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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview C-0063, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Robert Giles discusses the public and political reaction to the Supreme
Court's Brown ruling, explaining the heavy pressure
the Brown order placed on North Carolina politicians, who
hoped to prevent alienating the white population. Giles asserts that state
politicians adopted a moderate stance and moderate policies which yielded
minimal racial desegregation. The Pupil Assignment Act of 1955 and the Pearsall
Plan, he says, assuaged whites fears by keeping the public schools open and
projecting the perception that the public controlled school assignments. He
lauds the effectiveness of the gubernatorial leadership of William Umstead and
Luther Hodges in the early to mid-1950s. Giles also touches on segregationist I.
Beverly Lake, who attempted to stoke racial tensions and drum up support for his
personal political ambitions.
Robert Giles recalls state politicians' efforts to hinder total school integration in North Carolina through the use of moderate token desegregation and effective state policy.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
This is Jay Jenkins interviewing Robert Giles for the Southern Oral History Program. We're doing this in the Wilson Library in Chapel Hill on September 10, 1987. Bob, we're pleased to have you submit to this interview to shed some more light on the Pearsall Plan, which was North Carolina's answer to the 1954 desegregation decision of the U. S. Supreme Court. Bob was at the Institute of Government and later assistant attorney general and still later assistant to Luther Hodges while Luther Hodges was governor of North Carolina. Subsequently, he was general counsel to U. S. Secretary of Commerce, Luther Hodges, during the Jack Kennedy administration. Tom Pearsall has said that Bob Giles did much of the work drafting the Pearsall Plan, and he has complimented him very highly on the quality of that work. Bob, I want to ask you to go back thirty-one odd years and give us your recollection of the atmosphere and the situation in North Carolina following that 1954 decision.
Well, at that time William Umstead was governor, and I think North
Carolina was fortunate in having that sort of person in office at the
time. His reaction was calm and one of simply pointing out that we
don't know all of the implications of this, but we will get
along with this, and we will be doing what is sensible for North
Carolina. So even at that time I think it is correct to say, from the
state level, we had in the office of the governor an individual who was
going to set a good, calming influence rather than try to exploit the
situation. I think that
I don't believe there was any notion or idea at the time of exactly what to do. There was no grand scheme or anything. I think it's correct to say that those in public office at the time, the governor and members of the legislature, certainly did not welcome that decision. There was no desire to see integration of the races in the public schools whatsoever. I think, as a personal matter on most parts, it was, "Well, this is not a good thing." Perhaps distinguishing the attitude from that in certainly some of the states affected, we did not have in North Carolina the bellicose type of reaction, "Over my dead body" and so forth.
Now later, of course, in '54, November or December, Governor Umstead died. Governor Hodges, who was then lieutenant governor, became the governor. Even though I was not yet in Raleigh on the attorney general's staff, my recollection at that time was, on the few occasions when I was involved in some meetings with Governor Hodges and others, that here was a very persuasive person, a strong personality, and an extremely able person. I think here again his basic disposition was here is a problem, how best to deal with it. I think his general attitude, as well as that of the former governor, Governor Umstead, was, "We don't want to destroy the public schools. We want to save them and keep them because we think that's needed by the people." That's sort of the general atmosphere.
Now, of course, during that time, as I recall, there were various statements and comments from people in public office, members of the legislature, some school boards, or this or that, that reflected a much more extreme sort of reaction. But from the state level I think it was one of moderation. Not because they were really accepting or looking with favor on that decision, not that at all, but that here are people in responsible positions who just were experienced, solid, pragmatic, and wanted to try to work out the best course possible.
The state leadership set a moderating example, in other words?
I think that is true.
Then Umstead, of course, appointed Thomas J. Pearsall of Rocky Mount to head a commission. Of course Umstead died on November 7, 1954. This commission, as I remember, drafted the Pupil Assignment Act which was adopted in the General Assembly of 1955. I think, among other things, that had the purpose of telling the populace that we aren't sitting on our hands. We're doing something. Then the General Assembly made the Pearsall Commission a statutory body or something, as I recall, in '55. You might just touch briefly, before we get into the Pearsall Plan, on the Pupil Assignment Act of 1955 without getting into particulars, just generally what it did.
