Some Achievements in the Equalization of Educational Opportunities in North Carolina

Abstract

I N THE good year 1901, a new GovI ernor took office in North Carolina. H e became known throughout the state as the “Educational Governor,” and after some time his reputation for leadership in behalf of education spread to other states in the South, and in the Nation. His philosophy of education can be determined by quotations from some of his speeches: “Equal, that is the word! On that word I plant myself and my party-the equal right of every child born on earth to have the opportunity to burgeon out all there is within him.” “On a hundred platforms, to half the voters in the State,-I pledged the State, its strength, its heart, its wealth, to universal education-men of wealth, representatives of great co-operations applauded eagerly my declaration. . . . Gentlemen of the Legislature, you will have nought to fear when you make ample provision for the education of the whole people.” I n an interview given to the New York Herald in April, 1901, he said in part: ‘We are in this state in the midst of an educational revival. We favor universal education and intend to accomplish it. . . . as to the Negro we shall do our full duty to him. . . . H e is with us to stay. His destiny and ours are so interwoven that we cannot lift ourselves up without at the same time lifting him.” Governor Charles Brantley Aycock was a lawyer by profession, a graduate of the University of North Carolina, an eloquent orator of the sincere persuasive type, and was held in high esteem by the people of his state. H e was a genuine man, and a born leader of men. For purposes of this article a brief outline of a situation he faced as Governor should be included here: In his first Legislature ( I~OI), a group of members decided to force through that body what the Governor considered a vicious bill. The aim was to divide tax money collected for schools between the white and Negro races on the basis of what each paid. All white taxes would go to white schools and Negro taxes to Negro schools. Governor Aycock d i e d his friends in and out of the General Assembly to defeat the bill. H e said there was no more reason to divide school funds between the races according to the amounts each paid than there would be to effect such a division in all other taxes; that the bill for that reason and others, was unconstitutional. The opposition did not succeed in 1901. However, when the General Assembly, of 1903 convened this “school tax division group” began their efforts all over again and there