Schools and Education Sunday Favorites: Desegregating Florida

Demonstrators walk towards the school administration building.

BRADENTON – Recent reports of picketing the school administration building have headlined newspapers all week, but during the civil rights movement, things were just as complicated. Instead of complying to federal mandates, former Governor Claude Kirk took it upon him self to travel from Tallahassee to Manatee County, suspend the superintendent, twice, and take over the entire school district to halt strategies to cross bus African-American students and teachers to other schools.  Kirk maintained throughout his lifetime that it was the mandatory busing he was against–not desegregation, but most of his constituents could see through his actions.

Even before the Civil Rights movement, Florida had it’s own idea about racial policies. The state’s ”separate but equal“ dogmas predated the doctrine by the U.S. Supreme County in the Plessey v. Ferguson decision (1896) by more than a decade. The NAACP first challenged the clause in higher education; in 1949 Virgil Hawkins applied to the University of Florida Law School but was rejected by the governing body of the state university system. He was informed he could either attend an out-of-state law school at an in-state rate or apply at Florida A&M Law School, which existed only on paper at that time. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the college to admit Hawkins, but the Florida Supreme Court chose not to comply.

The state court interpreted the 1956 Brown v. The Board of Education as giving the state the authority to decide the time and place that African Americans could be admitted to white schools. In 1958, Hawkins abandoned is nine-year battle and enrolled in New England Law School. He was weary, bust and discouraged.

Governor Claude Kirk took it upon him self to travel from Tallahassee to Manatee County to halt strategies to cross bus African-American students and teachers to other schools.

In 1950, the NAACP began challenging the Plessy verdict. Many southern states, including Florida, completed revitalization efforts for black schools to improve the quality of learning and equalize teacher salaries. The effort worked, when Plessy was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, judges could not reach a decision – the court was deadlocked. Then in 1953, one of the judges died unexpectedly. With his replacement approving the overturn, the court struck down the separate but equal doctrine.

In 1955 states were asked to submit desegregation strategies, Florida requested a gradual enactment; no federal timetable was issued. In the next five years Florida enacted a nullification law, declaring Brown null and void and gave boards the authority to assign students to schools based on performance, psychology and impact of admission. All members of the Florida congress signed the Southern Manifesto, a document challenging Brown and opposing racial integration in public places.

By the fall of 1965, all counties in South Florida had some form of integration because of federal mandates, although it was not on a large scale. Manatee County had few blacks in biracial environments and Pinellas only enlisted 11 blacks in white schools. That year, the Manatee County School District came under court jurisdiction when it was sued by a private party to desegregate. A district court found the schools integration plan to be inadequate, and demanded that an amended proposal be submitted.

Hundreds protested Kirks actions.

Fifteen years after Brown marked the end of gradualism. In Alexander v. Holmes County, the Court demanded every school district terminate dual school systems. They were given only four months to comply.

Anti-busing groups began popping up all over the place, since busing was the primary means of desegregating schools. In Manatee County, that anti-busing group called itself the Freedom of Choice Committee.  In March of 1970, a private party sued Manatee County. An appellant court denied the decision to prevent forced busing – that’s when Governor Claude Kirk intervened.

On April 6, 1970 Kirk suspended then Superintendent Jack Davidson and he and his aides assumed control of the school administration building. Kirk said the situation would remain that way until the end of the school year.

Dozens of residents gathered around the administration building, picketing Kirk’s decision. District Judge Ben Kentzman ordered Kirk to implement the busing and reinstated Davidson, Kirk returned to Bradenton and fired the superintendent again.

The next day, federal marshals showed up at the administration building – Kirk wasn’t there. When threatened with being jailed, Kirk went back to Tallahassee leaving his aides to deal with the marshals, who refrained from busting in the door of the administration building when confronted by Sheriff Richard Weitzenfold and five other deputies. People feared conflict, but the marshals ensued and arrested the Sheriff  and his deputies for trying to uphold Kirk’s order.

Lucky for Kirk, the judge didn’t press charges and by the end of the week, plans to begin busing students had commenced. The blatant disregard for the law and disrespect of authority tarnished Kirk’s reputation indefinitely.

Finally, integration had begun and a separate public existence between blacks and whites was irrevocably history. Today Manatee County still remains under a Court Order with respect to school desegregation, however actions by the school district to obtain unitary status have been dormant for decades.