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AN OPEN LETTER TO RALEIGH’S AFRICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY
(A Brief Civil Rights History Separating Local Fiction From Fact)
By Joseph H. Holt, Jr.
Copyright 2005 All Rights Reserved
Pervaded and saturated with myth and fabrication, the story of Raleigh’s civil rights movement--when, how, and by whom it began, its most significant events, and the sequence of those events is a confused and muddled mess. How it got that way, I can only guess. I suspect the distortion began 25 to 40 years ago. A number of persons who are over 50 and were raised in Raleigh know the truth, or at least a good portion of it, but there are just as many, or more, in the same category, who don't know, and can only repeat what has been passed on for years as genuine, but in reality is distorted information.
If this is the case for those of us whose roots are here, lived through and witnessed the era, and were mature enough to comprehend the events, what can be said about those who now represent the majority of the population, persons younger than 50, and all those who have migrated to our city and the Triangle over the last 30 years or so? These persons have learned about the events that have shaped our community primarily via word of mouth, or stories printed in newspapers. So many of those stories have wanted for infusion with fact.
The Civil Rights Movement was Americas most important, most riveting, 20th century socio-political event. As a defining and powerful change agent, it impacted the lives of all the people of this nation, transforming especially African-American lives and African-American life. It enabled us to transition from a disenfranchised people to persons who today enjoy comfortable corporate positions, good paying blue-collar jobs, virtually unlimited entrepreneurial and professional opportunities, and who send our children to some of the best schools in the nation where they can get an education that will set them for life. The telling, then, of the history that brought us ...out of the gloomy past, Till now we stand at last..."* demands dignity, clarity, and truth. We do not need to leave to our children, grandchildren, and succeeding generations mixed and misleading information that will only confuse them, and render them ignorant about their own history, unable to discuss it thoughtfully, confidently, intelligently. Too much of that has happened to us as a people already. To the extent that we can, I think we should leave a fair, balanced, and accurate account about the civil rights movement, who did what, and how, and why, and when; the events; the pathfinders; the leaders; the sacrifices; the sacrificers. We really have not done the best that we could do in Raleigh along those lines.
I am writing this "letter" in an effort to bring some balance, sanity, accuracy, and common sense to Raleigh’s civil rights story as it is presently being related, and as it has been told for some considerable length of time. I feel a strong personal and moral obligation to do this, as I was the central figure in the school integration initiative that in fact led off civil rights actions in Raleigh. I have also been encouraged by a number of persons of both my and my parents' generation to do something to set the record straight, to get the facts out to the public. However, I have very important additional purposes beyond an obligation to the community. Some may say they are selfish purposes, but I will not apologize for defending that to which my family is rightfully entitled, and which they earned and dearly paid for in paving the way for others. These uniquely personal purposes are:
A. The preservation and protection of my family’s contribution and legacy as leaders and initiators in the fight to integrate the public schools; the only family to pursue this objective for an almost four-year period; and the first black family to take the issue into court in a federal suit against the Raleigh City School Board.
B. To inform, and clarify to, the public that if there is to be recorded in local history a person honored as Raleigh’s Mother of the Civil Rights Movement, that person would rightfully be my mother, Elwyna Haywood Holt.
I will pursue the purposes of this editorial via a format that presents prevailing myths and/or flawed information, followed in each instance by an examination of the myth, and the presentation of facts and common sense, which dispel it. Some information given will be based on personal recollection, but most will be based on facts that can be verified through research of newspaper archives, and other documents which represent on-the-scene, first-hand accounts. Where specific names and places are given, it is done only because they are a matter of record in local print media, or other public documents, or are germane to the subject under discussion.
I will use the 1954-1966 time frame to define the civil rights era. It is one agreed upon by numerous scholars. The spectrum is anchored at its beginning by the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court Brown v. Board decision, the August 1955 Emmett Till lynching, and the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, December 1955. The terminus is denoted mainly by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The 1954-1966 time frame embraces that period when we were endeavoring to integrate schools, and protesting, marching, and demonstrating against segregated public accommodations. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned segregation and discrimination in public accommodations, and in employment. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 restored to disenfranchised blacks in the South the right to vote.
In Raleigh, the civil rights movement had two major thrusts or objectives:
(a) The integration of the schools.
