulblack faces from all over the country-New York andWashington-and you are exposed to their cultures as well. Ilearned a lot from them, being a native Floridian. It was a realexciting experience." She now lives near Orlando and servesas program coordinator for the Orange County Parks andRecreation Department.

FRM4K BAFflE

Porter-Smith decided to attend theUniversity of Florida, where she earned abachelor’s degree in psychology and master’s and doctorate degrees in physiological psychology. She also spent five postgraduate years studying pharmacology atthe University of Pittsburgh. She currentlyworks as a consultant to the OrangeCounty school system.

She chose to attend UI9 she said,"because I felt they had the program thatinterested me most at the time, premed." But she found it necessary to formrelationships with other African-Americanstudents in her program so they couldstudy together, and she looked to Florida

A&M for her social life.The Porter parents have different perspectives when

looking at the impact of school desegregation. Alvin Porternoted that segregated black community schools had the advantage of strict discipline. "There were certain things that werejust taboo, that you couldn’t do, because if you did, your parents found out and you were punished when you got home."Such close ties and disciplinary consequences were eliminatedwhen black students were bused to distant schools, he said. "Alot of black students didn’t succeed, and the culture is suffering.

Daphne Porter said school problems today are a result of"environmental influences" throughout the culture, not justbusing. She remembers saying in college that putting black andwhite students together in classrooms wouldn’t create

magic.But now she believes, "Maybe there was something

‘magic’ that happened when children of different races sat, listened, played, worked, and ate together in school. I see thelong-term legacy of Brown v. Education as a positive one."

-Pamela Griner Leavy

SPRING 2004 j FLORIDAHUP.IANITIESCOUNCIL FORUM 23

a -

BLACK WHITEA MOONLIGHTING PROFESSOR TAKES ON JIM CROW INEDITORIALS THAT INSPIRE, AMUSE, RAKE MUCK, DECRYGAINESVILLE RACIAL STRIFE AND WIN A PULITZER

ocks andfists, name-calling,shoving, slashing, vandalizing.A Confederateflag unfuris.Tear gas scents theschoolyard.The sceneisblack andwhite, tinged with blood, andcloudedover by fear and rage. It isGainesville in 1970. The U.S.Supreme

Court, after waiting 16 yearsfor southernschools todesegregate, has finally ordered action. In AlachuaCounty, that meansthousandsof studentsmustcrisscrossthe community in buses,until blacks andwhites areevenly mixed in the schools.

As some protest this move andotherstry to acceptit-a voice of reason sortsthroughthe chaos,analyzeshow thingsgot thisway, chastises,reassures,offers factsand solutions, and generally provides a logical, compelling, andforceful argumentfor doing the right thing.This voice, which appears on theeditorial page of theGainesville Sun, is that of H. 0. "Buddy" Davis,Jr., amoonlighting journalismprofessorfrom the University ofFlorida.

Davis took on the "hoodlums,"the governorandother "politicalscavengers,"and thefoot-draggingschoolbureaucrats. His editorials put events in perspective andcalled for calm when the community seemed to be cracking. He wrote to regularfolks in his own straight-from-the-shoulder,colorful, and sometimeseven invented,vernacular.The way he went aboutthis reflectedmuchabout him. It also won him a Pulitzer Prize.

"We canreactwith hysteria and jerk our kids out of

school and make threats and throw up quickie segregation academies," he wrote shortly after the Court madeits ruling. "We can encourage the kids to make troubleand the teachers to balk or quit. And we can tell the

School Board to go to jail rather than obey the law of theland. None of these things are likely to happen inAlachua County for a very simple reason. We are notthat kind of folk."

Two months later, after the "incomprehensible" didhappen, he wrote: "A dream we cherished, shattered,ashes on our tongue, shame and disappointment, andrevulsion too, spirit shriveled, self-blame that racialequality we helped inspire should abort into bloodshed,head averted to hide our tears."

Davis wrote as a southerner directly addressing othersoutherners, which gave him some standing. "I always feltlike, in writing those editorials and catching the flak likewe did, that they couldn’t accuse me of being a Yankeecoming in and telling them what to do," he said in arecent interview at his Gainesville home. "I considered ita big asset to come from this culture, in writing in thatway, a really big asset."

Davis,now 80 and retired, was an unlikely lookinggladiator: short and a bit rounded, a dimpled smile, a pinpoint glint in the eye, and a Cracker twang revealing hisrural South Georgia-North Florida upbringing. Uponfirst meeting him, the uninitiated might accept his claimto be just a boy from the boondocks, "a fellow fromStarke." But, readers of his editorials and students in hisjournalism classes learned otherwise. In a three-decadecareer, this philosopher, humorist, muckraker, educator,and craftsman trained and inspired many who went on tobe top Florida journalists-and he took on Jim Crow.

However, Davis is not cited in the history books forhis role as one of the southern newspaper editorialistswho, at the risk of being shot or run out of town, arguedfor civil rights. Perhaps this is because Florida is not con-

24 FORUM FLORJDAHUMANITIESCOUNcFL SPRING 2004

sidered part of the Deep South, where most of the headlined civil-rights confrontations occurred. Maybe it’sbecause Davis-who began writing editorials in 1962-didn’t receive the Pulitzer until 1971, after the key years

of the civil-rights era. Maybe it’s because Davis wrote fora 24,000-circulation newspaper not well known outsideof the community it served. The late Ralph McGill, editor of the Atlanta Constitution and arguably the mostfamous on this honored list, was known as "the conscience of the South." By contrast, somebody once calledDavis "the conscience of North Central Florida."

But those who know Davis and Florida don’t hesitateto place him in the pantheon of journalists who transcended the belief system of their southern culture andattempted to use their platforms to advance racial tolerance.

"Buddy’s from that same gene pool, although hedenies it in his blessedly ornery way," said Robert Pierce,

retired UF journalism professor and longtime Davis colleague and friend. "I’ve studied the subject considerably.He’s right in there with Ralph McGill, Hodding Carter,Jr. of the Delta Democrat-limes in Greenville, Miss.,and Harry Ashmore of the Arkansas Gazette in LittleRock. His very Pulitzer puts him in their company."

How did this "gene pool" happen to spring up in various parts of the South? Some take the long view, seeingit in terms of the southern progressive movement thatbegan after the Civil War. Others attribute it to formative influences in the lives of some southern journalistswho lived through the Depression and World War II. Alook at Davis’s background reveals a hardscrabble childhood that lefr scars and empathy for the downtrodden;early-life experience living in close proximity withAfrican Americans and getting to know them as individuals; and exposure to different ideas and other culturesthrough military duty overseas, voracious reading, and

SPRING 2004 FLORIDAHuMANIrIEScOuNcIL FORUM 25

r: i:t H: BLACKformal studies in college. See accompanying article.

