Wedged between fire-snorting South Carolina and adamant Virginia, North Carolina offered a rare chance for school integration to break into the Solid South —or to blow off the roof. Last week Negro and white children began attending school together in Greensboro (pop. 87,100), Charlotte (pop. 158,800) and Winston-Salem (pop. 115,800). And, thanks to careful advance planning, a strong governor and purposeful law enforcement, the roof stayed on.
The North Carolina school plan, endorsed by Governor Luther H. (for Hartwell) Hodges was actually designed to minimize integration while appearing to satisfy the Supreme Court's desegregation order. It gave the state's 172 local boards complete authority over assigning individual students to the public schools. Many a segregationist who had supported the plan was shocked when the Greensboro, Charlotte and Winston-Salem boards decided last July to integrate—on a highly selective basis. With some Negro leaders helping screen applicants, strict standards were set up, e.g., to be accepted in white schools, Negro pupils must live nearer to them than to their old schools, have top grades, be socially adaptable. Of 40 applicants, Charlotte accepted only four, Greensboro took six out of seven, and
Winston-Salem three out of six (two of the successful applicants later withdrew).
To Uphold, Not Upset. No sooner had the three school boards acted than the pressures began building toward a blowoff. Fiery crosses burned at night near Charlotte. A hooded Klansman promised to "muster 50,000 men by the time schools begin to open." Fanatic John Kasper of New Jersey roared into Greensboro, Charlotte and Winston-Salem, harangued his followers to drive school-board members to "nervous breakdowns, heart attacks and suicide."
Governor Hodges, 59, a Virginia sharecropper's son who became a vice president of Marshall Field & Co. before turning to politics, moved hard and fast to prevent trouble. Speaking over a statewide network of radio and television stations last week, Hodges expressed his personal feelings: "I think the U.S. Supreme Court made a tragic mistake." But, he said, "we are forced to recognize that that court has the final word. [We] do not like lawlessness." Luther Hodges meant to use the power of the state to uphold, not upset, the law of the land.
The first morning they entered a white school, Greensboro Negroes were jeered; there were no hecklers the second day. The abusive "Damn Nigger" scrawlings on the asphalt driveway outside Reynolds High School in Winston-Salem were predictable. What was not predictable was the group of white students who scrubbed the drive clean. Said one: "This reflects on the name of the school, and we don't want that." Winston-Salem's only integrated Negro student entered, passed about 100 white students. Not one offered insult. A few smiled hello. Gwendolyn Yvonne Bailey, 15, walked into the school auditorium and quietly took her place among her fellow students.