Profile in black and white

by Howard H. Quint

Measures taken against the NAACP are another important phase in the state’s efforts to preserve segregation unimpaired. These have given official direction to the drive to eradicate the NAACP in South Carolina. In February, 1956, the state legislature unanimously adopted a resolution urging the attorney general of the United States to classify the NAACP “as a subversive organization so that it may be kept under the proper surveillance and that all citizens of the United States may have ample warning of the danger to our way of life which lurks in such an organization.” By way of justification the legislators maintained that the files of the Un-American Activities Committee of the national House of Representatives contained records “of affiliation with ... subversive organizations or activities” of 53 leading officials of the NAACP. Among the individuals so listed were A. Philip Randolph, Mary McLeod Bethune, Oscar Hammerstein II, Channing H. Tobias, William H. Hastie, Benjamin E. Mays, Arthur B. Spingarn, Ralph Bunche, Allen Knight Chalmers, Norman Cousins, and James Hinton.[360]

In March the legislators approved a law barring all members of the NAACP from employment by state, county or local governments. It declared that the NAACP exerted “constant pressure on its members contrary to the principles upon which the economic and social life of our state rests.” Membership in the organization was held to be “wholly incompatible with the peace, tranquility and progress that all citizens have a right to enjoy.” This legislation required prospective teachers to fill out a long questionnaire designed to uncover the slightest deviation from complete racial orthodoxy. The questions asked included:

Do you belong to the NAACP? Does any member of your immediate family belong to the NAACP? Do you support the NAACP in any way (money or attendance at meetings)?

Do you favor integration of races in schools? Are you satisfied with your work and the schools as they are now maintained? If yes, comment on back.

Do you feel that you would be happy in an integrated school system, knowing that the parents and students do not favor this system? (Give reasons for your answer)

Do you feel that an integrated school system would better fit the colored race for their life’s work? (Give reasons for your answer)

Do you feel that the parents of your school know that no public schools will be operated if they are integrated? Do you believe in the aims of the NAACP?[361]

The 1956 legislature also authorized the investigation of NAACP activities at Orangeburg state college.

Several other anti-NAACP measures were introduced but failed of passage. These followed the pernicious tactic of linking the NAACP with the Klan. Included was a proposal to deny tax exempt status to “any building of public worship” used as a meeting place by the Communist party or the NAACP. Another would have required all state officials and employes to declare by oath that they belonged neither to the NAACP nor the Ku Klux Klan. Declared the latter proposal: “The dangerous policies and doctrines of these despicable organizations constitute a danger to the health, morals, safety and general welfare of citizens in the state.”[362]

The legislature’s preoccupation with such measures was generally criticized by the press of the state. The Morning News questioned the reasonableness, fairness and justness of the anti-NAACP bills and compared them to the pattern of “McCarthyism.” “Bills of this kind,” wrote O’Dowd, “are seldom given a chance of passage—even by the authors. They are written and introduced as a grandstand play for the folks back home. They may serve to make the author look like the champion of white Protestantism to some of the more rabid of his supporters; but the bills also make the legislature look pretty silly and immature.” On another occasion the same paper declared that “speeches and resolutions against the Supreme Court and the NAACP” had replaced “home, mother, God and country in South Carolina political circles.” The 1956 session of the legislature, chided O’Dowd, would possibly be renowned for “turning its back on positive progress and dedicating its efforts to blind blows against the Supreme Court and the NAACP.”[363] In agreement the Independent stated that the 1956 legislature showed “signs of turning into a mad scramble” to see who could introduce the most “‘segregation’ bills.” The low-country Walterboro Press and Standard believed that “some politicians are more interested in ‘cashing in’ politically on the [segregation] issue and prolonging it than in establishing a steady, determined course of action that will in fact preserve both segregation and the fundamental freedoms in South Carolina.”[364] The Record also questioned the wisdom of anti-NAACP measures which might serve only to drive the organization underground or to replace it with “some other apparently less sinister group.”[365]