"These editors, and all others in these years,faced daily decisions on covering and commentingon the most important running news story sinceslavery," David R. Davies wrote in The PressandRace, which focused on Mississippi journalists."Some parted with their neighbors, advertisers andreaders to defend some element of black rights.Others minored their white readership with evengreater resolve. All of the editors responded to thecivil rights movement according to the particularcircumstances of their communities and the contoursof their own individual personalities."

Buddy Davis used typical humor in describing hisintellectual metamorphosis to Ann Wayne Mikell,who wrote In RighteousDissent:A Profile of SouthernReformerHG. "Buddy" Davis: "Had it not been forWorld War II, the GI Bill, and college, he probablywould have been fated, he said, to pump gas, night-ride with the Ku Klux Klan, and sell moonshine onthe side."

It was through endless hard work that Davis built alegacy not only as a renowned teacher, but also as aformidable editorialist who crafted an anecdotal-attimes almost poetic-style reflecting his roots in therural South, while offering searing insight. His editorialswere hard-hitting, pomposity-piercing, witty, and philosophical. He named names, dealt in specifics, and especially held politicians accountable.

"Buddy is one of the last of the original voices," EdJohnson, editor of the Sun during much of Davis’s tenurethere, told Mikell.

Davis’s moonlighting work as an editorial writerbegan in 1962, shortly after Cowles Communicationsbought the Gainesville Sun. At that time, according toDavis, the Sun was a laissez-faire,conservative publicationrunning innocuous editorials and nothing on race. Thenew Sun management hosted a luncheon with UF’s journalism faculty and invited editorial contributions. Davistook them up on this, and he was pleased to see that theSun ran his editorials without altering the copy or limiting the topics. He was paid $7.50 for each.

Thus began a 25-year "second career" writing editorials, which Davis did during late nights, early mornings,and weekends, while continuing to work as a full-timejournalism professor at UF and raising a family. By 1967,he was writing virtually all of the Sun’s editorials on adaily basis, while still carrying a full teaching load. Davisfound that the work meshed well; his editorial writingkept him current in the profession, providing real-worldexperiences that he, in turn, could use to illustrate journalistic principles in his classes.

Johnson, a Navy veteran who’d been Davis’s studentin the 1950s, became editor of the Sun in 1963, movingthere from an editing post at the Tampa Tribune. He andDavis drew up a liberal, activist editorial policy devoted

: WHITE_______________

alight on the Bloom

A brisk warm breezeswept the GatflevJllt High SebOol

catnp"S late Thursday morning and the dogVJOOd petals fell to

the ground and were swept along like rollick’fl% children In

search of Easter eggs

Here and there a mainteflanre worker cv aed fr’ on

lug to another on some nameless task but there was a j3tutbig

imcomPteeess an odd desolation unexplatned until we realised

the parking lot was vacant.

Where were the boy’ and gIrls?

The boys and girls were at hornS Or roaminS the streets A

good many loitered oataide the Poflee Department on Sixth

Street and a few were bleeding in the erge7KY Room at

Alachun General.The incomprehtn5i had haPPen

Hoots and holtera. a ConSeflth flag, angered words end

angrier blows, pipes and shoes as handy wesP0"’ a fallen school

official the target of vicious attack, polite with ouqeefllng

tools.Racial strife.

A dream we cheriShed. shattered, eahea on Our tongue’ shame

and dSapPOi0tmhtt and revulsion too, spiflt shñvtted. ecU-

blame that racial equality we helped jnspire should abo’t into

blood5h head averted to hide our tears.

The blarnet

* place it on those of vs who think we c°t exist as two

societies lack and white_Slid who hold the golden hope that

our land is a just land whete a man’s worth is n’eastlre’l by the

sweat upon his brow and not the color of the brow itself.

* Place it on the federal court, which ordered 580 Lincoln

High students to join 2$0O at GaiscifYitte High last FebruarY 1.

* Place it upon the George Wallaces and later Maddoxea

and the Claude Kicks who have scourged this land in self-Serfl

dnperatloE plate it upon the subtle hostility of the ,egrtgatlOfl

aca4emieSM the vacillfl° of Richard Nixon

* Place it upon the upplty blacks and the militant languBfl

and uncouth conduct and bookle lung btkWardM and cul

tural lag.* Place it upon cocky whites. ,ne.flrltism, don’t take any

lip, shove it down his throat, the? can’t do that to us, get a club,

stomp* Place it upon us elders who do nothing or have nothing

worth1lt to say and wring our bands and yearn for those hal

cyon days when the railroads ran on time and the world stayed

glued 0getherScapegoats we can find aplenty. Who is blameless. indeesP

SwmIkW the gall, look long at the kid who stAyed behind his

desk. brush awaY the spectre of blACk.White polarization, try to

return to the world where horror i the idnlght movie and dog

wood pets apeacef oily ripen and drop gently to the ground.

The dogwood will blossom again. And there’s work to be

done

::

rial, Davis articulated this in dreform. In a 1964 edito

believer in equal rights as ascrlhin the Sun "as a

ignorant, as an enemy of corender of the poor and

public dialogue."ruption, and as a tool for

With few exceptio T 1-

off policy that allowedg johnson maintained a hands-

this charge as he saw fit. Thee freedom to carry out

granted its newspapers lo 1owles ownership, which

content, did the same-even keeping from Davis the fact

March 28, 19W

26 FORUM FLOPJDAHU?lANmts couNciL I SPRING 2004

FROM THE BEGINNING, DAVISEDITORIALIZED IN SUPPORT OFCIVIL RIGHTS. JUSTAS HE TAUGHTHIS STUDENTS IN EDITORIALWRITING CLASSES, HE BUILT HISARGUMENTS ON FACTS ANDLOGIC, WHICH HE BELIEVEDWERE MORE PERSUASIVE THANEMOTION.

that some advertisers dropped their patronage and someangry rural residents canceled their subscriptions. It wasyears later, Davis said, when he learned "that in thenorth end of the county, subscriptions fell like leaves."Johnson and the Cowles management "demonstrated thecourage of my convictions," Davis is fond of saying. Thishacking, he said, was key to his success. He oncedescribed Johnson, a Florida native, as an editor "willingto assume the role of a 500-pound marshmallow withhair, absorbing all the complaints and blows and cheese

Davis with a student left, and the GainesvilleSun editorial of March 28, 1970 opposite page.

nibbling which resulted from my belaboringpublic issues."

From the beginning, Davis editorialized insupport of civil rights. Just as he taught hisstudents in editorial-writing classes, he builthis arguments on facts and logic, which hebelieved were more persuasive than emotion.He used this tactic in the early 1960s whenarguing in favor of a bond issue to fund asewer system in Gainesville’s black section,where there was poor drainage in the out-houses and contamination of water wells. Bylaw, the only people allowed to vote on theissue were specially registered property owners, i.e., the city’s white "crème de a crème," ashe put it in his memoir. So he pointed out inhis editorial that the people who lived in theblack section were the city’s "maids and foodhandlers." The sewer issue passed.

Davis used such logic again in discussingthe death of a black man who’d been shot inthe back by police after he’d broken a

Jacksonville store window, grabbed a TV, and started running away. "That was not a death offense," Davis wrote.

