5. That, nevertheless, cultural patterns cannot be changed quickly and the reality of this cannot wisely be ignored in seeking solutions.
6. That neither of the extreme pressures of the NAACP nor the Citizens Councils offers the best direction for the South.
7. That personal freedom of choice and association in social relations must be maintained within the bounds of a democratic society, even if desegregation becomes the accepted procedure for tax supported institutions.
8. That all Southerners should explore the situation thoughtfully in the light of Christian love and our democratic heritage, believing that we can go forward together even though slowly.
Sentiments such as these, of course, had little chance of winning friends and influencing segregationists in South Carolina. Among those receiving the prospectus was Governor Timmerman. Although specifically asked not to make the contents of the prospectus public, the Governor handed his copy to the press. He explained his action in the following manner: “In the belief that it is of interest generally to the public, I am making it [the prospectus] available for publication. All South Carolinians, not just these self-appointed few, are ‘Concerned’ South Carolinians.”
The Florence Citizens Council wasted little time in replying to the “Concerned South Carolinians.” In a press release, it accused the clergymen of organizing “under a cloak of secrecy” and boasted by way of comparison that it was an “open” association. The Florence Council maintained that the ministers misrepresented the facts in classifying it as an “extremist” organization along with the NAACP. It challenged the “Concerned South Carolinians” or any other group “to prove when and where the Citizens Councils have acted contrary to law or in extreme.”[524]
When the publication of the “Concerned South Carolinians” finally came out in October, it had a brisk sale.[525] The very fact that it appeared on newsstands throughout the state was in itself a victory for its sponsors. Former Congressman James P. Richards praised publication of the booklet as a “real contribution to freedom of expression.”[526] Few South Carolina whites, however, saw fit to endorse the pamphlet and from public officials, aside from Richards, there was a wall of dead silence.
The booklet contained a dozen essays or statements ranging from the old fashioned segregationist arguments of Columbia attorney, R. Beverley Herbert, to the hard hitting integrationist editorials of Arthur Locke King, another attorney, from Georgetown, and Andrew McDowd Secrest, the outspoken editor and publisher of the weekly Cheraw Chronicle. Anthony Harrigan, reviewing the booklet for the News and Courier, found little of value in the collection of opinions save in the case of Mr. Herbert’s essay. The other authors, he maintained, did not represent the views of South Carolinians as were expressed at elections.[527]
Among the contributors to the little volume was Mrs. Claudia Thomas Sanders, wife of a Gaffney physician. Mrs. Sanders suggested that desegregation could be accomplished in the public schools of the state by starting with the first grades. “Children are not born with prejudice,” wrote Mrs. Sanders. “If adults could only learn from children their ability to judge character and worth without regard for externals,” she continued, the desegregation process “would be immeasurably lighter.”[528]
No one could accuse Mrs. Sanders of being one of those Northerners who could never understand the “Southern way of life.” Born in Charleston, the state’s “Holy City,” she can trace her ancestry back to the early colonial period. Moreover, she is a leading Episcopal churchwoman and is engaged in such eminently socially acceptable activities as the American Association of University Women, the Home and Garden Club, the Gaffney Hospital Auxiliary and the Cherokee County Public Library Board.[529]