Case 1:
Harvey Gantt and the Desegregation of Clemson University
an exhibit in conjunction with
Integration With Dignity: A Celebration of 40 Years
photo: Harvey Gantt enrolling at Clemson
Case 2:
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Clemson College
c 1960
As the 1960s began, Clemson College enrolled approximately 3,900 white male students and approximately 100 white female students. Eighty percent were from South Carolina, and ninety-four percent were from the South. Annual tuition, including room and board, was $882 for in-state students and $1082 for out-of-state students [1960-61].
Students could choose from twenty-nine majors in the Schools of Agriculture, Architecture, Arts and Sciences, Engineering, and Textiles. All unmarried, male students under age 21 were required to complete two years of basic ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps).
Single male students lived in six dormitories (Johnstone Hall and the five dormitories that comprise the current fraternity housing), with two more under construction. There were three housing projects for married students. No dormitories were provided for women, although one was under construction. Freshmen were not allowed to have cars on campus.
The YMCA (Holtzendorff) and the new Student Center (Johnstone) were the centers of extra-curricular life. There were no social fraternities or sororities. Dances, concerts and intramural sports were popular campus activities. Intercollegiate athletics attracted large crowds. Memorial Stadium could seat 44,000 football fans.
The Library (the current Sikes Hall) desperately needed more space as enrollment increased each year. The newest buildings included Earle Hall, the School of Architecture Building (Lee), the Robert Franklin Poole Agricultural Center and the Physics Building (Kinard).
- photo of two white male students with Clemson College bags
- photo of dance
- photo of white male students looking at TGC statue
- photo of computer center
- photos of black College employees
caption: Local black residents worked for the College from its earliest days, but were mostly limited to jobs as custodians, outdoor laborers and cafeteria workers. Black entertainers were hired for college dances by the 1950s. But, there were no black students, faculty or administrators before 1963.
Case 3:
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“Separate But Equal”
In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation was allowed as long as equal facilities were provided for both races. Although Plessy v. Ferguson involved only passenger accommodations on a railroad, the principle of "separate but equal" was applied to all aspects of public life. By 1914, every Southern state had passed laws creating separate facilities for blacks, including schools, restaurants, streetcars, health-care institutions and cemeteries. This artificial structure was maintained by denying black people the right to vote.
Gradual changes by the 1940s started the country on the long path toward ending “separate but equal.” Large numbers of blacks moving west and north during World War II brought the issue to national attention. And black soldiers and sailors who returned from fighting for their country against injustice overseas were less tolerant of inequality at home.
Many white leaders continued to fight desegregation at all costs, although some attempts were made to forestall arguments that equal facilities were not provided. In South Carolina higher education, the state maintained a separate law school at South Carolina State College beginning in 1945. The South Carolina Area Trade School was founded in 1947. And the South Carolina Regional Education Board paid the difference between in-state and out-of-state fees for black students to attend colleges in other states if their field of interest was not available at South Carolina State College.
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Brown v Board of Education, 1954
overrules “Separate But Equal”
On May 17, 1954 the Supreme Court decided the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Linda Brown was denied admission to an elementary school in Topeka because she was black. Her case was brought together with cases from South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware which involved the same basic question: Does the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment prohibit racial segregation in the public schools? In a unanimous opinion delivered by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Supreme Court declared that "separate education facilities are inherently unequal."
Many white southerners, from politicians to business leaders to ordinary citizens, criticized the Supreme Court and refused to abide by the Brown decision. The 1956 session of the South Carolina General Assembly was called the “Segregation Session” because so many acts passed by the legislature were designed to prevent desegregating schools, parks and other facilities.
White Citizens' Councils and other groups that pledged to preserve white supremacy sprang up in many states, including South Carolina. Threats, intimidation and violence were used against blacks, as well as whites, who supported the Brown decision. In response, there was an increase in peaceful public protests, including sit-in demonstrations and economic boycotts, as well legal action to bring about integration. By 1963, every state except South Carolina had integrated at least one of its colleges or universities.