H e used his credibility as a southerner, himself,to appeal to the better nature of people whenthe darker, segregationist side of the Southreared up. He did this when Robert Scott, ablack man who was elected to the city council

in the North Florida town of Lawtey, woke up to find a12-foot flaming cross in his front yard. Scott decided toquit, saying, "It ain’t worth it." Davis wrote an editorialsaying that the good people of Lawtey "know violentintimidation has no color harriers.. see the flaming crossas a grotesque perversion of Christ’s martyrdom onGolgotha and concluded: "No Yankee lawyer here tointercede. No NAACP agent in the cornfields. No pickets in the streets. No National Guardsmen vigilant. Noone here but the people of Lawtey-including RobertScott." Prevailed upon to remain in office, Scott was reelected to that position for some 20 years. For that editorial and others written in 1963, Davis won nationalawards from the Society of Professional Journalists andthe Sidney Hillman Foundation.

In addition to civil rights, Davis also took early andforceful stands on other major issues of the day, for example, opposing the Vietnam War in 1967. By 1970, whenthe U.S. Supreme Court ordered immediate school desegregation, Davis had been writing Sun editorials for eightyears and had established a reputation in the community

SPRING 2Q04 FLOPJDAI-IUMAN1T1ESc0UNCIL FORUM 27

for liberal, progressive stands.He’d also worked his way up to arate of $17.50 per editorial. Theseries of desegregation editorialsthat won him a Pulitzer articulatedthe community’s confusion and setout logical courses of action. Theyalso took on Florida Gov. ClaudeKirk, who had pounded on courthouse doors, suspended a schoolboard to prevent busing, and confronted U.S. marshals. Davis wrotethat Kirk was "braying like a donkey fresh out of oats," and was a"hypocrite" who previously hadappeared to take the high road onracial issues, hut now was posturing for re-election.

In one editorial, Davis wrote:"That one-of-a-kind whitesupremacist George Wallace has amonkey caged in his backyard upin Alabama, and newsman NickThimmesch asked Wallace aboutthe monkey’s name. ‘Claude Kirk,’said Wallace. We came close totossing that item into the trashbasket, figuring that our GovernorKirk would never do anything todeserve retelling such a story. Butsomething stayed our hand, andnow we are glad."

In another editorial, hedescribed Kirk and some otheranti-desegregation politicians as"magnolia eaters," a made-up termhe derived from "opium eaters,"addicts starting in 17th-centuryIndia and Persia who ate opiumand had hallucinations andgrotesque ideas. Davis wrote:"Somebody wrote a play aboutGovernor Lester Maddox ofGeorgia which expressed Maddox’shigh regard for ‘my white friends,regardless of race, color or creed.’Such magnolia eaters have beencrawling out of the Florida woodwork in droves... led by the mastergobbler Claude Kirk." Davis was

known for creating his own vernacular at times; he was creditedin national publications for creating the term, "Joe Sixpack."

Davis laughed heartily whenasked recently if he’d enjoyed writ-

WHITEing such critiques. "Oh, definitely,yes, yes, yes," he said. "It’s alwaysbeen fun, even when they werepowerful figures." But he emphasized that his underlying reason forwriting this way was serious: Hefelt such broadsides were moreeffective in promoting changethan were polite, abstract discussions of issues. By personally naming and provoking powerful figures, he could push them ro thinkabout his positions, he said. Herecounted a proud moment in theearly 1970s, when he learned thatU.S. Sen. Ed Gurney, of Florida,was carrying around dog-eared,folded-and-refolded, clippings ofcritical editorials Davis had written about him. In a meeting withDavis’s boss, press baron GardinerCowles, Gurney had pulled theseout of his pocket and complained.Davis said, "He’d been carryingthese things around with him.They’d been eating at him, whichis exactly what 1 wanted to do."

What drove Davis was a desireto shape society, to bring aboutreform. Over the years, readersslammed his editorials for beingtoo liberal-and for not being liberal enough. He also received hateletters and threats of violence. Buthe continued, he said, because hewanted "to deal with things thatmattered."

"Being a little controversialnever has bothered me, and I’mstill a little controversial with letters to the editor and stuff likethat," he said. "War experiencemay have a little something to dowith this. When you feel like yousurvive something like that, why,you want to make life worthwhile.That’s more or less what it boilsdown to."

BARBARAFORUM, is adjunct instructorofjournalism and coordinator of theNeighborhoodNewsBureauat theliniversiry of South Florida St.Petersburg.

He Suffered Hardship,Grew into Reformer

uddy Davis, born HoranceG, Davis, Jr. in Manchester,Ga.. in 1924. has described

himself as a product "of hardtimes and migrant railroaders."His paternal grandfather had amortgaged, two-mule farm in TiftCounty and worked alongsideblack sharecroppers. His maternal grandfather was a railroadman who lost a leg in a trainwreck. His father scrambled forjobs during the Depression,driving a truck, working at a gas station, selling insurance.

His parents divorced when hewas 6, and he becamea "landlessurban street brat" inJacksonville, Fla., for sixDepression years while his mother worked long hours in Lerner’sclothing store downtown. "I hadnot yet lost myself in books,"Davis recalled in an unpublished

ir memoir he wrote in 2000. "So Iwas acutely aware of being a liability, alert to the fact that it wasme and Mama against a worldwith very sharp edges."Books

: becamean escapefrom hisharsh reality, and he becameareading "addict," supporting hishabit by scrounging coat hangers door-to-door, which he tradedfor used books from a dealer,who, in turn, probably sold thehangers to cleaning establishments.

Davis’s mother remarriedwhen he was 12. and his stepfather becameeducational directorfor Raiford Prison, moving thefamily to the North CentralFlorida town of Starke. "Therewere always black people in thehouse," Davis said in an interview. Somewere convictswhocooked or did yard work. He gotto know them, listened to theirstories, and witnessed the injustices against them, first-hand.

BI..S1CK&

I

O’REILLEY, editor of

28 FORUM FLORJDAHUMANITiEScOuNciL SPRING 2004

"We lived with them. We didnthate them," he said.

Davis was uprooted fromsmall-town life when he joinedthe war effort in 1943,Heshipped out to the Pacific as abombardier and flew eight missions.While in the Army, he metpeoplefrom all over America.with backgrounds and world-views quite different from hisown. After the war, he used theG.I. Bill to earn bachelor’s andmaster’s degreesat UF. In addition to journalism, he tookmany coursesin the religion department. For atime, he considered goinginto the ministry; "butquickly realized that consoling people and preaching homilies was not mybag. I needed anoutletwith meat," he wrote in aletter quoted in Ann WayneMikell ‘s In RighteousDissent:A Profile ofSouthern Reformer H.G."Buddy" Davis.He settledon journalism, a career inwhich he hoped to do somegood.

