NCSB Journal Spring 2026

“from operating separate schools for the white and colored races.” 13 A statute was enacted that same year to provide for segre gated educational facilities, followed by a constitutional amendment that required racially segregated schools, adopted after Democrats returned to power in 1875. Since the Supreme Court later blessed the doctrine of “separate but equal” in 1896, and since North Carolina had recently made strides in equalizing facilities and teacher pay for “both races,” Gov. Umstead expressed his disagree ment with the conclusion of the Supreme Court in Brown . In a tone that would carry over to the next governor and that in some ways echoed the words of Irving Carlyle, Governor Umstead ultimately recognized the authority of the Supreme Court to declare the meaning of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment: “However, the Supreme Court has spoken. It has reversed itself and has declared segregation in public schools uncon stitutional.” In what would also prove to be the consistent theme of North Carolina’s response to Brown , Gov. Umstead stressed that the 1954 Supreme Court opinion had postponed any enforcement of its decision, which gave North Carolina’s leaders time to work out solutions to the “complex problem” created by Brown . “This is no time for rash statements or the proposal of impossible schemes.” Instead, Gov. Umstead pledged to consult with other state leaders since no “final conclusions as to our course and the program we shall follow is immediately necessary.” The UNC Institute of Government’s study of the opinion was provided by its founding director, Albert Coates, and Assistant Director James Paul, both attor neys. 14 Paul had been a clerk to former US Supreme Court Chief Justice Vinson for two years, so he had a first-hand preview of the Court’s thinking before the Brown decision was reached. 15 As Director Coates noted in his introduc tion to the Report, there were essentially three courses of action available to state leaders fol lowing the Supreme Court’s decision: (1) let the Supreme Court figure out how to enforce its decision, “with attitudes ranging from pas sive resistance to open defiance;” (2) follow the edicts of the Court and “proceed in the direction of mixed schools without delay;” or, (3) what was clearly the preferred route taken by North Carolina’s political leaders, [I]t can take the course of playing for time

in which to study plans for action making haste slowly enough to avoid the provoca tive litigation and strife which might be a consequence of denying the decision, avoid the possibility of friction and strife which might be a consequence of precipi tate and unthinking acquiescence, and yet make haste fast enough to come with the law and keep the schools and keep the peace. 16 The phrase “making haste slowly enough” foreshadowed the Supreme Court’s infamous formulation in Brown II , ordering states to move with “all deliberate speed.” 17 Professor James Paul stressed that the Supreme Court, as of the summer of 1954, had “not yet declared how or when the consti tutional rights which it has adjudicated may be enforced by those Negroes who seek to enforce them.” 18 The decrees in the five con solidated cases actually decided in Brown had not yet been formulated. If the Supreme Court did not enumerate detailed standards in its next decision, Paul concluded, the mat ters would be directed to lower courts to work out the details of compliance in those partic ular cases. Given the Court’s acknowledg ment that states may require time for a “grad ual adjustment,” many of Prof. Paul’s ideas focused on how best to use that time and the likely discretion afforded to states and local school districts before enforcement actions would follow. In short, the Institute of Government suggested that if the state could show it was working towards gradual compli ance, however slowly, it could likely avoid a direct confrontation with federal courts. Pearsall, after considering the Institute of Government’s analysis of Brown , agreed that actual enforcement would likely come, if ever, from decisions made by US District Court judges in individual cases over time, not from some sweeping decree from the high court or from the appointment of a spe cial master to make recommendations for national enforcement in the near term. 19 This legal perspective, reinforced in 1955 by Brown II’s subsequent mandate, proved piv otal in the state’s strategy to bide its time, allowing segregated schools to persist at the local level for years to come. The centerpiece of the state’s first move to appear to comply with the Court’s ruling was to pass a new statute that removed the requirement for racial segregation as a matter of state law. North Carolina essentially inverted its state motto and decided “to seem

rather than to be” as it charted its course of “making haste slowly.” Gov. Hodges, who had served as lieutenant governor until Gov. Umstead’s death in November 1954, backed this recommendation of the Pearsall Committee over the objection of I. Beverly Lake at the Attorney General’s Office. Lake wanted to maintain a state law requiring explicit racial segregation in public schools. Lake would later align himself with the Patriots of North Carolina, our state’s version of the White Citizens’ Council, and would become one of the leading legal defenders of “interposition,” the idea that North Carolina could lawfully defy the Supreme Court under the Tenth Amendment. 20 The contours of the committee’s recom mendations were hammered out by two lawyers—the chair, Pearsall, and Col. William Joyner, one of the preeminent lawyers of his time. Joyner’s father, James Yadkin Joyner, had been the superintendent of public schools under Governor Charles B. Aycock in the early 1900s. The first Pearsall Committee concluded that: The mixing of the races forthwith in the public schools throughout the state can not be accomplished and should not be attempted. The schools of our state are so intimately related to the customs and feel ings of the people of each community that their effective operation is impossible except in conformity with community attitudes. The committee feels that the compulsory mixing of the races in our schools on a state-wide basis and without regard to local conditions and assignment factors other than race, would alienate public support of the schools to such an extent that they could not be operated successfully. 21 The committee took advantage of the Institute of Government’s report as a guide on “just how far” they could go legally. 22 By devolving all pupil assignment decisions to the local level, the state government insulated itself from any role in enforcing racial segre gation, meaning that any subsequent litiga tion to force compliance with Brown would have to play out school district by school dis trict. The committee’s recommendation for a new pupil assignment law was enacted in the spring of 1955. 23 Pearsall thought that the state had estab lished a winning political strategy coming out of the earlier legal battles to end state enforced racial segregation at the UNC Law

SPRING 2026

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