- photo of Greensboro, NC lunch counter sit-in
- photo of Brown v Board attorneys
caption: Attorneys George E.C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James Nabrit congratulating each other following the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision, 1954.
(Copyprint New York World-Telegram and Sun Photograph Collection, Prints and Photographs Division. Courtesy of AP/Wide World Photos.)
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Other Black Applicants
The earliest known black applicant to Clemson College was Spencer Bracey, a student at South Carolina A&M College in 1948. Neither he nor 1956 applicant John L. Gainey, a soldier, pursued enrollment.
Cornelius T. Fludd graduated with Harvey Gantt from Burke High School in Charleston. He enrolled at Morehouse College in Atlanta and later joined Gantt at Iowa State. Fludd also wanted to transfer to Clemson and completed the same stages in the application process through the Spring of 1962. At that time he decided not to continue his efforts to attend Clemson. Fludd currently is an assistant athletic director at the University of Texas.
- letters re: Bracey / article re: Gainey
Case 4:
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Harvey B. Gantt
Architecture Student
Harvey B. Gantt was born in 1943 in Charleston where grew up with four younger sisters. His father, Christopher Gantt, worked several jobs to support his family and also was a member of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). Harvey Gantt was eleven years old when the Brown v. Board of Education ruling was made. He began to take an interest in the issues of race about that time, later becoming part of the NAACP Youth Council and participating in at least one sit-in protest in Charleston.
Gantt graduated from Burke High School in 1960. He was interested in studying architecture and during his senior year of high school asked for application materials from Clemson, the only architecture school in South Carolina. But Clemson did not admit black students in 1960, so Gantt enrolled at Iowa State University. The South Carolina Regional Education Board paid $149.51 per quarter (the difference in cost between in-state and out-of-state enrollment) for him to study architecture at Iowa State University instead of at Clemson.
“Will you please send me a bulletin for the 1960-61 school year. I should like the bulletin to include the different curriculums and the cost of attending Clemson for one year. Also I am asking that you send me some applications for admission next semester or the fall of ’61.”
-- Harvey Gantt to Registrar’s Office, November 2, 1960
The Registrar’s office staff eventually sent Gantt a catalog and application card which he returned in December 1960. Clemson officials realized Gantt was black from the race question on the card.
“Your application for entrance in September, 1961 has been received. On inquiry, we find that the South Carolina Regional Education Board is paying, and expects to continue to pay provided you qualify, the difference in cost between in-state and out-of-state enrollment. In view of the above and your satisfactory progress at Iowa State University, we are returning your application.”
-- Registrar’s Office to Harvey Gantt, January 23, 1961
Gantt repeated his desire to attend Clemson and returned his application to be considered for enrollment in the Fall 1961 semester.
Harvey Gantt’s application was put in the “incomplete” file and eventually he was advised that it was too late for him to be considered for the 1961 Fall semester. Gantt applied for admission again in December 1961, asking to be admitted either for the 1962 Spring semester or 1962 Fall semester.
In June 1962, Harvey Gantt traveled to Clemson and talked with Clemson Registrar Kenneth Vickery. He was told the college was waiting for his transcripts from Iowa State University. On July 2, he was advised that he needed to submit a portfolio of his work in architecture before his application could be reviewed.
- letters
- 2 telegrams: Gantt to Vickery, 6/26/62 and Vickery to Gantt, 6/28/62
Case 5:
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Legal Action
“The plaintiff has not been granted admission to Clemson College although he is fully qualified for such admission and has met all requirements for such admission and although white students who applied after plaintiff applied and whose academic records are inferior to those of the plaintiff have been admitted. The admission of the plaintiff has been denied by the registrar of Clemson College solely because of the race and color of the plaintiff and pursuant to the policy, practice, custom and usage of limiting admission to Clemson College to white persons only.”