After a few yearsas areporter, covering rural Northflorida and then the state capital for the Jacksonville Times-Union, he accepteda teachingjob in the UF journalism department. This was the beginning ofa 31-year teaching career thatmade him virtually an icon tomany who went on to be topjournalists in Florida and elsewhere. ifis coursesin reporting,editorial writing, photography,and other subjects weredescribed by survivors as journalistic boot camps in which heused his military training toestablish high standards andinsist on hard work. He spicedhis class discussionswithinsights into philosophy, history,political science,and literature,

_____

DAVIS IS CREDITED AS ONE OFEarly In his career,.u4dy Davis right,

A SMALL GROUP OF at typewnter wGrks as a reporter in

INDIVIDUALS WHO HELPED the Tallahassee bureau of the

BRING ABOUT TI-fE 1967He is shawn

ENACTMENTOF THE PORTION !‘ p

__________

OF FLORIDA’S SUNSHINE LAWDIRECTING THAT THE PUBLIC’SBUSINESS MUST BE CONDIJCTED IN PUBLIC.

threw in a lot of personalstories, and brought in a touch ofstreet theater.

As a young man, he wrote"An Educator’s Prayer" in a column for the UF student newspaper. the Alligator: "Give me theforesight to train my students incritical thought and values oflife. Let me realize that ideasare as potent as bullets-thatwords are merely the shells forthe thought behind them." Alterhe’d beenteaching for manyyears and won the Pulitzer foreditorial writing. UF promotedDavis to its highest faculty rank,Distinguished Service Professor.In 1983.the AssociatedPressManaging Editors named himone of 10 top journalism educa

tors in the country.Davis is credited as one of a

small group of individuals whohelped bring about the 1967enactment of the portion ofFlorida’s Government in theSunshineLaw directing that thepublic’s businessmust be conducted in public. In the earlyl960s, Davis supplied then-Rep.J. Emory "Red" Cross with amodel open-meetingslaw drawnup by the Society forProfessional Journalists, according to Davis’s memoir. At thattime, it was common knowledgethat secretmeetingswere thenorm for many public bodies;and Davis editorialized againstthis practice. Cross thenintroduced an open-meetingsbill inevery sessionof the Legislatureuntil, after reapportionmentreduced the powerof the NorthFlorida conservative "PorkChop" gang, the bill waspassed,

-Barbara O’Reilley

4..

SPRING 2004 FLORIDAHUFtANITIESc0uNcIL FORUM 29

I I

Thkincr theRoadto

? FreedomBy Raymond Arsenault

busesto testdesegregationcompliancein the South.Face-offsresultedin jail time forsomein florida

During the summer of1961, agroup of activistswilling torisk injury and evendeathwaged a campaignto toppleone of thesegregatedSouth’s

most gratuitousforms of discrimination. By merely sitting in the frontsectionof a bus orby orderinga cupof coffee ata racially segregatedlunch counter,theseFreedomRiders,as they came to beknown, provokeda stormof controversythat forced thenewly elected Kennedyadministration to address the deeplyrootedyes’tiges of Jim Crowsegregation.

Sponsoredprimarily by theCongressof RacialEquality CORE,a 40-year-oldcivil rights organizationdedicatedto nonviolentdirectaction, the FreedomRiders set out inMay 1961 to testcompliancewithtwo U.S.SupremeCourt decisionsthat mandateddesegregationof inter’state bus travel. The Riders, including bothblacks andwhites,got onbuses and headedsouth.

Within weeks, theyencounteredviolent resistanceby angry mobs ofwhite supremacists andarrestsby thepolice. By earlyJune,more than100FreedomRiders languishedinMississippijails. Many expectedthemovementto collapsein the face ofsuch spirited opposition.Others,however, suspectedthe movementwas quietly gaining force in spiteofmassiveresistanceandpredictedthatthe struggle would soonspread to

otherpartsof the segregatedSouth,perhapsevenas far southas Florida.They were right.

COREsentpolitical shock wavesdownthe southeasternseaboardat anewsconferenceheld on June12.COREfield secretaryGenevieveHughesannouncedthe departureoftwo FreedomRides,both culminatingin Florida. The first group,consistingof clergy members, agreed toundertake an"Interfaith FreedomRide"from Washingtonto Tallahassee.Thesecondgroup of 15 mappeda moreeasterlyroute throughNorthCarolina,South Carolina,on toJacksonville,andending in St.Petersburg.

Both groups reachedtheir first’night stopoversin North Carolinawithout any major problems.TheInterfaith group spent thenight inRaleigh,while the secondgroupstayed inWilmington, where a surlycrowd of 150 white protestersawaitedthem outsidethe localbus station.But a strong police presence keptthecrowd athay.The nextmorning, theWilmington Riders splitinto twogroups,planning to reunite inCharleston,where,as elsewhereinSouth Carolina, the Ridersreceivedwhat one reportercalled"a cool butorderly reception."

Meanwhile,the Interfaith Ridersmadetheir way to Sumter,S.C.,where they weregreetedby severallocal COREstalwarts,including the

Activists rode

SPRING 2004 FL0R’DAHuMANtT’Es OUNiL FORUM 31

veteranFreedomRider HermanHarris. The Ridershadbeenwarnedthat the townwas fraught with tension stemmingfrom Harris’s claimthat he hadbeenabductedandassaultedby four Klansmen.Harrissaid he was blindfolded and takentoan isolatedclearingin the woodswhere hewas subjectedto a night ofterror: After forcing him to strip, hisassailantscarvedcrossesand theletters "KKK" into his legs andchestand threatenedto castratehim forchallenging white supremacistorthodoxy. Even thoughhis abductorsvowed tokill him if he reportedwhathad happened,Harriseventuallyasked theJusticeDepartmentto conduct an investigation.

In this atmosphere,someform ofconfrontationwas virtually inevitable.A few miles north of town, whenstoppingfor lunch at the EvansMotor Court, the Ridersencountered"twenty or thirty toughs" and anangry proprietorwho blocked theirpath. The motel proprietorinformedthem that he had "nocontract withGreyhound"and that he was "notsubject" to anySupremeCourt decisions. Thenhe drawled:"We beensegregated, andthat’s the way wegonnastay." Momentslater, the localsheriff stepped forward tobackhimup, literally shouting,"You heard theman. Now move along.I’m ready todie beforeI let you crossthis door."As the stunnedRiders quicklyconsidered their options,anotherlocal man

bragged:"I got a snake inmy truckover thereI’m just dyin’ to let looseamong themnigger lovin’Northerners."Even this threatfailedto cow some membersof theInterfaith group, but the majority prevailed andall 18 Riders re-boardedthe bus. Later, the Ridershad notrouble desegregatingthe busterminal, andtheir spirits were furtherrenewedat anextendedmass meetingat a local black church.

ust beforemidnight theRiders pressed on toSavannah,where theyfoundthe local bus terminals fullyintegrated,at least for themoment. In Jacksonville,the

Ridersshareda breakfastwith aninterracial group ofNAACP activists.Theseself-styled"fact-finders"wereessentiallylocal FreedomRiders whotraveledaroundthe statetestingvariousfacilities. The unexpectedlycordial receptionthey and theInterfaithRiders receivedin Jacksonvillereflected days of behind-the-scenesmaneuveringby Florida Gov. FarrisBryant. Earlier in theweek U.S.Atty.Gen.RobertKennedycalled Bryantto urge him to avoid any unnecessaryconfrontationswith the Riders, and

Bryant took the advice toheart.Accordingly, he dispatchedrepresentativesto eachof the majorcommunities along the route theRiders weretaking. In Florida, unlike Alabama,the official policy was polite indifference,a strategycalculatedby a governor who did not want his state to endup in the national headlines.Bryantdecidedthat the best wayto preservesegregationwas to makesurethat theFreedomRiders traversedthe statewithout provoking open hostility orviolence.

