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Chapter 1 In the Beginning The University of Arkansas is honestly and earnestly feeling its way toward the solution of a very difficult problem. In doing so, we have no roadmaps to follow . . . We do not know, and we cannot know, the pattern future [race] relationships will take, but we are seeking a pattern as we go along. —William J. Good, October 15, 1948 William J. Good, the director of public relations for the University of Arkansas, wrote the above statement in response to a letter sent by James R. Goodrich, the assistant editor of Ebony magazine, who indicated that the black publication desired to run an article on the admission of Edith Mae Irby, an African American woman from Hot Springs, to the university ’s previously all-white medical school in the fall of 1948. In accordance with the thinking that had allowed Hunt and Shropshire to enroll in the Fayetteville campus, university officials had permitted the qualified Irby to become a medical student on the Little Rock campus. In couching his reply to Goodrich, Good expressed his willingness to speak “frankly” about Irby and desegregation at the University of Arkansas, but he distinguished “off the record” comments from those that could be published. Good also requested that the article never quote any specific university official nor state that “university personnel refused to be quoted.”1 For the record, Good went on to give a brief overview of the university’s historic efforts to provide educational opportunity for African American students. Good mentioned the establishment of the campus at Pine Bluff, the general extension courses, and the correspondence courses the university had made available to blacks even before the admission of Silas Hunt. With regard to Irby, Good described her fully integrated class arrangement. He explained that Irby sat with “no objection” at a table in the anatomy laboratory with three white students. Although Irby and the three white students worked well together, Good asserted they had not “evidenced any inclination to mingle with each other on a social basis outside the classroom and laboratory.”2 Off the record, Good implored the black publication to be sensitive to the unique and difficult situation facing the University of Arkansas. He intimated that the university supported “improved relationship” between the races and “more nearly equalized opportunities” for blacks. However, Good cautioned the magazine not to overplay the desegregation developments for fear it would “inflame the extreme elements” of both races and “set back race relations many years.” Good also candidly revealed the university had no fixed and established policy on how to implement desegregation. According to Good, the university had “no road maps” and was simply “feeling its way toward the solution to a very difficult problem.”3 The letter of William Good very accurately described how the university handled desegregation prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Brown decision of 1954. University officials refused to admit black undergraduates regardless of their credentials, but continued 1 providing graduate opportunity to black students in programs that were not offered by Arkansas AM&N. The actions of the university with regard to desegregation at this time seemed guided by three principles. First, the university did not welcome attention to its desegregation efforts. Good’s response to Ebony implied the magazine should present the university ’s story in a very matter-of-fact way in order to decrease any interest the institution might receive. On another occasion when President Jones was asked by the Southern Conference Educational Fund, an interracial organization that favored integration in education, to serve as one of the sponsors for their regional conference, he declined. Jones emphasized the university had made reasonable progress by “working in a quiet way” to provide better educational opportunities for blacks in the state.4 The second principle guiding the university with regard to desegregation was that desegregation must be achieved slowly. As mentioned earlier, the university continued denying the admission of qualified black undergraduates. When James Miller, a black high school sophomore from Englewood, Colorado, wrote Jones in May 1951, inquiring about the prospect of attending the university’s department of forestry and agriculture in the fall of 1953, Jones succinctly replied it was not the present policy of the university to admit undergraduates and that “it would be impossible” to predict future university policy.5 Also in the fall of 1949, the university established a Residence Center in Little Rock to provide graduate training for black students, mostly in education. The vast majority...

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