A White Liberal College President in the Jim Crow South: Guy Herbert Wells and the YWCA at Georgia State College for Women, 1934–1953 by Sandra E. Godwin

Abstract

Reviewed by: A White Liberal College President in the Jim Crow South: Guy Herbert Wells and the YWCA at Georgia State College for Women, 1934–1953 by Sandra E. Godwin Leah LaGrone A White Liberal College President in the Jim Crow South: Guy Herbert Wells and the YWCA at Georgia State College for Women, 1934–1953. By Sandra E. Godwin with Helen Matthews Lewis. (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2021. Pp. xviii, 238. $35.00, ISBN 978-0-88146-790-1.) What began as a project to explore the history of the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) at Georgia State College for Women (GSCW) was transformed into a story about college leadership in the Deep South during the 1930s and 1940s. Author Sandra E. Godwin, a professor of sociology at Georgia College and State University, examines the racial politics of conservative Georgia and the liberal leanings of a white college president. She shows that GSCW president Guy Herbert Wells was determined to balance student demands for racial tolerance, which matched his own politics, with pressures from the racist Georgia politicians who held his job in their hands. [End Page 797] Godwin begins with a focus on the progressive politics of several YWCA chapter leaders at GSCW in the 1930s and 1940s. For example, she shows how Marguerite Jernigan, YWCA president in 1938–1939, wrote an article for the student newspaper, The Colonnade, calling attention to white supremacy. Jernigan observed that Georgia's poll tax "arose not immediately following the Civil War as many people think, but rather . . . was a result of white supremacy conventions that came in the late 1890s and early 1900s" (p. 31). Several other YWCA leaders on the GSCW campus similarly pushed "beyond the boundaries of the status quo" regarding racist politics in the South, examining connections between racism, capitalism, and poverty (p. 31). YWCA members also visited Black institutions and attended interracial conferences, sometimes staying overnight in the same venues as Black students. Their actions blatantly subverted the norms of southern segregation. That is, until President Wells demanded that the organization proceed with caution so that he would not have to contend with the wrath of racist politicians. The book intersperses the history of the college's radically progressive chapter of the YWCA with analysis of Wells's responses to its activism. Godwin argues that focusing on his balancing act gives us a clearer picture of complex southern politics. She examines how a white liberal in the Deep South allowed YWCA leaders to challenge the demands of Georgia politicians with the power to fire him. Godwin describes a comment made after Wells supported the YWCA chapter's attendance at an integrated conference in the 1940s. Georgia House Speaker Roy Harris, who had been appointed to the University System of Georgia Board of Regents by the vocal segregationist and staunchly anti–civil rights governor Herman E. Talmadge, reportedly said, "If ever there was a traitor to the white people of Georgia, it is Guy Wells" (p. 159). Wells, however, did sometimes succumb to the political pressure and forced the YWCA to curb its participation in interracial politics. Godwin shows that whatever Wells's personal politics, he strained to play the middle so that he could remain in his position at the university. The histories of white liberalism and white radical progressivism in a deeply segregated state revealed here are fascinating. Godwin argues that the book is primarily about college leadership. Nevertheless, it is the story of a racially progressive YWCA that called to task systemic racism in the 1930s and 1940s that really stands out. The book provides rich historical context for interracial politics by showing how groups like the YWCA spoke out against white supremacy. Although a white man is on the cover of the book, A White Liberal College President in the Jim Crow South: Guy Herbert Wells and the YWCA at Georgia State College for Women, 1934–1953 reveals a new history in the actions of white women subverting a racist and patriarchal system. Godwin's book is an excellent starting point for a needed history on the politics of the YWCA in the South. Historians can also build on stories of interracial...