In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

chapter six Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied FloridaÕs ÒPublic MischiefÓ Defense and Virgil HawkinsÕs Protracted Legal Struggle for Racial Equality Amy Sasscer Scholars have long presumed that Brown v. Board of Education of 1954 and its spin-off, the Brown II decision of 1955, provided the impetus for the modern civil rights struggle in Florida, even though that struggle remained rather muted in comparison to the other states of the Deep South. Yet the historical record reflects a challenge to this premise, especially regarding Brown as the lynchpin of black protest in Florida and the notion that the state itself adopted a more enlightened and progressive posture toward racial advancement than many of its neighbors in Dixie. An examination of the origins, developments , and long-delayed results of the Hawkins v. Board of Control case, beginning in 1949, illustrates just how entrenched Florida was in its Old South ways in the pre- and post-Brown years and how equally determined the state’s power brokers were to ignore, prolong, or actually stymie Virgil D. Hawkins’s fight for racial equality in the 1940s and 1950s. Like many events occurring in the dramatically changing local environs of Florida in the era of modern civil rights, the complexities of the Hawkins case defy ready-made typecasting. As historians and other scholars deliberate the factors suggesting that Florida was or perhaps was not “moderate” in its approach to racial legacies and racial issues, it would be instructive for them to ponder the personal and institutional experiences of Virgil Hawkins and his search for equal access to higher education in post-World War II Florida. justice delayed 135 In 1949, civil rights pioneer Virgil Hawkins applied to the all-white law school at the University of Florida (UF) but was denied admission on the basis of his race. As a result, he fought for the next nine years in the courts for his right to attend law school. Hawkins v. Board of Control resulted in four Florida Supreme Court cases, three U.S. Supreme Court cases, and three final federal court reviews. Through its decisions, the Florida Supreme Court ignored judicial precedent and even defied the U.S. Supreme Court in its Old South-style opposition to admitting Hawkins, claiming immediate integration would cause irreparable “public mischief.”1 Although white claims of racially motivated “public mischief” was nothing new to the Sunshine State in the 1950s, the evidence that the state used to support its Down South delay of integration in actuality showed a population perhaps more ready to integrate than the state leadership maintained. It is notable that when Florida did begin to integrate in 1959, few incidents of violence occurred that year (although that would not be the case in the following years). This “mild” initial reaction to integration corresponded with the beginnings of New South priorities in Florida, especially its leaders’ focus on economics in rapidly growing and diversifying urban areas. Even so, the Old South commitment to segregation by much of Florida’s leadership caused protracted delay in implementing New South practices of social and racial uplift. This Down South delay and stonewalling ultimately denied justice to Virgil Hawkins, who never obtained a law degree in his home state. In this regard, Hawkins’s legal struggle offers a useful case study by which to evaluate the accuracy of many assumptions now held by historians of Florida’s past. Virgil Hawkins (1906–1988) was one of eight children of a black family that lived in Okahumpka in Lake County, Florida, a region known widely for its entrenched racism. The sheriff during the civil rights era, Willis McCall, was particularly notorious for his open racism. According to Robert Saunders, former field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Florida, few counties had such “bigotry and brutality” as Lake County. Hawkins was the only child in his family who desired to obtain an education. He started college at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, but returned to Florida and enrolled at Bethune-Cookman College, where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in 1952. He worked as a teacher, a principal, an insurance salesman, and as the public relations director of Bethune-Cookman College before attempting to attend the law school at the University of Florida at forty-two years of age.2 Writing in the Florida Coastal Law Journal, Harley Herman, an associate of Hawkins during his brief law career in Leesburg, relayed the story of why...

Share