(b) The eradication of segregated public accommodations, such as lunch counters, cafes and restaurants, movie theaters, and public parks.
Myth #1
Ralph Campbell, Sr. and June K. Campbell were the leaders of Raleigh’s civil rights movement during the 1950s and 1960s, with Ralph Campbell having led both the Raleigh NAACP and the Raleigh-Wake Citizens Association (RWCA) during the 1950's and 1960's. Articles in the August 20 and August 24, 2004 editions of the News & Observer (N&O) reinforced this myth.
Facts/Discussion
During the 1950's neither Ralph Campbell, Sr. nor June Campbell were prominent on the civil rights scene. There is nothing to substantiate the assertion that they were. In fact, during the 1950's, Raleigh was just another quiet southern, segregated city, and for all intents and purposes there was no civil rights activity, until the Joseph H. Holt family, in August 1956, embarked upon their bold initiative to integrate the schools. However, prior to the Holts, there was Rev. Father George A. Fisher, an Episcopal clergyman, who was Raleigh’s civil rights conscience; he was the outspoken civil rights advocate of the period.
REV. FATHER FISHER was also president of the Raleigh Citizens Association (RCA), forerunner of the RWCA, during the 1950's, not Ralph Campbell, Sr. Stories in the July 9, 1955 edition of the N&O, and in the Nov. 10, 1956 edition of THE CAROLINIAN confirm this. Father Fisher was succeeded by Rev. John W. Fleming, who was at the helm when the first wave of student demonstrations began in February 1960. According to the January 21, 1961 edition of THE CAROLINIAN, Rev. Dr. Grady D. Davis succeeded Rev. Fleming, and the April 13, 1963 edition reports Dr. Davis still as the president when the second wave of demonstrations was launched during the spring of 1963.
I personally recall that John Williams, Jr. was president of the Raleigh NAACP for some years during the 1950's. A story in the December 24, 1960 edition of THE CAROLINIAN tells us that Williams was succeeded by Ralph Campbell during that same month (December).
A review of print media archives for the 19541966 time period provides no information that June Campbell held a leadership post in any of Raleigh’s civil rights or human relations organizations. Also, there is no indication she coordinated or directed any major civil rights actions. The recollection of several persons interviewed, who themselves were highly visible and active at the time, is consistent with the results of research of the archives.
MYTH #2
The school integration initiative in Raleigh was led by the Ralph Campbell, Sr. family via a fight and struggle with the Raleigh City School Board, in which the Campbell’s, bold and persistent, emerged victorious. The "fiery Ralph Campbell" berated and intimidated the School Board until he won from them concession that his child, William (Bill), would be the first African-American child to enroll in an all-white school. (Note: as recently as March 2, 2005, the N&O reechoed this myth, and lent to the falsification, by crediting the Campbell family with "igniting Raleigh’s push for integration," information that the reporter informed me he received from the Raleigh Hall of Fame organization.
Facts/Discussion
The school integration initiative was led ("ignited") by the Joseph H. Holt family, my parents and I, beginning in August 1956 with the effort to integrate Josephus Daniels Jr. High School. The Raleigh Times, page 11, Nov. 3, 1956, carried the story; as did the N&O. My application to Daniels was denied by the superintendent of the Raleigh City Schools. Determined to persevere, we pushed, and re-initiated our effort in June 1957 with an application to Needham Broughton High School. When the application was rejected, we really began to fight, pushing, by filing a federal suit against the Raleigh City School Board. In the 1950's it was unheard of for a black man and his family to exhibit the kind of temerity reflected in this action we were taking. It ripped at the racist underpinnings of a system that for more than 300 years had repressed blacks to "keep them in their place." Our courageous stance terrified, shocked, and frightened a number of blacks who feared whites would take reprisals against the black community. It was a legitimate fear, as American history is replete with instances of whites reacting violently against all blacks when even one black person acted independently, or "stepped out of line," daring to claim entitlement to the same rights and privileges enjoyed by whites. The action frightened many whites also, but for a different reason, it threatened their sense of control over black life. They expressed their fright and outrage via terroristic acts: mean, life threatening hate mail; ominous telephone calls; and by shouting racial epithets day and night, as they sped by our house on Oberlin Road. My dad was fired from his job. My mother became very anxious and tense, fearful of losing hers, and at one point her check was garnisheed, leaving her with a months pay of less than one dollar. She was a Wake County schoolteacher. These particular measures levied against my parents were known as economic strangulation tactics.