This goal seemedwell in reachasthe Interfaith Riders headedwesttowardTallahasseeon the final leg oftheir journey. Along the way they raninto a hit of trouble in the townofLake City, wherewaitressesrefusedtoserve a racially mixed group.Theyencounteredless hostility thanwasexpectedat the TallahasseeTrailwaysterminal,but laterat the Greyhoundterminal they sidesteppeda crowd ofangryprotesters,two of whomattackedan interracial testingteamtrying to desegregatea white restroom. Fortunately,with the grudgingassistanceof the Tallahasseepolice, asecondattempt to desegregate therestroomprovedsuccessful.

In the terminal restaurant,the

Sevenof the ‘TallahasseeTen’ aboveafter their release from jail. CORE director

James lanner right organized the Riders.

Ralph Abernathy and the Rev Martin

Luther Ring, Jr. far right in St. Augustine.

32 FORUM FLORIDAHuMANIriEs couNciL SPRING 2004

LC ‘- The Road to Freedom

Riders headedwest toward

Tallahasseeon the final leg

of their journey. Along the

way they raninto a bit of

trouble in the town of Lake

City, where waitresses

refusedto serve a racially

mixed group.

managementsaw to it that blackFreedomRiderswere servedby blackwaiters and whiteRiders by whitewaiters. But the fact that all of theRiderswere served in the same roomtook at leastsomeof the sting out ofwhat was clearly a half-heartedeffortat compliancewith federallaw.Satisfiedthat they hadestablishedantntegrationistbeachheadin Florida’scapital, theInterfaith Riders decidedto fly home that afternoon.

Accompanied by several localblack activists, the Riders arrived atthe Tallahasseeairport in time toconducta testat the airport’s whiterestaurant. Constructed withthe help

of federalfunds, but managedby aprivate company, therestaurant hadneverservedblack patrons.That segregateddining was still the rule onJune 15 becameabundantlyclearwhenlocal authoritiesstymiedtheproposedtestby simply closingtherestaurantas soonas the Ridersarrived at the airport. Tired anddisgusted, eight of theRiders flew homeas planned.The other 10, however,decidedto remainat the airport untilthe restaurantreopened. Among the10 were a theologian,four ministers,and threerabbis.

While initially reportedas ahungerstrike, thegoal was to breakthe local color barby eating togetherat the airport restaurant.A JusticeDepartmentofficial concededthatenforcingdesegregationat aviationfacilities was a "knotty problem."Butsuch legalismswere of little concernto thesestubbornprotesterswho,facedby an angry crowdof whites,refused to budgeuntil the airportclosed at midnight.

The nextmorning, they returnedto the airport to resume the vigiloutside the terminal restaurant.Joinedbyseveral localactivistsand surroundedby police and a bevy of reporters, theyremainedtherefor nearlyfive hours.After nervouslymonitoring the situation throughoutthe morning,GovernorBryant calledAttorneyGeneralKennedy to ask for help."You’ve got to get thesepeopleoutofhere," Bryant pleaded,"I’ve doneall I

can do." Concernedaboutthe safetyof the Riders andfearful that he hadanotherwhite supremacistsiegeonhis hands,KennedyaskedBryant tohold things togetherfor an hour ortwo while he tried topersuadetheRiders to suspendtheir protest.Minutes later, a statedepartmentofficial was on thephonewith JohnCollier, one ofthe FreedomRiders,hut their brief conversationendedabruptlywhenTallahasseeCity Arty.James Messerorderedthe Riders toleave theairport within 15 seconds.Whenthey stoodtheir ground, thepolice moved in andarrestedthem forunlawful assembly.The police alsoarrestedthree local civil rights leaders: COREveteranPriscilla Stephens;the Rev. Stephen Hunter;andJeffPoland,a studentsit-in organizer atFloridaState University. Stephens-who alongwith Polandhad onlyrecently beenreleasedfrom jail-objectedto the arrests.As a result,the policechargedherwith interfering with an officer andresistingarrest.

By mid-afternoon,all 13 defendantswere ensconcedin the city jail,a run-downandovercrowdedfacility."The conditionsin the jail wereforeboding,"Ralph Roy, one of thedefendants,wrote later. "Our blackcolleagues wereseparatedfrom us, ofcourse,thoughwe could communicateby yelling through a wall dividing us by race. They were receivedasheroes amongtheir fellow prisoners.In contrast,inmateswith us were initially hostile. We were, to mostofthem, interlopersfrom the north,even damnabletraitors to the whiterace...We were crowdedinto an areadesignedto housetwenty-four andthere were,altogether,fifty-seven.Therewas onesink, one toilet, andone shower...The food was slop."

While Stephens,Hunter, Poland,andthe "TallahasseeTen," as theycameto call themselves,were dealingwith the miserableconditionsin jail,otherFreedomRiders were runninginto trouble in Ocala,GovernorBryant’s hometown.Whensevenblack Riders tried to entera cafeteriaat the Greyhoundstationthere,two

This goal seemedwell in

reachas the Interfaith

SPRING 2004 FLORiDAHuMANiTiEScOUNOL FORUM 33

TheRoadtoFreedom r -1 . c. ,J,,4 i

white menshoved them backwards.The police immediatelyintervened,ordering the Riders to returnto thebus. But threeof the Riders refusedto comply with the order.Chargedwith unlawful assemblyand failure toobey a police officer, they werereleased on bondlater in the day. Bythat timetheir fellow Riders hadsuccessfullydesegregated theOcalaterminal’swhite restrooms,and wereheadingsouthwardto Tampaand St.Petersburg.

t. Petersburgwas a community that recentlyhadbeenrockedby a controversyover the proposeddesegregationof housingaccommodationsfor major

leagueballplayersinvolved in springtraining. As the Riders arrived at thedowntownGreyhoundstation, onewhite man was arrestedfor harassinga local black ministerwho was partof a welcomingcommittee.But otherwise the city took the arrival of theRiders in stride, thanks in part to theproddingof the St. PetersburgTimes,the state’smost liberaldaily newspaper. After eating lunchat theGreyhoundstationwithout incident,four of the Ridersparticipatedin anafternoonworkshopat a local blackBaptistChurch.During theworkshop,Ralph Diamond,a black laborleader fromNew York City, urgedlocal activiststo build upon thepositive experienceof the FreedomRiders in St. Petersburg. "We willlose what we’ve gainedif this is notfollowed up locally," Diamonddeclared."It must get to the pointwhere it will becomea natural thingfor the two races to sittogetheratcounters."

