Argument Against Segregation In Public Schools

At the turn of the twentieth century North Carolina’s government fell under the control of the Democrats’ White Supremacy rule. The Jim Crow laws, enacted by North Carolina’s legislature in 1899, formally required segregation in all public facilities and transportation. Disenfranchisement, an attempt to restrict African Americans’ rights to vote, allowed Democrats to apply a poll tax and a literacy test. This combination successfully restricted an enormous portion of African-American voters and poor white Republican supporters from casting a vote. Control over the voting procedures allowed Democrats to easily dominate the polls up until 1970. During this period, citizens fought vigorously to secure the civil rights of which they deemed themselves deserving. North Carolinians sought “Civil Rights” in a plethora of areas including voting rights, academic freedom, labor unions, race, and gender.
Despite the Democrats tight grip on politics, improvements began to surface prior to World War I. North Carolina enjoyed progressive advances, including educational reform, highway construction, and some decrease in racial tensions thus earning the nickname “the Wisconsin of the South.” After World War I North Carolina’s largely rural and Protestant population fell back on religion as a basis for restoring life to the way it was before the war. These fundamentalists viewed the Bible as an eternal truth, and anything that opposed it threatened the strength of American democracy. Opponents to fundamentalists, known as modernists, viewed science as an opportunity to fully encompass and understand man’s place on earth.
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution became the centerpiece of confrontation between fundamentalists and modernists. Fundamentalists firmly opposed evolution being taught in public schools and universities in North Carolina, but modernists viewed this as a communist like restriction of academic freedom. Politicians and public school teachers took stances on the issue and potentially risked their careers for supporting the teaching of evolution.
In 1925 David Scott Poole introduced the “Poole bill”, which consisted of three major points, to the North Carolina House of Representatives.
First, evolution was not scientifically proven, thus it should not be taught in public schools. Secondly, the majority of the public opposed teaching evolution, so their tax dollars should not have to support paying teachers to do so. Finally, because it is illegal to teach religion in public schools, it should also be illegal to teach irreligion. Poole’s bill was defeated in 1925, and then died completely in 1927. An element of historical theory, the 20/60/20 rule, adequately describes twenty percent of the population was strongly in favor of the Poole bill, twenty percent was strongly opposed, and sixty percent that could be swayed either way. The majority of the sixty percent was ultimately pulled onto the side of those who opposed the bill by the opponents’ platform that the bill could jeopardize the separation of church and state. Preventing passage of the Poole bill signified a triumph in academic freedom in North
Carolina.
Textile manufacturers suffered a recession after World War I that forced owners to fire a portion of their employees, cutback on wages for the remaining workers, and deploy any other tactics that reduced spending regardless of the negative effect it had on working conditions. To combat their hazardous working conditions and shrinking wages, workers went on strike in Gastonia and elsewhere in 1929. Unionization by the textile industry failed to succeed and the strikes were eventually put down, and the leaders were jailed by the National Guard. A multitude of strikes from industrial and agricultural workers ensued, resulting in the federal government passing The Wagner Act in 1935, which provided federal protection to labor unions and acknowledged their rights.
The rulings of Brown v. The Board of Education eradicated segregation in all public schools in 1954. In response to the ruling, North Carolina passed the Pearsall Plan in 1956. In an attempt to prolong desegregation, the Pearsall Plan represented the white supremacy lingering in North Carolina. The bill allowed public schools to close before they welcomed black students and for schools that closed to fund private schools. As a result, only six percent of black children went to school with white children in 1966.
Although schools were no longer legally segregated, all other public facilities continued to be. The protests aimed at securing African-American’s rights erupted across North Carolina in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Black students in Greensboro and Winston-Salem took part in “sit-ins” at white restaurants and refused to leave when demanded to do so. A standoff followed their refusal, but the Greensboro students remained until the arrests of twenty-two protestors for trespassing. Even peaceful African-American protests, such as marching down the streets of Lexington to protest segregation, were met with violent opposition. Two-thousand enraged whites assaulted the protestors with rocks and bottles. North Carolina’s racists fought off the impending desegregation as long as possible, but the Civil Rights Act of 1964 terminated states’ local laws permitting segregation. Furthermore, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 halted disenfranchisement by ordering federal officials to supervise voting in all southern states. While monumental victories for civil rights, these laws could not possibly eliminate the remnants of white supremacy in North Carolina during the following decades.