Well, my recollection—and it has been some years since I have
actually read the language and I don't know about all the
details—my recollection was that certainly the main
Now the Pearsall, there's an interim there before you—when did you join the attorney general's office?
That was in August, 1955.
Right. Now if you would, I think it would be interesting to know when you started working with the Pearsall Commission, how they developed the plan of action that they wanted to follow, and what your charge was. I realize this is not a one day operation but just generally, how did they proceed?
Well, when I joined the attorney general's office in 1955, at that time things were still very much in flux, so to speak. The Pearsall Committee actually had employed some full time staff, either at that time or later that fall—I believe a former representative, T. Taylor of Warren County.
W.W. Taylor, Jr., I believe.
W.W. Taylor, Jr. was named the chief staff person, and he had an
assistant, Tom Ellis. My recollection then was that they made some
visits sometime during that period to various other southern states and
were talking to various officials, sort of on a fact finding tour. Then
later on, either by the end of that period or certainly early in
'56, things had sort of come to a focus. Essentially what T.
Taylor and Tom Ellis were seeming to propose was all out resistance to
this Supreme Court decision, or at least, in any event, no integration
in the public schools, but without really being able to spell out how
you accomplish that and be successful in it. Is the state simply going
to throw
Excuse me, Bob, I wanted to just get this straight. Mr. Pearsall told me that the report that Taylor and Ellis made after their swing through other states recommended abandonment of the public schools or making them private schools to avoid integration. I just wanted to make that point if that's correct.
I don't recall the specific details but that was the sum and substance, yes.
Excuse me for interrupting.
The state would simply get out….
And there was no support at all on the commission, the Pearsall Commission, for that sort of….
There was no support from that committee and no support by the attorney general, Attorney General Rodman, and he was from the eastern part of the state. Many members of the Pearsall Committee were, as was Tom Pearsall, and no support from the governor.
I just wanted to clarify. Now they were approaching this thing to preserve the public schools. That was one of their main….
The basic premise was that they would not, under the circumstances of that time, embark upon a policy course which would lead to the destruction of the public schools, but rather they would try to work out something which would preserve them.
Was the Pearsall Committee as a commission pretty much united, unanimous, on the approach and so forth? You didn't have any discord?
On that basic point I was never aware of any dissention there.
Now excuse me, you go ahead and proceed. Of course, you were assigned from the attorney general's office to handle the Pearsall Commission.
Well, I'm not sure that's exactly correct. I would
say I was the principal assistant attorney general who worked with
Attorney General Rodman on the public school matter which, of course,
involved the Pearsall Commission, or the Pearsall Committee. I believe
it was called "committee." So during the
I recall very distinctly how I arrived at that. I thought in terms of what had been for the past several years—and this was back in 1955, '56—what had been one of the most volatile and emotional issues in which people in the state had been called on to vote. It seemed to me that the matter of local option on alcoholic beverages—whether you would have sales of alcoholic beverages in that locality, the county, or other unit—the fact that the legislature had for years provided for local option on that and provided for the vote. While there were hotly contested elections from time to time, the point was it worked. People were able to get those decisions made, whether it was to permit the sale of alcoholic beverages or not, and live with it. There was no uniform pattern that somebody was trying to apply throughout the state. Well, I simply thought in terms of that as here is an extremely serious and volatile issue as a matter of government and trying to work out reasonable and workable government. This might fit here. So I suggested that.
And that essentially was what was adopted?
That is what eventually came to be drafted both as constitution and statutes and was adopted by the 1956 special session of the General Assembly.
That had the added psychological, or whatever you want to call it, advantage of taking legislators off the hook by giving people a chance to vote and decide it for themselves. Of course, this was a very sensitive thing as far as they were concerned, when they had to run for reelection, don't you think so?
That is true. I think what was recognized by the Pearsall Committee, Attorney General Rodman, Governor Hodges, and all of those, was that if that sort of decision has to be made by elected officials, at whatever level, they would be under tremendous pressure. There would be extreme difficulty for those elected officials to make other than what you might call the most extreme decision, such as, well, close the schools. If only a small minority—as a matter of fact, you never take a census on this sort of thing—but what could be, in fact, a minority of the people in the area, would really be insisting on this. Yet by the nature of the issue that vociferous minority could prevail. Just pick up and everybody gets swept on by the tide. So I think that early on, early in '56, the basic policy decision began to be firm in the minds of the state officials working on the matter of closing schools or not, and they recognized then that some schools may well have to be closed. That the people involved would insist on it. But if that's done, it should be done by a vote of those directly involved. I think it was a very key, fundamental decision.
