White Citizens' Council and Resistance to School Desegregation in Arkansas

Abstract

IT IS ONE OF THE IRONIES OF SOUTHERN HISTORY that Hoxie and Little Rock, Arkansas, have become synonyms for white resistance to desegregation in era of Second Reconstruction. In May 1954, when Supreme Court handed down its decision in school segregation cases, few suspected that in troubled years ahead would provide Deep-South intransigents with battle cry Remember Little Rock-a slogan that recalled for some segregationists invocation of longdead patriots who remembered Alamo. Indeed, Arkansas's pre-eminent stature among defiant states in first decade of desegregation is as undeserved as it was unexpected. In 1948, Land of Opportunity became a pioneer among southern states in biracial higher learning when University of lowered its racial barriers without court order and without popular turmoil. It was also first of former Confederate states to begin complying with Court's ruling. Even before rendering of so-called second Brown decision, implementation decree of May 30, 1955, four school districts in state either desegregated their classrooms or moved in that direction.1 Furthermore, while it can hardly be said that state officials were enthusiastic, their reactions to nullification of state's separatebut-equal education statutes were among region's most positive. In vivid contrast to defiant mood of Deep-South governors, Gov. Francis A. Cherry summarized position of his administration with a terse observation on May 18, 1954: Arkansas will obey law. It always has.2 Nor did election of Orval E. Faubus signal a shift in official attitude. In his inaugural address in January 1955, Cherry's successor failed even to mention segregation. Similarly, in legislature, then in its regular sixty-day biennial session, a pupil assignment law designed to preserve segregation in public schools died in senate.3 Little wonder, then, that an NAACP field secretary during spring of 1955 could pronounce state the bright spot of south.4 The very paucity of Negro population itself was a major force working to point state in direction of a relatively easy adjustment to desegregation. In 1954, fully 184 of state's 432 school districts and fifteen of its seventy-five counties had no Negro students at all. Moreover, Negroes constituted 1 percent or less of total population in twenty-five upcountry counties, and 10 percent or less in twelve more.5 But there were areas in where density of nonwhite population approached that of black-belt counties in Deep South. East of state's fall line, in lowlands that sweep flat in an alluvial plain toward delta counties along river, cotton flourished on vast tracts of rich land, much as it did on opposite shore in Mississippi. Here great majority of Arkansas's Negro population resided, as did much of its Deep-South racial attitudes. Quite in keeping with patterns already established in states of lower South, organized white resistance to school desegregation in began in black belt. White America, Inc., first group its kind in state, emerged during March 1955 in Pine Bluff, seat of Jefferson County, one of only seven counties where black population either equaled or exceeded white. Patterned after such Deep-South protective societies as Citizens' Council, this ineffective but noisy group of segregationists languished in obscurity until following September, when it joined other organized white militants in a concerted effort to resegregate schools in Hoxie.6 A rural trading center in northeastern portion of state, Hoxie was an unlikely scene for racial turmoil. Although most whites in this Lawrence County village of some 2,000 inhabitants were opposed to racial integration, they took comfort in knowledge that in county at large Caucasians outnumbered Negroes nearly ninety-nine to one. …