Our case went to federal court during the summer of 1958, and just as the fall semester began, the judge in the case ruled that I would not be permitted to attend Needham Broughton High School, because we as a family had not exhausted all administrative remedies under the law prior to filing suit. (He was referring to the late summer of 1957 when we appealed the school boards rejection of my application to Broughton, but sent our lawyers to represent our interests at the appeal hearing rather than attending in person, which would have subjected me to an interrogation by the school board.)
Despite the judge’s decision, we continued to press forward; we did not give up. We persisted and carried the suit to the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the lower courts ruling, and then we carried the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. By now it was 1959 in an effort that started in 1956.
Well prior to our case reaching the Supreme Court, in a decision known as Brown II, or the "all deliberate speed" ruling, the court had taken an interesting position which would prove to be a nemesis for school integration cases for well more than a decade hence. As described by James T. Patterson in Brown vs. Board of Education, the court announced "that it had decided to turn controversies involving school segregation over to the lower courts," as "the last thing the justices were prepared to do was act as a gigantic school board, engaging endlessly in the details of student assignments and redistricting." Thus, when the Holt case arrived, the Supreme Court did not convene to hear it, and returned it to the lower court.
The case closed. It was now October 1959, and I was in my senior year at Ligon High School. I graduated in June 1960. For nearly four years my parents and I had lived with threats, tension, and under sometimes almost unbearable stress as we waged a battle that nearly devastated our family economically, emotionally, physically. At no time were the Campbells, or any other family, participants in this struggle to effect the integration of the Raleigh schools. The only fight, or struggle, or persistence that preceded Bill Campbell’s admission to Murphy School in September 1960 was the persistence demonstrated, and the fight waged against "the system" by the Joseph H. Holt family.
MYTH #3
Raleigh’s Mother of the Civil Rights Movement is June K. Campbell.
Facts/Discussion
This is as much a misnomer as myth. Elwyna Haywood Holt is the legitimate, the real, Mother of Raleigh’s Civil Rights Movement.
Let me say at the outset that the idea of a Mother of the Civil Rights Movement for Raleigh did not originate with the Joseph H. Holt family. I do not know its source or origin. I do think it is a wonderful idea; however, there are those who would debate its appropriateness for Raleigh. I will leave that discussion to others. However, there is no debate as to whom that title should be bestowed upon only Elwyna H. Holt can legitimately possess that title. Mothers are progenitors; they are there at the beginning. They initiate; they set the example. They inspire, persevere, sacrifice, suffer and struggle. They forego their own personal welfare and endure hardships for their children; often for others, also. My mother, Elwyna, qualifies in every instance, she did all these things well before others, and four years before June Campbell walked her son past jeering crowds. My mother went on the front lines in the cause for racial justice and equality in public education, risking her employment and personal welfare in doing so. She stood in the vanguard and took the point, so to speak, with my father as a courageous pathfinder in the school integration initiative that, in fact, marked the beginning of Raleigh’s civil rights saga. And, oh yes, she too, hosted distinguished persons in our home on Oberlin Road, including college presidents Dr. James A. Boyer and Dr. William R. Strassner of St. Augustine’s College and Shaw University, respectively; distinguished professors, such as Dr. Marguerite Adams and Dr. Carl E. DeVane; respected political strategist James A. "Jim" Shepard (my mothers cousin); clergy persons such as Rev. Dr. Gaylord Noyce of the United Church (affiliated with the Society of Friends/Quakers); and Rev. Samuel F. Daly, an activist-minded minister affiliated with the Shaw University Divinity School, and the General Baptist Convention. Also, Society of Friends envoys from as far away as Tennessee and Kentucky.
There are reasons Elwyna Holt may not be well known to some persons.
