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Massive Retreat. No one seemed more aware of the fact that Georgia had to obey national authority than Governor S. Ernest Vandiver, who stepped before the lawmakers, "as a devoted father," with a sweeping plan for giving up massive resistance to integration. It was a momentous gesture, in marked contrast to such other Deep South resisters as Alabama's Governor John Patterson, who vowed last week to close his university in the face of any integration.
Vandiver's way out is a proposed state constitutional amendment, guaranteeing "freedom of association" to replace the present clause requiring segregation. With other new laws, the effect would be to cancel compulsory school attendance, open the way to state grants for segregated private schools. Public schools would be integrated. If Georgia does not cure "the cancerous growth" of its school crisis, warned Vandiver, "it will blight our state." With the sad stories of Little Rock and New Orleans on their minds, the lawmakers seem likely to back Vandiver. The next step—hopefully—would be smooth sailing when Atlanta's public schools integrate next fall.
* Now a 31-year-old Baptist minister's wife, who will soon enter Houston's Texas Southern (Negro) University to renew her teaching certificate. Wishing Students Holmes and Hunter well, she said last week: "I don't think my efforts at Alabama were wasted. What I did started a lot of people thinking."