Shame in Georgia

In her first class at the University of Georgia last week, pretty Negro Coed Charlayne Hunter, 18, heard a psychology lecture on human behavior. The subject was timely, for that morning she and Hamilton Holmes, 19, breached a sorry human-behavior barrier: the 175-year-old tradition of segregation at the campus in Athens. They ignored slurs from some white students ("Make way for the nigger"), reveled in a countering welcome from others ("She has such poise"). But that night, even as Georgia was being toasted across the nation for a display of tolerance and maturity, Students Hunter and Holmes learned that human behavior can be blind and lawless.

The forces of reason seemed to be winning handily at first. Federal Judge William A. Bootle found the two young Atlantans qualified for the university, ordered them admitted immediately. As Charlayne arrived from Detroit's Wayne State University and Holmes from Atlanta's Morehouse College, Georgia's Segregationist Governor Ernest Vandiver pointed out that a 1956 Georgia law would force him to cut off state funds for any desegregated school. Judge Bootle restrained him temporarily from doing that, and good will ruled the campus.

Holmes found quarters off campus, and Charlayne moved into a suite in Central Myers Hall. Attending class next day, Sophomores Holmes and Hunter got a friendly welcome from every teacher, were convoyed by solicitous students and officials. Every time Charlayne heard an insult, she found a white girl beside her saying, "Just ignore those people." University President O. C. Aderhold proudly praised his students for "good judgment and conduct," and it was a fact that all through the week most students refused to oppose integration and a stout minority publicly supported it.

"Brainwashed." But the truth was that all day plans were being laid for violence. In one nearby town, the mayor publicly offered to go bail for anybody arrested. Athens (pop. 20,000) filled with rednecks from all around, including Calvin F. Craig, Grand Dragon of the Georgia Ku Klux Klan, whose pistol-packing henchmen energetically passed out their racist sheet, The Rebel. One of the university's own regents, Georgia Kingmaker Roy V. Harris, charged that President Aderhold and Dean of Men William Tate "brainwashed" the school into accepting Negroes; Harris vowed to spend the rest of his life getting Aderhold "out of the university."

That night Georgia lost a basketball game to archrival Georgia Tech in a disputed overtime period, and this frustration fired up the actively prosegregation minority of the students. Furiously they raced up to Central Myers Hall, and at 10 p.m. joined the outside demonstrators in hurling bricks at Charlayne Hunter's windows, smashing ten panes. Two Athens cops ignored them, confining themselves to directing traffic. The growing mob next flung giant firecrackers. Three leaders sparked rousing cheers:

One-two-three-four, We don't want no nigger whore.

Amazing Statement. The mob, 1,000 strong, was ready to rush the dormitory when doughty Dean Tate sailed in, started swinging. He was shoved and punched, but he blunted the assault. Some 20 cops finally came to his aid, mainly because the mob called them yellowbellies.

Meanwhile, urgent calls to the state police barracks five miles away got the playing-dumb response of "thank you" and advice to check with Governor Vandiver. Not a single state trooper arrived until long after local police broke up the riot with tear gas at about 11:30.

The troopers ignored screaming students who roamed the campus for another 90 minutes. The troopers' mission, instead, was to escort Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes straight back to Atlanta, 73 miles away. The Negroes were officially suspended--"in the interests of their own safety and the safety of the more than 7,000 students at the university," said Dean of Students Joe Williams. Holmes left in speechless anger. Charlayne went off in tears.

It was almost a precise parallel to the 1956 case of Negro Coed Autherine Lucy, suspended by the University of Alabama for her own "safety" after mob pressure and then expelled because she charged that it was a put-up job. The Georgia riot got an extra touch of disrespect for law when at 2:30 a.m. the Governor's executive secretary, Peter Zack Geer, commended the mob: "The students at the university have demonstrated that Georgia youth are possessed with the character and courage not to submit to dictatorship and tyranny."

At week's end Judge Bootle ruled unconstitutional the state funds cut-off law. The FBI came in to investigate the rioting. Three hundred teachers--half of the faculty--jammed the university chapel to pass a toughly worded resolution insisting that "the two suspended students be returned to their classes" and demanding the "preservation of orderly education." Swiftly ordering Students Holmes and Hunter readmitted this week, Judge Bootle left the maintenance of law and order squarely up to the state of Georgia.

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