DLS Responds to the '61 Riot Controversy

August 1, 2002

With the press coverage of the new book by UGA professor Robert E. Pratt, We Shall Not Be Moved: The Desegregation of the University of Georgia, some questions have arisen concerning the role of the Demosthenian Literary Society in the planning of the 1961 integration riot that targeted Charlene Hunter and Hamilton Holmes.

It is well known that university law students who were also members of the DLS were involved in planning the riot. These men were subsequently expelled from the university.

Dr. Pratt's account of the events goes further, conjecturing that the riots were possibly planned during a Demosthenian meeting:

"There is little doubt that some of the university's law students, possibly during a meeting with the Demosthenians, actually organized the riot. During the meeting, Cecil Davis, a law student and a member of the Demosthenians, promised that Holmes and Hunter 'would receive the same greeting Autherine Lucy got at the University of Alabama'." [Pratt, p. 97]*

The DLS in no way condones or supports the actions of those students who were involved in the riots. However, we contest Dr. Pratt's tentative charge. We have been able to find no proof that the planning of the riots occurred at Demosthenian Hall; indeed, the accounts of members of the society who were present at the meeting in question who were not involved in the riots have contradicted the claim.

However, it is no secret that for much of its history, Georgia has been a state rife with racist sentiments, in both politics and daily life. The University of Georgia was no different, and neither was the Demosthenian Literary Society. Any group who traces its roots back past the 1950's has had members whose politics and morals that modern society can rightly condemn. But that fact should not taint every aspect of our history. It would be a great tragedy if modern society were to assume that the fact of racism in the past forever colours the present and the future.

The Demosthenian Literary Society prides itself on being a place for free and open debate, where students can come to learn to express their views (whatever they may be) in an effective manner. The views of individual members--past, present and future--changes; the need for debate and oratory skill remains eternal.

Addendum

Recently, the Red and Black, has run a letter to the editor from an alumnus who claims that the DLS is a racist organization even today. To read this charge, see this link, and here for the society's official response.

It should also be known that the UGA alumnus in question is also an alumnus of the DLS's rival society, the PK Literary Society. Humbly, we suggest that one should rarely take the opinions of a member of one society about the other at face value. Rivalry has a way of clouding the judgment.

*Dr. Pratt's book neglects to provide a source for the quotation.