And of course, no schools were closed.
As a matter of fact, no such election was ever called, no petition for such election. No election was held, and no school was ever closed under that legislation.
I think one thing that maybe ought to be clarified. During this period, based on my conversations with other people, I. Beverly Lake was also on the attorney general's staff. He, of course, took exception and later ran for governor in 1960 and '64 on a largely segregationist platform. What was his role with the Pearsall Commission?
Well, when I moved from Chapel Hill to Raleigh in August, '55 to be assistant attorney general, initially my office was in the Revenue Building across the street from the Justice Building where the attorney general was. I was there in the suite of rooms assigned to the attorney general. In that suite of rooms we had I. Beverly Lake, who at the time—since he had joined the office when Mr. McMillan was attorney general—had given a lot of attention to utilities cases; Harry McGregor; Sam Barron; and myself. All of us worked some on state tax matters of one sort or the other and on a variety of things. I do not recall then that Lake had any assignment on the attorney general's staff to help us in the school business at the time. He did not, not with the attorney general's office.
He was just acting as an individual, individual criticism.
He began to speak out, made some public speeches, about the school
matter. The sum and substance of it was the United States Supreme Court
decision was unlawful. The broad
So I think later on we had a case, the attorney general's
office was handling a case, defending a petition or a suit for a black
person to enter the University. This was either at Greensboro or Chapel
Hill. The attorney general's job, of course—this
was a first time, we had no blacks at those institutions
then—was to try to prevail in court so that there
wouldn't be a federal court order ordering their admission. I
recall talking with Attorney General Rodman on that and on the Lake
problem in general. He chuckled and said, "Well, I would like
to win this case. I'm quite apprehensive about our chances
since the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the way it has. I think I ought
to get the fellow here in our office who feels the
In that connection, I remember Lake made a speech in Asheboro, I believe it was, a real ringing attack on segregation and desegregation and so forth and so on. But the governor's response to these people who said "fire him" and so forth, he said, "He's got a right to speak his piece as an individual." It was widely believed at that time, by the newspaper people anyway, that that position stalled a possible Lake run for the governorship in 1956, if you had a clash. I'm not sure about whether that was true or not, but I think it no doubt blunted the Lake effort.
Well, I didn't know then and still do not know really what the
Lake objective was, or his effort, and whether at the time he had any
specific notion of trying to run for governor. I did have the feeling. I
never discussed the matter in detail with Mr. Lake, later Justice Lake.
Here was an extremely bright and intelligent person, who had been a
With any hope of winning.
Any hope of winning or getting anything good out of it. I didn't think that he could seriously entertain the notion that there was some sort of legal legerdemain, so to speak, that he could pull out of the hat. I suppose I, along with others, felt that really what was going on was that he was deliberately exploiting the issue for some either specific or undefined political purpose.
Of course, we had the special session in 1956, and preceding that they had briefings all over the state. I suppose the public as well as legislators were invited to those. Anyway, it was explained all over the state.
I'm not sure about the public. They weren't closed meetings. I believe the press was in them. But as I recall, most of time there weren't many members of the general public that showed up.
Well, you referred earlier to these tuition grants, were any applications made for tuition grants that you remember?
There were none made while Governor Hodges was in office. Then I, of course, left state government when he finished his term and went to Washington when he was made Secretary of Commerce. Now I do not know specifically whether an application was filed around there in the '60's.
I just didn't remember. Now I think it would be interesting, since you were in the governor's office, to know what kind of public reaction you were having during those days before and after the plan was about to—the calls and the nature of the tone and so forth.
Well, I joined the governor's staff, I went over to the Governor's office in 1957 after the General Assembly session. I was not there during the special session of '56. I was assistant attorney general during that period. So I can't tell you from that perspective, the perspective of being there in the office. Now, of course, we in the attorney general's office, Attorney General Rodman worked very closely with the governor, and probably was in contact with him about every day. So we had a good feel for what was going on and for what the governor also was getting.
