40th Anniversary of UGA's Desegregation

40th Anniversary of the Desegregation of the University of Georgia January 9, 2001

Timeline
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1868		14th Amendment to the Constitution ratified to ensure equal protection for newly freed slaves.
1875		Congress passes Civil Rights Act guaranteeing all Americans the right to public accommodations, but allowing segregation.
1896		In Plessy v. Ferguson, Supreme Court establishes separate-but-equal doctrine, ruling that separation of the races is within the bounds of the Constitution as long as equal accommodations are made for blacks. Homer Plessy, who was arrested for sitting in a whites-only car on a train trip in Louisiana, had sued the railroad, arguing that segregation was illegal under the 14th Amendment.
1935		Charles Houston, an administrator at the Howard University School of Law, outlines a long-range plan to challenge segregation starting with the nation 's law schools, since few separate law schools for blacks exist. Houston, working with his former student Thurgood Marshall, wins his first victory when a judge orders the University of Maryland to admit Donald Gaines Murray to its law school.
1938		In a case that reaches the Supreme Court, the University of Missouri School of Law is ordered to admit Lloyd Lionel Gaines
1946		Thurgood Marshall, who had succeeded Charles Houston as chief legal counsel for the NAACP, establishes the organization 's Legal Defense Fund. Herman Sweatt applies to law school at the University of Texas in Austin. A lower court rules against him and the long appeal process begins. In Oklahoma, a 68-year-old black professor sues for admission to the doctoral program in education at the University of Oklahoma. When a district court orders him admitted, he is required to sit at a desk surrounded by a railing marked "reserved for colored." Marshall appeals the case to the Supreme Court, arguing that an equal education is not being offered.
1950		Charles Houston suffers a heart attack and dies on April 20. On June 5, the Supreme Court hands down rulings in the above two cases, concurring with the lawyers Houston trained 20 years earlier. But the decision is narrowly written so that the findings are applied only to graduate schools. In Georgia, Horace Ward -- a native of LaGrange with an undergraduate degree from Morehouse College and a master 's in political science from Atlanta University -- applies to the University of Georgia School of Law. He spends the next seven years fighting, unsuccessfully, to gain admission. He is represented by a legal team that includes Donald Hollowell and Constance Baker Motley.
May 17, 1954		Supreme Court hands down landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision, finding unanimously that "in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." Georgia Gov. Herman Talmadge, a fervent segregationist, calls the ruling "a mere scrap of paper." A full year later, the justices ask lower federal courts to ensure that local school districts admit black children "with all deliberate speed."
1955		Several blacks are killed by white men in Mississippi, including 14-year- old Emmett Till, whose case attracts national attention. In December, the Montgomery bus boycott that will last nearly 13 months begins when Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat to a white man.
1956		On Jan. 30, the home of Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta bombed. On Feb. 3, Autherine Lucy is admitted to University of Alabama. The Georgia General Assembly passes a measure calling for a mandatory cutoff of state funds to public schools that integrate.
November 1956		Eisenhower is reelected, with Richard Nixon as vice president.
January 1957		Ministers from 11 Southern states meet at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, with Martin Luther King Jr. as its president.
August 1957		Federal government has to call out the Army to enroll nine black children at Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.
August 29, 1957		First Civil Rights bill since 1875 passes Congress.
Summer 1959		Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, graduates of all-black Turner High School in Atlanta, apply to the University of Georgia.
Feb. 1, 1960		Four students in Greensboro, N.C., sit at whites-only lunch counter at local Woolworth 's, refusing to leave until they get service -- thus launching the sit-in movement.
Dec. 12-16, 1960		Five days of hearings are held in Athens in the case of Holmes v. Danner (UGA registrar Walter Danner) that seeks to end racial segregation at the University of Georgia. The Holmes-Hunter legal team includes Constance Baker Motley from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Atlanta civil rights attorney Donald Hollowell, his new partner Horace Ward, plus law clerk Vernon Jordan.
Friday, Jan. 6, 1961		Banner newspaper headlines announce that Johnny Griffith will suceed the legendary Wallace Butts as football coach of the Georgia Bulldogs. In Macon, Judge William Bootle issues his ruling that Holmes and Hunter are fully qualified for immediate admission to the University of Georgia "and would already have been admitted had it not been for their race and color." Though some student leaders call for calm, by late evening a milling crowd on North Campus is burning crosses and throwing firecrackers in protest.
Saturday, Jan. 7, 1961		Donald Hollowell, Hamilton Holmes, Holmes ' father Alfred, Julian Bond and Atlanta NAACP head Samuel Williams drive to Athens to pick up registration forms. Meanwhile, Georgia Gov. Ernest Vandiver meets with his chief of staff Griffin Bell, Attorney General Eugene Cook and B.D. (Buck) Murphy, who a decade earlier had served as special counsel to fight Horace Ward 's attempts to enroll at UGA. Immediately after the meeting, Cook drives to Macon to deliver a motion for a stay of Bootle 's ruling. Bootle sets a Monday morning hearing in Macon. Meanwhile, UGA President O.C. Aderhold tells the press that unless he receives contrary instructions, the university is prepared to admit Holmes and Hunter. Dean of Students Joe Williams convenes a group of student leaders and asks them to encourage order.