First, her son did not choose a political career as did two of the Campbell sons. Politicians interface with the media as often as they can, and whenever there was a story about either of the Campbells, the reporter would invariably link them to Raleigh’s Civil Rights Movement, often overstating the case; and other family members, such as Mrs. Campbell, would often be mentioned in the story. As opposed to a political career, I pursued a career away from home as an aeronautically rated Air Force officer, an airlift navigator on multi-engine, multimillion-dollar jet transport aircraft. I regularly navigated transoceanic routes, navigated across the North Pole on a number of occasions, and I have flown missions across more than half the world. I received numerous awards, official commendations, and medals for outstanding airmanship, meritorious service, and exemplary professionalism. One outstanding airmanship award was based on my performance during a perilous situation over the South China Sea in thunderstorms, shortly after we had over flown Vietnam en route to the Philippines. The story was carried in the Nov. 29 and Nov. 30, 1967 editions of The Raleigh Times. I served a combat tour in Southeast Asia with an aerospace rescue and recovery squadron. A graduate of the Air War College, the Air Forces premier executive development center, I completed my flying career with 6300 hours. During the latter half of my career I held command and management jobs of significant responsibility. After having served my country for more than 25 years, I completed my Air Force career at the rank of lieutenant colonel.
A second reason Mrs. Holt may not be known by some is that God called my mother home relatively early, in January 1966, when she was two months shy of her 55th birthday. This was at a point in time before we, as a people and nation, had had time to assess and reflect on the gains and benefits derived from the sacrifices of persons like her.
Elwyna Holt was an alumna of the 1932 class of Shaw University. She taught school for 33 years, 17 of those as a Wake County principal at Cary (Colored) Elementary School, the forerunner of today’s Kingswood Elementary. She was also a Sunday school teacher, church group leader, and primary organist at First Baptist Church for several years, from the time she was a teenager. She was also a member of the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., and the Daughters of Isis.
I wonder if those who would promote Mrs. Campbell as Raleigh’s Mother of the Civil Rights Movement ever stopped to contemplate that the two older Campbell children were of school age in 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Courts Brown vs. Board decision was handed down, and that Mrs. Campbell not only forewent the opportunity to initiate the school integration effort in 1954, but also in 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, and 1959. Elwyna Holt ventured forth into the unknown in 1956.
MYTH #4
The Campbell family was successful in getting Bill enrolled in Murphy Elementary because they followed all the guidelines laid down by the Raleigh School Board. The Holts were not successful with their son because they did not comply with the School Boards requirements.
Facts/Discussion
Not true and quite the contrary.
As reflected in C. Van Woodward’s The Strange Career of Jim Crow, numerous southern states responded to the U.S. Supreme Courts 1954 Brown v. Board decision by enacting pupil placement laws which were "designed to tighten segregation laws" and "transfer... all authority over assignment and enrollment of pupils to local authorities," or school boards. In this way the state itself could not be named as a litigant in a suit brought for noncompliance with the Supreme Courts edict. Woodward explained further that pupil placement laws also permitted local boards to develop "new regulations governing assignment and attendance of pupils" that would act "as obstacles to" integration, frustrating black applicants to white schools, and which, when challenged, would "tie up and string out litigation so as to discourage efforts at integration." Jack Greenberg, who served as head of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund for more than twenty years, succeeding Thurgood Marshall, pointed out in his Crusaders in the Courts that such laws also "permitted school boards to decide the merit of"...applications according to vague criteria." Said another way, these laws gave school boards very much a free hand in how they went about considering applications from blacks requesting enrollment in white schools. Boards could be arbitrary, make decisions based on judgment," and kind of make up the rules as they went along, if that’s what they wanted to do.
Buttressed by the 1956 North Carolina Pupil Assignment Act, the Raleigh School Board drew up regulations. Two important requirements were:
(1) An application had to be submitted no later than the deadline set by the school board (usually between June 10 and June 15).
(2) The application had to be submitted only on forms approved by the school board, those forms having been drawn up, or designed, by the board itself, and available at the offices of the board, or any school principals office.
Both the rules had to be complied with. Failure to meet these two requirements at a minimum would result in applications not even being considered.
A review of local newspaper archives and School Board minutes for the January-October 1960 period will indicate that the Campbells did not satisfy either requirement, overshooting the deadline by more than two months, and submitting the request for enrollment at Murphey School in letter form, instead of using the application form stipulated by the Board. In fact, the Board did not even meet on the "application" until the second day of the school year, (Sept. 6, 1960), which gives strong indication that the "application" was not submitted until the very last minute, just before school opened for the new school year.