I was interested in the general reaction that you hear about.
I think I can sum it up this way. Probably most people who expressed
themselves wanted to keep the public schools. I'm talking
about most white people. That would apply also to the blacks. Most white
people that expressed themselves did not, at all, like the idea of
integrating the races and Plessy V. Ferguson of 1896, and that something ought
to be done about it. See these are contradictory things. Now some, and I
think they were in the minority, in fact I believe they were, would come
in on the other end of the spectrum. And that is, "No mixing of
races in the public schools. Draw the line. It's better to
have no public schools than to have integration." So you had
that. Now what the governor and the attorney general were doing, number
one, they made it clear they did not like the 1954 decision. They also
were counseling and reacting that as a practical matter, we are part of
the United States. It's foolish to think otherwise, and
whatever we do, we have to get along with the federal government. We
can't go to war with it. That's silly to even
think about it. Now the thing to do is sit down and be sensible and deal
with details and just do the best we can. We are not telling anybody
that they will have to mix races in the public schools. In the showdown,
what we are saying to you is that the people have a right to make the
decision. They can vote to close the public schools. Then we want to
give even more of a people's choice to make this serious
determination. An individual parent can elect to take his child out and
get some money to pay for private schools. Now we think that that is the
best way for
Dallas Herring, the former chairman of the State Board of Education, seemed to recall that you and he went to Halifax County on the Walawa Indians or somebody. I don't know whether they wanted to call an election or what. Do you have an recollection of that?
I do recall generally going somewhere with Dallas back than, but I don't recall the details.
My understanding, my recollection of what Dallas said, was that after you appeared before them, they dropped their plans to seek an election or whatever was happening down there. It was the only incidence that I've heard of in which this happened, of anybody trying to implement this.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Bob, I wish you would deal with some of the personalities who played such important roles in this Pearsall Plan, starting in any order you wish, Governor Hodges, Tom Pearsall, or William B. Rodman, the Attorney General.
Well, let me take them in the order that you just mentioned, first
Governor Hodges. I think that Governor Hodges, back then in 1955-56, if
he had chosen to go that path, could have taken the extreme
segregationist point of view. In my opinion, the state of North Carolina
would have followed him right down that road. I think, for example,
Governor Hodges could have, if he had chosen, exploited the race issue
politically to the extent that I believe he could have got the
constitution amended to close the public schools entirely. I think he
could very possibly have got the constitution amended to permit him to
run again for governor indefinitely or to permit a governor to have an
unlimited number of terms, on the theory that we must have a strong
governor to protect the state on this matter. That was done in Arkansas
by Orville Faubus. The custom and tradition there was that the governor
of Arkansas would serve only four years. I don't know how
many, ultimately, he served consecutively. I believe about twelve or
fourteen years. The same, I believe, in Georgia where state laws were
amended to permit the governor to succeed himself at least once. The
point is that that was not the kind of person that Governor Hodges was.
He simply did not believe that it was in the state's interest
to handle the school problem that way. Secondly, he simply was not
Excuse me, before you go to Mr. Pearsall, I want to go to Mr. Hodges for just a minute. The fact that he came into office as a businessman without any political experience, so to speak, didn't that strengthen his hand a great deal?
I think that it certainly was a plus and helped him with what you might term the business community of the state. I chuckle a little bit about what I recall back then that Governor Hodges said about his lack of experience, and he was no politician. Well, the fact of the matter is that he was a natural, what I'd call a natural, politician in the sense that he knew how to work with people to persuade people and to lead people. He could discern between what I would call some individual's particular points of view and what I would call the broad currents. I think he just had the natural ability. What I'm saying is that he was a far better politician, in that sense, than probably most anybody you could name who had been active in politics in elective office for thirty years.
Very good point, very good. And Mr. Pearsall, what kind of fellow was he?
He was an extremely, very attractive and gracious person. Personally he
was courteous, polite, and friendly. He was that kind of individual who
did not attempt to dominate or order people around, rather he was
straightforward, and he led people. He persuaded people to his points of
view, an extremely
You were telling me earlier, when we were talking privately about this, that members of that commission also made valuable contributions.