That evening, the Rev. WilliamSmith, presidentof the biracial St.PetersburgCouncil on HumanRelations,repeatedDiamond’s warning to an integratedaudienceat amassmeeting: "Unlesswe continuethe work ofthesecourageouspeopleby using all the facilities of ourbusstations,"the blackminister exhorted,"I’m afraid theFreedomRiders’s

With this limited-but-

significant victory, the civil

rights movementgained

strengthand momentumas

it refocusedon the many

remainingchallengesposed

by both law and custom.

trip may havebeenin vain." Twodays later, after the Riders flew backto New York, the St. PetersburgTimesoffered a congratulatoryeditorial."We did not expectany troublehere," the editors insisted, "Wedidn’t get it. And hadit come, lawenforcementwas ready.This is ahealthy situationof which we canallbe proud...We can’t afford, for ourown good, to permit unconstitutional practices,head-turninglawenforcement, discrimination,andviolenceanywherein this country."

The conclusionof the Florida

FreedomRideswas less satisfying forthe TallahasseeTen. During theirtrial, the threelocal defendants-Stephens,Poland, andHunter-wereacquitted.But JudgeJohnRuddwasunmovedby the defense of theout-of-townerswho attemptedtodesegregatethe airport restaurant.Offering the Riders a choicebetween30 days in jail or a $500 fine, Ruddscoldedthem for coming toTallahassee"for the whole purposeofforcing your views on the community. If I thoughtfor oneminutethatyou camehereon a noble, Christianpurposeand actedaccordingly,"Rudd continued,"you would not behere now. Stop and think whenyougo back home,and checkthe recordsof crime, prostitution and racial strifetherecomparedto Tallahassee.Thencleanup your own parishes,andyou’ll find you havemore thanyoucan take careof."

Stephensreceivedan evenharsherpunishment.Thoughacquitted on the unlawful assemblycharge,shewasconvictedof resistingarrestandsentencedto five days in jail,plus 30 more for violating probationrelatedto a 1960 sit-in conviction.Stephensappealedher conviction,asdid theTallahasseeTen, and thelegal wrangling over theairportarrestscontinuedfor threeyears.

A sign reading closedfor cleaning purposes’ goes up as blacks take

seats at the W,T. Grant department store lunch counter in Tampa, 1960.

34 FORUM FLORiDAHuMANO1EScOUNciL SPRING 2004

Although a statecircuit courtoverturnedStephens’sconviction, theFreedomRiders casedraggedonuntil 1964,when thesamecircuitcourt judge deniedtheir appeal.Atthat point most of the 10 defendantschoseto pay their fines, hutsome returnedto Tallahasseetoservebriefjail terms.

The Florida FreedomRidesrepresenta brief-but-telling episodein the long strugglefor civil rightsin the state.In conjunctionwithsimilar efforts in othersouthernstates,theFlorida FreedomRidesdramatizedthe injusticesof JimCrow transit, promptingfederalofficials to reexaminethe politicaland moral viability of continueddiscrimination. Forcedto confrontthe issue, theJusticeDepartmentbelatedlypressuredthe InterstateCommerce Commissionto issue asweepingtransit desegregationorderin September1961. By November1, the effective date ofthe order,the "Whites Only" and"ColoredOnly" signs thathadadornedbusstation walls sincethe early-2Othcentury weregone;and in thedaysandweeksthat followed, teamsof"testers" in Florida and elsewhereencounteredstirprisingly littleresistanceto desegregation amonginterstatepassengers.

Travel on public transportationwithin the state,however, remainedrigidly segregateduntil after thepassageof the 1964 Civil RightsAct, as did mostother publicaccommodations. Desegregationininterstatetravel, though, soonbecamea fact of life. And with thislimited-but-significant victory, thecivil rights movementgainedstrengthandmomentumas it refocusedon the many remainingchallengesposedby both law and custom. By challengingthe statusquothroughdirect action, the FreedomRides not only acceleratedthe paceof changebut they alsoexpandedthe realm of the possible.

RAYMOND ARSENAULT is theJohnHope Franklin ProfessorofSouthernHistory at the University ofSouthFlorida Sr. Petersburg.

SPRING 2004 FLORIDAHuMANITIEScOuNcIL FORUM 35

ne picture-postcardMiami of 1950 was alush, stin-drenchedparadise,thenation’s toptourist destinationand,presumably,a free

wheelingplace of leisure and fun. Butthe realMiami shared most of thepolitical, cultural, and racialattributesof theDeep South.Embeddedtraditionsof racial segregationanddiscriminationshapedthe city’s housing patterns,its job market, its political system,andevery otheraspectoflife. White supremacistseasily resorted toviolenceto maintain the colorline.

As the decadegot underway,however,postwarmigration from theNorth becamea potent force forchange.Jewishmigration, especially,beganto alter the city’s populationpatternsand socialdynamics.TheJewishnewcomersbrought traditionsof social justice andprogressivepolitics. When they encounteredracialsegregationand anti-SemitisminMiami, some werespurredto joinAfrican Americansin civil-rightsactivism.

The stagewas set fora political

clash that would make Miami centralto the civil rightsstrugglein Florida.After the momentous1954 U.S.SupremeCourt decisionoutlawingsegregationin schools, racialissuesheatedup quickly in this southern

Building on the intensity of theschool issue,the white citizens’ council movementflourished in Miami,claiming more than 15,000 members.Somethingof a new Ku Klux Klan indisguise,thesecouncilsdistributedsegregationistand anti-Semiticliterature, resistedschool integration, andgenerally stirredracehatred throughout the l9SOs andafter.

As the councilsbeganorganizinggrassrootsoppositionto schooldesegregation,the FloridaLegislaturelauncheda McCarthyire witch-hunting campaign,looking especiallyforcommunistsin the Miami NAACP.Establishedin 1956, the FloridaLegislative InvestigationCommitteeFLIC targetedthe Miami NAACPbecause itslegal challengeto continued schoolsegregationin DadeCounty threatenedto unravelFlorida’s deliberateefforts to keepblacks and whites out of thesame

schools and classrooms.Ruth W. Perry, vice

presidentof the MiamiNAACP, explainedtheissuein a 1958 letter toRoy Wilkins, executivesecretaryofthe nationalNAACP: The FLICinvestigators"centered theiractivitymostly in the Miami area because ofour school suit, and later ourbus andgolf suits," Perry wrote."Again thereis no doubt in my mind that thiscommitteewas set up for the expresspurposeof putting the NAACP out ofbusiness in Florida,and to try to seriously cripple the Miami branchbecausewe havean integratedmembership."The Miami NAACP foughthack in the courts,frustrating the legislative red-hunterswho sought itsmembershiplists. But theorganization remaineda consistenttargetofFlorida’s white supremacists.Segregationistsand integrationistsbothassumedthe centrality of Miamito Florida’s resistanceto civil rights.

