Desegregation in Public Education in South Carolina

Abstract

The public officials of South Carolina have not made any effort, or attempted to make any effort, toward desegregation in the public schools notwithstanding the fact that the Supreme Court on May 17, 1954 declared segregation in the public schools unconstitutional. The failure to begin preparation for desegregation is based on an opinion that they should await the Court's final decree on implementation. This idea to wait and see, or better still nothing until we have to, is a step in the direction of non-compliance. For when every consideration to plan for desegregation is discouraged on the basis that we are not now required to do it, and may not in the not too distant future be required, apathy in public thought is promoted and the opportunity of preparation granted in the implementation delay wasted. The Court has declared and certainly the implementation decree will not fail to make the declaration effective. With the election of James F. Byrnes to the governorship, the Legislature in 1951 adopted a Byrnes sponsored bill providing for a special sales tax of $.03 proceeds from which would furnish money for the retirement of bonds used to finance the school construction program. Substantial equalization of schools for white and Negro children was proposed. At this time the school property for Negro children was valued at $19,725,6881 and the school property for white children at $83,989,241. The Educational Finance Commission was established to aid in the consolidation of school districts, the construction, remodeling and equipping of schools. The Commission staff did a good job, sans power, but on May 31, 1955, 57 per cent of monies appropriated was used to construct and remodel schools for Negro children and 42.72 per cent to construct and remodel schools for white children. To make whatever preparation necessary to delay compliance with the Court Decree should it be unfavorable, Governor Byrnes appointed a committee of fifteen (five senators, five representatives, and five laymen), headed by the chairman of the Senate Education Committee, Marion Gressette. Under the authority of CRS. 371 of 1951 the Gressette Committee was requested to study and report on the advisable' course to be pursued by the State in respect to its educational facilities in the event that the Federal Courts nullified the provisions of the State Constitution requiring the establishment of separate schools for the children of the white and colored races.8 This committee functioned largely through two subcommittees which were