Between North and South: Delaware, Desegregation, and the Myth of American Sectionalism

3. "The Delaware method of Solving Things"

Chapter 3 “The Delaware Method of Solving Things” Fresh from the Supreme Court victory on May 17, 1954, the NAACP outlined its approach to subsequent challenges to the constitutionally suspect sectional imaginary of de jure segregation the following weekend in Atlanta. The organization proceeded—in ways it would increasingly and forcefully articulate—on the presumption that Jim Crow schooling was illegal, blacks were immediately due their rights as recognized by the High Court, and black communities should move at once to demand the implementation of school desegregation programs. Members of the national office, including Walter White, Roy Wilkins, Thurgood Marshall, Gloster Current, and Clarence Mitchell, met with representatives from state and local branches of seventeen states and the District of Columbia and approved a program of action. In their Atlanta Declaration, the national board of directors, in a slight overstatement as to the meaning of Brown, declared, “Now that the law is clear, we look to the future” and resolved to move forward in order to translate the Court’s decision into programs of action in the Jim Crow South and border states.1 As to the sectional character of this campaign, “No one—neither Marshall and the NAACP litigation team who developed Brown nor the Supreme Court justices who decided it—considered the possible impact of the decision on northern public schools,” observed historian Thomas Sugrue. All interested parties assumed that Brown applied to Jim Crow schools in the South and border states.2 To this end, the NAACP board instructed the state and local branches in communities that continued to maintain segregated school systems to petition local school boards to dismantle such structures immediately. As to the timelines for implementing desegregation programs, the board expressed sympathy for certain administrative challenges that school boards might face but drew the line at tactics designed to delay the implementation of reforms. They also insisted , in an expansion of Chief Justice Warren’s comment on school desegregation , that reforms should be extended to the assignment of teachers and 102 Chapter 3 other school personnel. The NAACP pledged their backing for federal support for southern educational systems to overcome the burdens associated with the dual school system and vowed to assist in expanding educational opportunities for all children to meet the Court’s ruling. “Lest there be any misunderstanding of our position,” the NAACP concluded, “we here rededicate ourselves to the removal of all racial segregation in public education and reiterate our determination to achieve this goal without compromise of principle.”3 With Brown at their backs, Redding and other Delaware activists turned their attention to pupil assignment policies that perpetuated Jim Crow schooling. The Supreme Court’s decision and the threat of further legal suits provoked a multifaceted response from state and local officials. The State Board of Education and local school officials in northern Delaware moved rather expeditiously to modify state policy to bring it in line with the Court’s dictates through the implementation of modified attendance zones and voluntary transfer mechanisms that facilitated the desegregation of pupil populations . With the notable exception of the Milford and Dover districts, school officials throughout southern Delaware reacted with much greater reserve. The Milford board’s modest effort to desegregate its high school provoked one of the most dramatic developments in the immediate aftermath of Brown in the form of a white populist uprising—a precursor to what would later come to be known as massive resistance. Unwilling to concede any change in the racial status quo, opponents of school desegregation organized rallies and boycotts, complained that the courts had exceeded their authority, and asserted that desegregation was a communist-inspired plot that, among other things, violated the sovereign authority of white people, undermined white parental authority, and promised amalgamation of the races. This short-lived reactionary movement—led by the National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP) and its president, Bryant Bowles— sent shock waves across a state unaccustomed to such vitriolic tactics, revealed the depths of white opposition to school desegregation in Delaware, and stalled reform in many communities for some years. Still, the NAAWP’s tone and tactics alienated many whites, exposing a rift within the white community and prompting a backlash of sorts and a rethinking of oppositional tactics among area residents. In rejecting this expression of reactionary populism , white moderates sought to chart a path between Brown and massive resistance. They thus began the process of carving out a space for a more “reasoned” response to...