In 1954, thesameyear as theschool-desegregationdecision,a DadeCounty anticommunistgrandjuryinvestigationheadedby state’sattorney George Brautigamsubpoenaed

BehindtheSunnyFaçadeMiami was key in Florida’s civil-rights struggle

By Raymond A. Mohi

city.

36 FORUM FLOpJDAHuMMSTIES couNciL I! SPRING 2004

1950Tota’

Population: Population:2,771,305 4,951,560

138 witnesses,all hut threeJewish.AsDeborahDash Moore notedin herstudy ofJews in Miami andLosAngeles,To the Golden Cities 1994,"Jews increasingly recognizedthat, inMiami, anticommunistinvestigationswere designedto thwart desegregation." The red-hunterstargetedleftwing Jewswho alwaysseemedto be atthe forefront of the tiny minority ofwhite Miamians pushingfor racialchange.For example,a small numberof Miami-areaJewsinvolved in progressivegroupssuch as the American

SPRING 2004 FLOREDAHuMANITLES COUNCIL FORUM 37

I ti tlic ‘i ‘t"

Veterans Committee and the even urging local rabbis to discussAmerican Civil LibertiesUnion, along with a few localrabbis,publicly supportedschool integration.In 1960,local businessmanJackD.Gordon, one of those Jewishactivists, ranfor election tothe DadeCounty SchoolBoard.

The 1960 schoolboardcampaignpolarized Miami.Gordon’sopponent,RepublicanbusinessmanArthur A. Atkinson, conducted a "Christian Crusade"supporting the continuationofBible-readingin the DadeCounty schools.This issuehad cometo a headbecausethe FloridaACLU, of whichGordonwas a founding member, had justfiled a law suit onbehalfof severalJewishparentsincluding Gordon’ssister-in-law,ThaliaStern challengingthe constitutionality of prayer andBible-readinginschools.TheAmericanJewishCongressin Miamihadjoined thelitigation as well, adecisionthat divided the MiamiJewish community.

The politicalfallout from the Bible-reading litigation camequickly. Gordon, whoadvocatedschool integration,wasaccusedby opponentsof "paving theway for atheismand thenCommunistteachingsby first destroyingall vestige of faith in the Almighty." Oneofthe Christian crusaderslater admittedto a Miami rabbi that they really didn’t think that Gordonwas a communist, hut that they did not "wantanotherJew onthe SchoolBoard."However, mostMiamians recognizedthe interlocking natureof theChristian crusadeand thebattleoverschool integration.That Gordon wasan activememberof the local branchof the Congress of RacialEquality,which had beenconductinglunch-

to a Miami rabbi that

they really didn’t think

that Gordon was a com

munist, but that they did

not "want another Jew on

the School Board."

countersit-ins for more than a year,also played into the calculationsofthe conservativeanti-integrationistssupportingAtkinson.

Gordonfought backeffectively,keepingthe focuson integration and

school issues in their synagoguesbefore theelection. Despite thevicious McCarthyite smearcampaign unleashedby Gordon’sopponents,voters senthim to afour-year term on theDadeCounty SchoolBoard and thenelectedhim again in 1964.During the ‘SOs and‘60s, Gordonput a public face onMiami’sJewishactivism,but healsoabsorbeda considerabledegreeofright-wing anger andhostility,including bomb threats.

Many of Miami’s progressiveJewsalso worked in thepoliticalcampaignsof a young Democraticstate legislatorfrom DadeCounty,JohnB. "Jack"Orr, theonly state-levelpolitician whospokeout forcefully in favor ofschool integrationin the mid1950s.On was triply damnedbyMiami right-wingers:He was amemberof the Miami NAACP,the Florida ACLU, and theFlorida Council on HumanRelations,an affiliate of theracially progressiveSouthernRegionalCouncil. As an attorney, and atsomerisk to his legalcareerin the city, Orr hadchallengedMiami’s anticommunistordinanceon behalfof a MiamiBeachJewish activist, AlRosenberg.Subsequently,Onrepresentedlocal Jewishcommunists jailed in the Brautigaminvestigation.Throughoutthe ‘SOs, Orr provid

ed legal representationto suchleft-liberal groupsas the Civil RightsCongress and theWomen’sInternationalLeaguefor Peace andFreedom.Orr was white, Christian,and a memberof a well-connectedMiami family. His fatherhad beenmayor ofMiami andhe, himself,would laterwin electionas mayor ofDade County. His stand on schoolintegrationdrew vicious attacksinlegislative campaignsin 1956 and1958. In an openlypolitical letter toall Dade County rabbis inSeptember1958,Jack Gordonreportedon theright-wing vilification of Orr: "JohnOrr placardshave beendefacedwiththe Jewish starscrawledon his face

John B. "Jack" Orr above wasa crusader for schoolintegration the ‘50s. TheMethodist White ‘lbmple in

Miami below, now torn down, was onceassociated

with KIUC rallys.

One of the Christian

crusaders later admitted

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Hate Letters ThrgetBlacks and Jews

fter the Miami and Mimsbombings of 1951, Coy.

uller Warren receiveddozens of letters attacking theNAACP as a dangerous communist, anti-American organization.Race-haters also targeted Jewishgroups such as the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL,one correspondent charged in a1951 letter to Warren, was "atrouble maker, a race and hatebreeder of the first rank, pro-communist and anti-Christian."As for the Carver Village andsynagogue bombings in Miami,"A Lover of the South" wrote:"Dear Governor don’t let that annoy you, whoever was behind that,had some reason. It keeps unruly niggers and scheeneys in place."The Miami bombings prompted similar expression from a third correspondent: "The Jew has already ruined the northern cities andwishes to invade the South... They are teaching Communism to thecolored people, and inciting rioting through them... They think ifthe colored riot and get the upper hand in the South they can movein." Typically, the bigotry expressed in these letters linked whiteracism, anti-Semitism, and anticommunism-a powerful combination in the South and in the United States generally in the I 950s.

These attitudes persisted even at the end of the 1950s. Coy.LeRoy Collins had been twice elected as a moderate segregationistin the mid-I 950s, but in a televised speech in 1960 he came out insupport of lunch-counter integration-a political turnabout thatunleashed a torrent of racial hatred. One Miamian bitterly complained, "The South is now on the cross, being crucified by thenorthern political mobs, by the NAACP, by the subversive SupremeCourt and Eisenhower administration, and by the Red sponsoredand financed sit-downs at lunch counters." Florida, this writer disapprovingly predicted, would soon "become the haven of equality forall peoples."

