Rabble Rousers: The American Far Right in the Civil Rights Era

Chapter 3. Into the Abyss: The Nashville School Crisis

72 John Kasper struggled during the summer of 1957 for an opportunity to restore his tattered personal and political reputation. Skeptical of him from the outset, few segregationists offered him a second chance now that he had been exposed in their minds as a fraud. Kasper had in fact attempted to create new battle fronts in his war against racial integration while he was still in Clinton. However,he had soon been forced to retreat.In December 1956, while still free on bond pending appeal of his conviction for the Clinton disorder, the militant segregationist had traveled northwest to Louisville, Kentucky, in the hope of mobilizing opposition to school desegregation. He was much too late. When Kasper turned up in Clinton, the pervasive sense of unease about school desegregation among the white townspeople provided him with a window of opportunity. In Louisville, any such window had already been sealed shut, if it was ever actually open. The city board of education had spent two years planning the abolition of the dual public school system. During that time, it enlisted the support of civic leaders,ministerial associations,and the press to encourage community acceptance of the change. On September 10, 1956, the integrated school system launched without incident. Why Kasper should choose Louisville as the location for a renewed assault on school desegregation is there3 . Into the Abyss The Nashville School Crisis Into the Abyss 73 fore something of a mystery. He did have some local connections through his association with Millard Grubbs, chairman of the Citizens’ Council of Kentucky. The two men had met some months earlier, when Kasper attended a rally protesting the desegregation of schools in Clay and Sturgis. Now he and Grubbs sensed a belated opportunity to disrupt school integration in Louisville by exploiting the controversy over Billy Branham. Branham was a seventeen-year-old white high school student who,along with his mother, had recently arrived from Detroit.The family had moved into temporary accommodations while they waited for Branham’s father, still working in Michigan, to join them. Branham had attempted to enroll at Male High School. However, education authorities had used his nonresident status to deny his registration when they learned he was plotting a campaign to oust black students from the school. On December 12,Kasper appeared alongside Branham at a public meeting to protest the action of school officials. His speech included many of his standard tropes, especially his populist assault on corrupt city authorities who had sold out the white community. Kasper received a rapturous reception from the audience; the problem was there were only thirty-five people in the room. The faltering flame of protest soon flickered out altogether. On January 16, 1957, police arrested Branham and eleven other youths at a club where they were holding a meeting, citing a state law that forbade minors from establishments licensed to sell alcohol. The arresting officers found a letter in Branham’s possession offering him “bed and board indefinitely”if he came to Knoxville to help set up a Knox County White Youth Council. Its author was Kasper. The invitation to Branham intimates that he had already decided to cut his losses in Louisville and search for a more amenable community. That search became more elusive because the authorities were more aware of his intentions and many segregationists were no longer willing to trust him. This was certainly the case in North Carolina, the location chosen by Kasper to relaunch his career. On learning that Kasper intended to rally public opposition to school desegregation in the state, Governor Luther Hodges dryly remarked, “I don’t think we need him.” Most white North Carolinians agreed. When Kasper arrived in Greensboro on August 31, three days before the scheduled desegregation of local schools, few people turned out to hear him. Later that same day, spectators heckled him during a speech in Winston-Salem.That these experiences created a sense of mounting desperation in Kasper is clear from an incoherent speech he delivered at the Greensboro Courthouse on August 31. “We want a heart attack, we want nervous breakdowns, we want suicides,” he proclaimed to 74 Chapter Three a bemused audience who wanted nothing of the sort. When Kasper denounced evangelist Billy Graham as a “nigger lover” because of his opposition to segregation, the crowd turned on him completely. Whites in Charlotte were equally unwelcoming. Political expediency...