Additional research has revealed that the School Board at some point in time made a decision that integration would begin in the primary grades with a young child, but this was not publicized during the period of the Holt effort, August 1956 October 1959. On September 7, 1960 when local newspapers made the historic announcement that William Campbell was a new enrollee at Murphey School, and the first African-American child to enroll at a white school in Raleigh, it was a big surprise for everyone, with of course, the exception of the Campbell family, and perhaps a few of their close friends, and the school board.
It should be noted that at some point during the summer of 1960 Carolyn Washington, the young daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John C. Washington, had been approved for enrollment at Murphey School prior to Bill Campbell, but her parents rethought the matter, and withdrew her. Mr. Washington provided this information in an interview presented in "Let Us March On," a booklet published by the Raleigh City Museum.
The Campbell enrollment was likely a prearrangement, as two important requirements, meeting the deadline, and correct forms, were forgiven, or waived. Clearly, young Bills admission to Murphey was not the result of the Campbells compliance with school board guidelines.
A source, who I believe is highly credible, related that Attorney Fred J. Carnage, the only African-American on the school board, quietly and selectively released information late in the summer of 1960 that the Board would now be receptive to the application of an African-
American child in the primary grades, regardless of whether administrative requirements were met, and when the Campbells learned of this they informed Carnage they were interested, and he encouraged them to apply. However, I have not received a corroborating input, and therefore will not assert with finality that this was the case.
The Holts complied with every requirement set down by the Board. We were about two weeks ahead of the deadline, used the correct forms, etc., etc. The Board delayed consideration of my June 1957 application to Needham Broughton High School until August 1957, and then only three members met to discuss it. The application was denied by two-to-one vote, the vote in favor being cast by Attorney Fred J. Carnage.
Throughout the summer of 1957 we were constantly terrorized, receiving much hate mail, numerous threats, and incessant harassment. We were under enormous pressure during this period. At one point my parents sent me out of town for about three weeks to get me out of harms way. However, I did not learn that this was the reason until after I had graduated from high school, and was enrolled in college.
We appealed the Boards decision to deny my admission to Broughton. Inherent in the appeal was the requirement for me to appear before the Board in person so they could question me and "see what kind of boy" I was. Although I was only 14 years old at the time, I perceived that this would be an interrogation by hostile, adult whites determined to find fault with anything I said, and then use that as a basis for reaffirming a decision they had already made anyway. My parents and our lawyers also construed this requirement as an arbitrary, intimidation tactic. It was decided I would not be subjected to this kind of harassment.
The Board set a date, and then delayed once more. Action on the appeal was finally postponed right down to the very last minute, just a few days prior to school opening. Our lawyers presented themselves as our representatives, with power of attorney. The Board asked them no questions at all, and then upheld their earlier decision to deny the application "in the best interest of the boy." Shortly thereafter we filed a federal suit against the Board for noncompliance with the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
The case went to court during the summer of 1958. The results have already been provided under Myth #2 above. I should mention, however, that when I went on the stand in court the school board lawyers passed on their option to cross-examine me. They asked me no questions at all.
Additionally, it is important to point out that some scholars who have researched the period are of the opinion that significant external factors influenced the opinions of the judges in school integration cases, making it unlikely they would render decisions in favor of the plaintiffs. For example, James T. Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education notes, "of the forty-eight federal district judges in 1960 (the other ten sat on the circuit courts), forty-three had been born, raised, and educated in the South." And, "...the judge who challenged segregation encountered fierce reactions from whites in their communities."
The U.S. Eastern District Court judge who, in September 1958, ruled in the Holt case was from Greensboro, N.C. Also, as stated by Jack Greenberg in Crusaders in the Courts, during the month of August 1958, "President Eisenhower disclosed at a press conference he had told friends that he preferred slower progress toward integration."
During the summer of 1961, four years after the Holt application to Broughton, the August 2, 1961 edition of the N&O carried an interesting story. Mr. and Mrs. John C. Washington applied for their teenage daughter, Rose Marie Ellis, to enroll at Broughton. The application was denied. The family appealed, and a date was set for the appeal hearing. The parents and the daughter showed for the hearing, but the board upheld its earlier decision to deny, despite the family having complied with every iota of the board’s administrative requirements. Interesting.
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