Backlash
May 17th, 1954 was a day that changed America forever. In one swift stroke, the Supreme Court dealt racial segregation a crippling blow by ruling that segregation of students in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because separate facilities were inherently unequal. For those opposed to segregation, this gave them the opportunity they had been waiting for to use the law in their favor to dismantle states’ rights and install civil rights instead. For segregationists used to having the law on their side, they didn’t take the news very well (even though Topeka obeyed the ruling without raising a fuss).
Had Stevenson lived, he most likely would have handled the situation in a delicate manner. He probably would have issued a carefully-worded statement aimed at placating both sides and then try to stay away from the ruling. He was a man who didn’t approve of segregation but at the same time recognized the difficulties of trying to change an established way of life…especially in the South. Sparkman, of course, wasn’t Stevenson. He didn’t like the idea of desegregation period and hated the Supreme Court’s decision.
“Those bastards have put me in a bind,” he complained to fellow Southern Democrat Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr. of Virginia,
“How the hell can I enforce an order that goes against everything I believe in?”
Byrd urged him to resist enforcing the ruling, calling it
“a clear abuse of judicial power, plain and simple.”
When asked at the next press conference about his reaction to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Sparkman gave into his Southern impulse and launched an angry tirade against it. Watching the now-historic television footage in 2011, it is appalling by today’s moral standards for the President of the United States to be so openly racist. Watching the press conference live in 1954, even some Southern Democrats – most notably Georgia Senator Richard Russell, Jr., himself a devoted white supremacist – cringed at what they saw. It wasn’t what Sparkman said that bothered them but how he said it. The President spoke with fury in his voice, slamming the Supreme Court for
“this unwarranted decision made by unscrupulous men substituting naked power for established law.”
After defending the rights of states to set social rules, with hostility he accused the Supreme Court of substituting their personal political and social ideas for the established law of the land in rather ugly language.
“They are out to destroy this country, fully cooperating with devious citizens in our country who seek to replace the Constitution with dictatorship,” he alleged. The day after the scathing response, Russell went to the White House to have a word with his friend and former Senate colleague:
“John, I don’t fault you for feeling the way you do. The Constitution requires you to enforce the judiciary’s decisions, regardless of whether or not you approve of them. If I was in your position, I wouldn’t be happy about this ruling either. That being said, your behavior yesterday at the press conference was horrendous.
John, you have to understand something important. You can’t talk like you are on the floor of the Senate anymore. You are the President of the United States now. With the office comes a public perception of how the occupant should behave. Even if they don’t agree with you, the American people expect you to sound Presidential. What happened yesterday wasn’t Presidential-sounding. From now on, you have to be mindful of what you say publically and how you say it. Angrily complaining about something you disagree with and calling the opposition ‘traitors’ is not acceptable. As leader of this country, you have to choose your words carefully and keep passionate feelings at a minimum. Nobody wants to see their President have no self-control, nor will it get you anywhere with the other side.”
"The other side" mobilized quickly to oppose the President’s stance. On Capitol Hill, Progressives rallied around their leader: Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey. Ever since the divisive 1948 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (which saw the controversial nomination of Russell for President and Humphrey walking out of the convention to form the anti-Russell Progressive third party), Humphrey had been aggressively leading the crusade to wrestle control of the Party out of the hands of Southern Democrats. He was a staunch supporter of civil rights and refused to be intimidated by anyone. Humphrey stood up to Southerners time and again and even sharply criticized Stevenson for being soft on segregation. Now that Sparkman had opened his mouth, the Minnesota Senator struck back hard. In a passionate and eloquent rebuke of the President’s press conference, Humphrey repeated his famous words at the 1948 DNC:
“I have said it once, and I will repeat it again and again. To those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 178 years late. To those who say that this school segregation ruling is an infringement on states’ rights, I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.”
He then instructed the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party not to cooperate with the Southern wing for the remainder of 1954 – the course of action for 1955 would be determined later. Humphrey saw no reason to give the President anything substantial, even if it meant hurting his Party in the process.
“I would rather work with a Republican Congress that wants to advance the cause of civil rights than work with the Democratic Congress that doesn’t,” he admitted.
Humphrey and his Progressive followers set up quarantine on Capitol Hill. All non-essential legislation would be blocked; only bills necessary to keep the government operating would be allowed through. It was hardball retaliation, meant to exert pressure on the President to soften his segregationist views. Coming on the heels of the establishment of the Humphrey Quarantine (history’s name for the episode) was stunning news from within the Sparkman Administration itself. Secretary of Commerce W. Averell Harriman and Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz both resigned from their posts in protest.
“In good consciousness I cannot work for a racist President,” Harriman told reporters literally on his way out the door,
“How anyone occupying that high office can openly despise people they are meant to serve is unimaginable to me.”
With the President facing backlash from Congress and even from his own Cabinet, the Republicans watched with glee as the Democrats seemed to be self-imploding just months before a national election. Although he had retired from public service following the end of his Presidency, Dewey kept his eye on the political scene and saw the fall-out from Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka as a golden opportunity not to be missed. The elder statesman invited Knowland and other key party leaders to his Dapplemere estate for a conference.
“Gentlemen,” he began,
“I want to remind you that we are the Party of Lincoln for a reason. We Republicans were the ones that ended the horrors of slavery and converted slaves into free citizens during the Reconstruction period. We are the ones behind all the progress Blacks have made ever since the Emancipation Proclamation [was issued during the Civil War by President Abraham Lincoln].
A decade ago, we Republicans ended the segregation of the military and firmly insisted that black veterans fully enjoy the benefits of the G.I. Bill. We have tried in the last several years to do more for Blacks, only to be filibustered to death by these Southerners. They refuse to end lynching, they refuse to give them a better chance at life, and they refuse to give them their right to vote at the polls.
We shouldn’t forget that Blacks stand loyally behind us for a reason. They look up to us and support us so we can support them in return. We Republicans are the best friends they ever had, and this ruling is the perfect opportunity to remind them of that.”
During the conference, the group drafted a statement on behalf of the G.O.P. endorsing the Supreme Court ruling. The statement praised the High Court for ruling unanimously against segregation and promised that the Party of Lincoln would continue standing up for civil rights in the face of Southern resistance. Of course, their position would be greatly strengthened if they could increase their number of seats in Congress. Thus, the Republicans framed the upcoming midterm election as a national referendum on which was more important to the average voter: states’ rights or civil rights.
