Most citizens of the United States are familiar with the role that the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, played in dismantling segregation. Most high school and college U.S. History classes cover the story of the Little Rock Nine, Brown vs. Board of Education, and Ruby Bridges. But, as with every facet of history, there are more prominent stories, along with those stories that are often overlooked or written off as insignificant. One of these stories is that of the Mansfield School Crisis in Mansfield, Texas.
By the mid-1950s, the Mansfield Independent School District had only one school for non-white students, the Mansfield Colored school, which only served students in grades one through eight. High-school-aged students had to take a public Trailways bus to the integrated school in Fort Worth, roughly seventeen miles away. The bus schedule was not conducive to helping these students succeed educationally. The schedule had them leaving home very early in the morning and arriving home from school late in the afternoon. Students who played sports or participated in club activities often had to find their own rides home and would usually arrive home after 9:00 in the evening. For these reasons, the Black sub-trustees of the Mansfield Board of Education requested that improvements be made to the Mansfield Colored School and a bus provided to transport the high school students to Fort Worth. While a new elementary school was built for African Americans to replace the older Mansfield Colored School buildings, a bus for the high school students was denied. The school board decided to pay for a bus pass for each of the students instead. This concession did not remedy the issue of difficult bus schedules hampering the students’ education. While the school board often did very little to improve the educational environment for African-American students, it frequently made improvements to schools for white students and allocated more money for these schools.
Because it seemed to the Black community that the education of African-American students was being denied, many Black citizens began to push for integration in the Mansfield school system. When the Supreme Court made the ruling of Brown II, laying out how desegregation would be implemented and enforced, the Mansfield NAACP and the Mansfield Board of Education sub-trustees determined that they would begin approaching the Mansfield Board of Education with small requests for improvements to the current dual-system, and if those requests were denied, they would then fight for full integration of the Mansfield School district. After a thorough discussion with members of the Black community and NAACP members, it was decided that a petition would be passed along to the Mansfield school board to request that the board “take immediate steps to end segregation in the Mansfield Public School.” Though the school board claimed that short notice of the petition did not allow them to end segregation for the 1955-56 school year, the families of Black Mansfield teens Floyd Moody, Nathaniel Jackson, and Charles Moody met with their lawyer, L. Clifford Davis, and decided that Davis would attempt to enroll the boys Mansfield High School that year.
When Davis, the teenagers, and some of their family members met with the Mansfield school superintendent, R.L. Huffman, they were told that integration could not take place, citing the lack of a board-approved plan for desegregation. Following the steps set forth by the NAACP, the group decided to proceed with filing a lawsuit against the school board. Though the intention was to have twelve students involved in the case, only the families of the original three students allowed their children to be named as plaintiffs in the suit. Many of the other families were deterred by threats or perceived threats of violence if they continued with pushing integration. On October 7, Davis filed the class action suit. Learning of the suit, the school board prepared for the lawsuit, choosing their own lawyers. When the time for court came, the school board defended themselves by stating that they operated a segregated school system based on the Texas State Statutes, which legalized segregation. The school board also argued that one reason for delaying integration for the 1955-56 school year was that funds had already been transferred to the Fort Worth schools to cover the cost of the students’ attendance there. Unfortunately, the judge hearing the case ruled in favor of the school board, citing that he believed the school board was fighting the long-held traditions of their area and had shown good faith in making strides towards integration by granting requests for improvements to the local black schools.
In spring of 1956, Davis filed an appeal with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to hear the case over again. This time, the outcome was in favor of the students. Davis argued that the students were being denied their constitutional rights, and that the personal feelings of Mansfield's white residents were no reason to continue denying these rights. Davis further used court precedents such as Brown I and Brown II to form an argument that could not be disputed. The judge ruled that the African American students had a constitutional right to enroll in Mansfield High School.
Tensions rose over the summer as the white citizens of Mansfield realized that integration would be attempted for the 1956-57 school year. Based on a referendum vote, many white citizens favored stronger segregation laws and supported interposition, the idea that the state had the right to prevent the federal government from enforcing laws the state felt was constitutional.
As the start of school neared in August of 1956, the black community was threatened by white supremacists to discourage African-American students from being registered at Mansfield High School. Crosses were burned in yards, African American families were told that they may be evicted if they tried to enroll their children in the white school, and ominous phone calls were made to those leading the push for integration. On August 28, a few days before school registration, an effigy was hung in the downtown area, painted black and burned in areas. Signs hanging from the effigy said "This would be a terrible way to die" and "This negro tried to enter a white school." White citizens met the next day and agreed to gather at the school on registration day to prevent any African Americans from enrolling.
On Thursday August 30, the day before children from outside the city limits (where most Black children lived) were allowed to register, another effigy was hoisted up the Mansfield High School flag pole. The way the effigy was situated atop the flagpole made it appear as though it had been lynched. There was an unsuccessful attempt to remove the effigy, and it remained there until at least September 4. Willie Pigg, the high school principal, refused to remove the effigy.
A third effigy was hung from a light above the Mansfield High School entrance on the morning of August 31, registration day. A car with racial slurs and taunts was parked on school property. A crowd gathered in anticipation of the African American students arriving to register for classes. Superintendent Huffman arrived on campus before any students, and also refused to remove the effigies from the school entrance and the flagpole. Many reporters from the local area also showed up to cover the story. Later in the afternoon, Texas Governor Shivers issued a memorandom announcing that Texas Rangers would be sent into Mansfield to "cooperate with local authorities in preserving peace" and "I have asked Colonel Garrison to instruct his men to arrest anyone, white or colored, whose actions are such as to represent a threat to the peace at Mansfield." This meant that the Rangers would only prevent any violence, and would not be helping the African American students into the building to enroll. Also in the memo, Governor Shivers recommended that the Board "go ahead and transfer out of the district any scholastics, white or colored, whose attendance or attempts to attend Mansfield High School would reasonably be calculated to incite violence." This effectively meant that no African Americans would be allowed to enroll, since their attempt at enrollment could incite violence in the white crowd.
Unlike the Little Rock Nine case, President Eisenhower tried to remain as disconnected as possible from the Mansfield case. As a supporter of states' rights, Eisenhower did nothing to stop Shivers' use of interposition in Mansfield. The African American students would continue to attend the Black school in Fort Worth, even though the court order for immediate integration was still in place. Though one may have expected the parents and families of the African American students to file another lawsuit, they did not, mostly out of fear about what may happen if they pushed the issue any further.
Mansfield High School was one of the last schools to integrate, finally allowing African American students to enroll in 1965.
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