I think so. I think every member of the Pearsall Commission—I
keep wanting to call it committee and I wondered if that was the
technical name—I think everyone was a strong person in his
own right and made tremendous contributions, because we needed, the
state needed, to have a varied and representative committee working on
that issue. Bill Mildford of Waynesville, from the west, a member of the
state Senate; Lunsford Crews from Halifax County in the east. He also
was in the state Senate at the time. Claude Philpot, who later was
elected Lieutenant
Hickory, I believe.
In that area, I believe he was in a major furniture manufacturer. Everyone of them, you know, they were really strong, very positive personalities. I think it's not that everything started, was always harmony, or everybody was thinking the same. Every major point that came up, there was diversity of views starting out. You could hear them, the various points of view. But the point is, they were all experienced, pragmatic persons. I think they subscribed, as I've already indicated, to the fundamental proposition, "We ought to try to save the public schools. We ought to try to keep things in good order. We ought to try to work through this in a calm and rational fashion and in what you might term a law abiding fashion." I think they set to and worked out their differences of view, talked them out, and arrived at a consensus. I would just give the highest credit to every member of that commission.
They also enjoyed the respect of the General Assembly, which is not a small thing.
That was a most important thing. Everyone of them, without question, had the respect—they disagreed with them—they still had the solid respect of the General Assembly.
Now William B. Rodman, who was a member of the General Assembly, he was
from Washington, North Carolina, succeeded Harry
Well, he was. It's remarkable in a way that here was an attorney, he was an able and respected attorney in Little Washington. I first became acquainted with him when, at the Institute, I was assigned to work with the State Commission on the Reorganization of State Government.
The Institute of Government?
The Institute of Government was providing the staff support for that
commission. As a matter of fact, some significant and far reaching
recommendations came out of that particular commission there during that
period and were presented to the 1955 session of the General Assembly.
That's where I first became acquainted with Mr. Rodman. I
remember on one occasion that we had, we needed to brief the chairman on
some extensive studies that the Institute staff had done. This was
sometime in 1954 before he was named attorney general. I recall that
Professor Coates, director of the Institute, decided that he was just
going to call up the then Representative Rodman, who was in the House,
and invite himself and three or four members of his staff to travel down
to Little Washington and go over these matters. It was a good move. It
was a smart move on Mr. Coates part because we were covering the sort of
things that the chairman needed to be brought up to date on and informed
about. He was hard put not to engage in that if all these people were
offering to drive down to be with him rather than to ask that he come up
to chapel Hill. Well, I remember that visit, and how we
I think Rodman, not only for his intellect and so on and so on, but he was particularly valuable during the Pearsall period because of his leadership role as a member of the General Assembly. He was one of the bell cows in the House, in other words. He knew how to handle people.
That is correct. He was one of the leaders in the House of
Representatives at the time, well, in the '53 session. He was
of course a member of the House at the time he was
Oh, yeah. Well, Bob, the other attorney general that figured in this period is George B. Patton of Macon County, who incidentally died in July of this year, 1987, at age 88. Tell us a little bit about Attorney General Patton.
Let me say I served under Attorney General Patton until 1957. He was
named attorney general there in '56, I've
forgotten the exact month, when Attorney General Rodman was appointed
Associate Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. I met Attorney
General Patton at a conference. I first met him at a conference I was
attending at Mars Hill before he came to Raleigh to take office. His
appointment as attorney general had been announced, and I first met him
up there at a meeting I attended with Attorney General Rodman and some
others on some school law matters. I believe it was a meeting of the
North Carolina School Boards Association or whatever where Judge
Patton…. He had one arm. He had lost part of one arm, one of
his arms, when he was quite young. He was a fairly tall, slim person, a
real North Carolina mountaineer. He had served some years previously as
assistant attorney general and then as superior court judge. Well, we
hit it off very well at that time. I would just make this point in
connection with the school matter. The office of Attorney General in
that position was an extremely important and key position at that time,
and for some
Well, Thomas Pearsall, the chairman of the commission, said, on more than one occasion, that the state was fortunate to have you in the position that you were in to draft this very important legislation. On behalf of the Oral History Program I thank you very much for sharing this with us.
END OF INTERVIEW