Sunday, Jan. 8, 1961		Charlayne Hunter returns to Atlanta from Wayne State University in Detroit, where she has been a student, and is met by a swarm of relatives and friends at the airport. Vandiver and his advisers hold strategy sessions with legislators, members of the Board of Regents and other education officials.
Monday, Jan. 9, 1961		While Hollowell and Motley travel to Macon, Holmes and Hunter set out for Athens accompanied by her mother, his father, Vernon Jordan and Horace Ward. The group walks through the Arch and heads to the registrar 's office in the Academic Building, surrounded by reporters and onlookers. As Holmes and Hunter begin the registration process, a cheer goes up from the crowd: Bootle has stayed his own ruling, saying he wants to give the state of Georgia the opportunity to appeal. In Macon, Motley calls Judge Elbert Tuttle in Atlanta to ask whether he can vacate Bootle 's stay, then she and Hollowell race to his chambers on Forsyth Street. Tuttle rules that Bootle 's stay had been "improvidently granted" and promptly overturns it. Hollowell calls the home of Athens businessman Ray Ware, where Holmes and Hunter and their group have gone, and tells Jordan to escort the two back to the university to resume the registration process. Afterwards, the group returns to Atlanta. Meanwhile the governor 's legal aides are preparing an appeal to the Supreme Court and Vandiver announces he will present a statement at midnight. In Athens, a crowd of students -- who expect to hear from the governor that the university will close -- stage more demonstrations.
Tuesday, Jan. 10, 1961		Georgia 's legal delegation enters the U.S. Supreme Court building with a petition to stop the ordered integration of the university until there is a formal appeal. Attorney General Cook asks that it be delivered to Justice Hugo Black, the supervising judge of the Fifth Circuit. A motion from Hollowell and Motley, dictated over the phone to an NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney, already awaits Black. Rather than act unilaterally, Black takes the matter to the full court, where the state 's motion is denied. In Macon, Hollowell and Motley are back before Judge Bootle asking for a temporary injunction restraining the governor from cutting off funds to the university, which Bootle grants. When Holmes and Hunter arrive in Athens that afternoon they are met by students chanting, "Two-four-six-eight, we don 't want to integrate." That night, at a celebration at the Hollowells, the joyful litany goes: "From Bootle to Tuttle to Black and back."
Wednesday, Jan. 11, 1961		Holmes and Hunter attend their first classes -- zoology and introductory psychology, respectively -- escorted by Dean Williams and Dean Tate. Though there are scattered jeers, the day proceeds with relative calm. But that evening, after UGA suffers an overtime loss in a basketball game against Georgia Tech, a crowd descends on Myers Hall, where Hunter resides. A melee ensues, eventually broken up by Athens police, who arrive with tear gas, and Dean of Men William Tate, who wades into the throng, demanding student IDs. Hunter and Holmes are escorted back to Atlanta and later informed they have been suspended "for their own safety."
Thursday, Jan. 12, 1961		More than two-thirds of the UGA faculty sign a resolution deploring the violence of the previous night and insisting that the two suspended students be returned to their classes. Messages of support come from other campuses in the state. Judge Bootle swiftly orders the immediate readmission of Holmes and Hunter. By the following Monday, they are back in class.
Wednesday, Jan. 18, 1961		Gov. Vandiver calls an evening session of the legislature to propose an amendment to the state constitution to "protect" any child from being required to attend an integrated school, replacing the previous state law requiring segregated schools. Vandiver 's request includes a tuition grant program for parents wishing to send their children to private schools. It also offers a local referendum provision that would permit any community to vote to close its schools if ordered to integrate them. The measure is passed 10 days later.
Saturday, Jan. 20, 1961		At the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, Gov. and Mrs. Vandiver, sitting in a white convertible, lead the Georgia delegation in the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Summer 1961		Feeling that Holmes and Hunter need moral support, Mary Frances Early arrives on campus to begin graduate studies in UGA 's School of Music.
1962		Mary Frances Early becomes the first African-American graduate of the University of Georgia when she receives her master 's degree in music education.
1963		Holmes and Hunter graduate from UGA, with Donald Hollowell among those in attendance. James Meredith graduates from Ole Miss.
1964		Congress passes new Civil Rights Act.
1965		Congress passes Voting Rights Act.
April 4, 1968		Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis.
1983		Hamilton Holmes agrees to serve on the board of trustees of the University of Georgia Foundation.
1985		UGA celebrates its Bicentennial; Holmes-Hunter Lecture established.
1986		Vernon Jordan delivers inaugural Holmes-Hunter Lecture.
1988		Charlayne Hunter-Gault delivers Commencement address 25 years after her own graduation and is featured on the cover of the alumni magazine.
1992		Jesse Jackson delivers annual Holmes-Hunter Lecture. Charlayne Hunter- Gault 's memoir, In My Place, is published.
Oct. 26, 1995		Hamilton Holmes dies from complications following a heart attack. Charlayne Hunter-Gault and then-University of Georgia President Charles Knapp are among those providing eulogies at his funeral.
1998		Charlayne Hunter-Gault returns to UGA to deliver the annual Hill Lecture.
Jan. 9, 2001		UGA marks 40th anniversary of desegregation.
We are in the process of collecting images, stories and reflections for this Web site. This site is being developed to mark one of the most pivotal events in UGA history: the desegregation of the institution. We hope it will serve as a capsule in time - one which will be used to stimulate dialogue and add to the historic record of these times. If you have memories, thoughts or photos you wish to share, we would love to hear from you.