A Miami woman charged: "The Communists, NAACR and theJews" were promoting "the mongrelization of the White race." Stillanother Miami woman, who claimed to be a "former moderate" onrace relations, wrote, "k.K.K. has begun to develop a strangeappeal." Jews were attacked with particular relish: They createdand financed the NAACR sympathized with the Soviet Union, participated in a communist plot for "stirring up the Negro," and promoted "race-mixing." Moreover, everyone knew that "every Jeworganization in the country is behind the integration of the races."Others who wrote Governor Collins blasted the NAACP as a communist agency and called Thurgood Marshall and Martin Lutherking, Jr., "disciples of the Kremlin." The "left-wingers," "onewonders," and "Zionist-Jews" sought to "destroy America.. .and thewhite race everywhere." Another wrote: "In my opinion Florida ison the way out as a pleasure resort due to the heavy influx of Jews,Niggers, Cubans, and Porto Ricans [sic]."

-Raymond A. Mohl

and the hammerandsickleon his name.A note sheethas been distributedthroughout South Miami BeachaccusingJohn B. On and several membersof the rabbinateas being radicals whoareallied in aneffort to bringNegroes toMiami Beach."

Orr’s links to the MiamiNAACP were especiallydamaging to his 1958 legislativecampaign.The FLIC investigation of theNAACP wasinfull swing atthe time. TheMiami NAACP’s legal challenge to school segregationstirred up angry whiteparentswho supportedthe racial status quo. David Eldridge,Orr’sconservativeopponentin the

Democraticprimary election,playedthe racecard effectively. TheNAACP’s Ruth Perry, who analyzedthe election campaignfor thenationaloffice, reportedthat"Eldridge used all the tricks of thetrade,andpulled out all theold redherrings,andplayedall the southernbourbonmusic he couldfind... BothOrr and theNAACP were draggedthroughthe political mud, with theusual red tinge, theextremistslant,and the‘would you want yourdaughter’ themedevelopedto theutmost." Given the raciallychargedatmospherein Miami at the time,Orr’s stand in support of schoolintegration andhis connectionstoMiami’s black andJewishactivistsdictatedhis political defeat in1958.

Not surprisingly,given the timeandplace, the perceivedleft-wingJewishconnectionto civil rightsactivismhadexplosiveconsequences.In late 1951, a seriesofdynamite bombsdamaged severalJewishschoolsand synagogues,aswell as a largeapartmentcomplexundergoing transitionfrom white toblack residency.Linking neighborhood transitionswith Jewishactivism,the bomberstargetedblacksandJews as equally threatening to the color line. During thissameperiod, FloridaNAACP leaderHarry T. Moore andhis wife werekilled by a dynamitebombplaced

40 FORUM FLORIDAHuMANI11ESCOuNCIL SPRING 2004

beneaththeir homein the centralFlorida town of Mims.

In March 1958, a powerful dynamite blastdamagedthe religiousschool atMiami’s Temple Beth-El,revealingonceagain the linksbetweenwhite supremacy andanti-Semitism.Momentsafter the 2:30am. bombexplosion,the rabbi ofanotherMiami synagoguewas awakenedby a phonecall and warnedthathis templewould sufferthe samefateif he did notstop preachingintegration. The Miami police departmentalso receiveda telephonemessage,promisingmore bombingsif Miami’sschool integrationplans wereimplemented.According to a police reporton the bombing, the callerthreatened: "If this integrationdoesn’t stop,we will kill all the Jews." Police agencies suspected"activist extremistsinthe segregationmovement,"but noarrestswere ever made.

Similar bombingsand attemptedbombingsoccurredin 1958 inAtlanta,Jacksonville,Nashville,Birmingham, andCharlotte,suggest-

ing that throughouttheSouthviolent segregationists identified Jewswith school integration.A "ConfederateUnderground," laterlinked by investigatorstothe Florida Ku KluxKlan, claimed responsibility for someof theseattacks;its leafletspromised "Regularbombings. - .NegroesandJewsour Specialty."

In a 1958Commentaryarticle on the Miamibombing,NathanPerlmutterof theFlorida Anti-DefamationLeagueinterpretedthe incident within thelargercontextof southern"massiveresistance"to desegregation.Theschool integrationissuehadenergizedthe Klan and theanti-Semites,whoheld large ralliesthroughoutFlorida,supportedsegregationistpolitical candidates,and distributedmassesofhate literature attacking"JewishKommunist Kremlin Kikes." As

SPRING 2004 FL0RIDAHuMANITIEs couNciL FORUM 41

Bh ri 1, SU1miy ‘acac.e

Perlmuttersuggested, thishatecampaign emphasized,"that it is the Jewandnot the Negrowho threatensSouthernways."

The Miami Newschargedthatthe templebombingsin Miami andelsewherewere not coincidental,butpart of an organized "reign ofterrorplannedfor the Southby the WhiteCitizensCouncils." Journalistshadalreadydemonstratedthat the leadership of the Florida Klan and thewhite citizens’ councilswere oneandthe same.TelephonedbombthreatsagainstDade Countysynagoguescontinued into 1959. Massive resistanceto civil rights and schoolintegrationin the l9SOsunderlaythe intensification of anti-Semitismand racialconflict in Miami and elsewhere.

The Miami bombingsof 1951and 1958 representedthe work ofdangerousextremistswho jointly targeted blacks and Jews. However, themid-centttryracistand anti-Semiticthinking that underlaythe bombingsextended deeply into Florida’s stillheavily white, Protestant,southern,andsegregationistculture.Theseatti

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Reflections on Man’s Fate by Judith Libermannow through 09/19/04

In retrospect, the degree

of racial hatred and reli

gious bigotry In Miami as

late as 1960 seemsshock

ing. Miami was supposed

ly more northern and less

southern, more progres

sive in its politics and

social relations.

tudescanbe traced inextensivefilesof lettersfrom ordinary citizens in thearchivedpapersof Florida’s governorsduring the 1950s. Seeaccompanyingstory.

In retrospect,the degree of racialhatredand religious bigotry in Miamias late as 1960 seemsshocking.Asthe nation’s leadingvacationplaygroundandtourist destinationat the

time, Miami was supposedlymorenorthernand less southern,moreprogressivein its politics andsocial relations.On mattersof inter-grouprelations, however,the reality rarelymatchedthe image.Indeed,as BellaFisher,a Jewish civil rights activist,notedwith careful understatementasearly as 1948, "Thoughon the surfaceMiami seemsto havea morecosmopolitan populationthan most of theSouth.. progressives hereare moreprudentaboutactivities which areacceptedin otherareas."A decadelater, the NAACP’s Ruth Perry, awhite integrationist,offered a similarandsuccinctanalysis in a newspapercolumn: Miami had "anappearanceof more liberality and freedomthanactuallyexists." Miami,Perry wroteto the NAACP’s Roy Wilkins in1958, "isn’t as liberal aswe thought."

RAYMOND A. MOHL is professor ofhistory at the University ofAlabama-Birmingham.This is excerptedfrom his book Southof the South:JewishActivists and the Civil RightsMovement in Miami, 1945-1960.

55 5th Street SouthSt. Petersburg, FL 33701727.820.0100www.tlholocaustm useu m. org

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