– Complaint, Harvey Gantt v. Clemson Agricultural College
of South Carolina, July 7, 1962
On July 7, 1962 Harvey Gantt filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of South Carolina, Anderson Division. The lawsuit was filed on his behalf by his father, Christopher Gantt, because Harvey Gantt was a minor. Gantt’s lead attorney was Matthew Perry of Columbia. He also was represented by several NAACP attorneys from Greenville and New York, including Constance Baker Motley who represented James Meredith in his legal action against the University of Mississippi.
- legal documents
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On July 9, 1962 a summons to be answered within twenty days, a complaint and a motion for preliminary injunction was served to President R.C. Edwards and Registrar Kenneth Vickery. Within the week similar papers were served to each member of the Board of Trustees and State Superintendent of Education J. T. Anderson.
On September 6, 1962, C. C. Wyche, U.S. District Judge for the Western District in South Carolina, denied the motion for preliminary injunction. The decision was appealed and heard in the United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Alexandria, Virginia on September 25 and October 4, 1962. On October 5, 1962, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the request for a temporary injunction and expressed its desire that the case be heard on its merits by the District Court as soon as possible.
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Matthew Perry
Matthew Perry was born in Columbia in 1921. After serving in the Army from 1942 to 1946, he completed his B.S. degree in 1948 and his law degree in 1951 at South Carolina State College. As a young civil rights lawyer, Perry was instrumental in achieving many successes for blacks. He was an attorney with the Columbia firm of Jenkins, Perry and Pride and also legal counsel in South Carolina for the NAACP.
Perry tried cases that led to the integration of beaches, parks, restaurants, and public schools and his trial work led to the release of some 7,000 people arrested for sit-in protests. Harvey Gantt first met Matthew Perry when Perry gave a speech at Gantt’s church in 1958.
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Robert Cook Edwards
Robert C. Edwards graduated from Clemson in 1933 with a degree in textile engineering. He served in the army during World War II and worked at Deering-Milliken. In 1956, Edwards began working at Clemson as vice president for development, a new position in which he supervised fundraising and public and alumni relations.
When President Poole died in June 1958, R.C. Edwards was named acting president. In April 1959 he was the unanimous choice to be Clemson’s president.
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Kenneth Vickery
Kenneth N. Vickery graduated from Clemson in 1938 and began working as assistant to the Registrar. He returned to Clemson after serving for 4 ½ years in the Army during World War II. Vickery became Director of Admissions in 1949, Registrar in 1955 and Director of Admissions and Registration in 1961.
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Meanwhile, In Mississippi
On September 10, 1962, a federal court ordered the University of Mississippi to accept James Meredith, a twenty-eight-year-old Air Force veteran, as the school’s first black student. Governor Ross Barnett vowed he would never allow the school to be integrated and personally blocked Meredith’s enrollment. He was supported by hundreds of state policemen, sheriffs, residents and students.
To protect Meredith, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent 123 deputy federal marshals, 316 U.S. border guards and 97 federal prison guards. They were attacked with guns, bricks and bottles. As violence escalated in late September, President John F. Kennedy sent more than 16,000 federal troops. Two people were killed, twenty-eight marshals were shot and 160 people were injured. Meredith finally enrolled on October 1, 1962. Federal troops remained on campus to protect him until he graduated in 1963.
The situation in Mississippi had a tremendous impact on Clemson and its supporters. Many people who opposed integrating the school more strongly opposed the violence and destruction that took place in Mississippi.
- photo of James Meredith at University of Mississippi and newspaper article
Case 6:
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Behind the Scenes
In early 1961, R.C. Edwards discussed with John Cauthen whether state leaders would support a policy of law and order if the courts ordered Harvey Gantt to be admitted to Clemson. Cauthen began lining up support among business and political leaders for a non-violent course of action. They were joined, informally, by Charles Daniel, Edgar Brown, Ernest Hollings and Wayne Freeman. Freeman was editor of the Greenville News and a member of the Gressette Committee that dealt with the state’s racial issues.