Chapter 5: Too Busy To Hate
This chapter is concerned with the relationship between public attitudes toward desegregation and economic development.
Through mid-century industries relocating to the South accomodated themselves to the South's biracialism. Until the mid-1950s when the civil rights movement began to attract nationwide attention, southern economic boosters claimed that racial problems had been resolved. Once the civil rights movement got underway, boosters concluded that national firms might be too image-conscious to locate in areas with racial policies "offensive to mass society values." (p. 122) Consequently, many of those involved in industrial recruitment began advocating, if reluctantly, for token desegregation.
Cobb presents instances in which the South's racial situation caused firms to locate elsewhere. In some cases they wanted to avoid the "mess" about schools and segregation. In other cases they were concerned about the tax cost of maintaining two school systems. Southern officials accused those in the North of manipulating the issue to hurt southern prospects.
Cobb presents anecdotal evidence that areas in which there was acrimonious resistance to school integration were hurt in terms of industrial development and areas in which integration took place without much incident prospered.
Little Rock
Gov. Faubus used the National Guard to block integration of Little Rock's Central High. Eisenhower sent in the 101st Airborne and Faubus closed Little Rock schools rather than integrate them. Then:
Industrial recruiters from the Chamber of Commerce soon discovered what the crisis had done to their city's image when they could stir up no interest among industrialists in moving to Little Rock, cheap labor and tax concessions notwithstanding.
Then the chamber got involved by getting a business slate elected to the school board, getting affluent citizens involved in recalling board segregationists, and working with black leaders in desegregating all public facilities.
Little Rock suffered a four year drought in which no new industries located their.
Little Rock's experience convinced boosters in other communities to be more proactive and moderate about desegregation.
Virginia
After first closing public schools to avoid integration, Gov. Almond and the legislature responded to pressure from those concerned about the effects on industrial recruitment. They passes legislation that allowed a local option between closing and token desegregation.
Georgia
At first resistant, once Atlanta was under a court order to come up with a deseg plan, Atlanta business leaders were instrumental in convincing the government to enact a local option plan similar to Virginia's rather than to close the schools.
Charlotte, Augusta, and Dallas
Followed the Atlanta model, rather than the Little Rock.
New Orleans and Birmingham, on the other hand...
If Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte and Augusta provided examples of the crucial role that development leaders could play in facilitating integration, the desegregation crises in New Orleans and Birmingham, as well as the uproar over integration of the University of Mississippi, demosntrated what could happen when influential economic spokesmen remained silent too long.
In New Orleans race-baiters incited riots while the business community was silent. An economic slump set in during the prolonged crisis; tourist and retail spending dropped. Eventually 105 business leaders took out a large ad in the Times-Picayune calling for support for the school board. According to Cobb, their public stand was a crucial turning point.
According to Cobb, a similar leadership vacuum in Mississippi contributed to the violence at Oxford. The violence at Oxford and the violence associated with the "Freedom Summer" of 1964 had an apparent effect on industrial recruiting.
Industrial promoters reported that in the last months of 1964 at least a dozen firms "seriously considering a location in Mississippi" had chosen to go elsewhere. An executive of Work Wear of Cleveland, Ohio wrote a developer, "We won't consider expanding in Mississippi again until the state and its people join the Union again." (p. 135)
In Birmingahm and greater Alabama, uber-segregationists Conner and Wallace actually got support for their views from some int the business community, although others expressed concern that Wallace's views would hurt econoimic development. Hammermill drew controversy by locating a new plant in Selma, but eventually promised that it wouldn't discriminate in hiring and claimed that by providing job opportunities it would be helping not hurting.
South Carolina
Apparently industrial interests prevailed and Gov. Hollings presided over the peaceful integration of Clemson University even after running on a platform that promised to fight the "tyrrany of a 'power-happy federal government.' "
Business interests were credited for contributing to the decline of blatantly racist campaigning. Cobb quotes historian Earl Black:
Generational considerations aside, the committment of important segments of southern business to economic development has contributed to the decline of segregationist compaigning. Business-oriented candidates and their financial supporters in the business community when forced by the national government to make a choice generally valued economic stability and growth over the principle of racial segregation. (p. 142)
Cobb notes that growth statistics don't seem to support the notion that the most desgregation-resistant states were hurt in terms of economic growth. But he also notes that the most resistant states, Arkansas and Mississippi, were also the least developed to begin with and thus might be expected to have larger percentage growth.
So were the business interests avid pro-desegregationists? Hardly.
In the apparent belief that incoming industrialists preferred stability and the appearance of harmony to the confrontations that could lead to meainingful progress for blacks, many industrial promoters lent their support to early desgregation efforts only because they widhed to avoid embarrassing protests. There was some suspicion that industry-minded moderates used tokenism not only to keep the peace but to keep segregation as well. (p. 147)
So if the support wasn't sincere, what good was it really?
Although it seldom accomplished more than a peaceful transition to purely token desegregation, concern about a location's image in the eyes of new industrial investors did encourage economic leaders to help their communities and states take their all-important first steps. As self-serving and hollow as the moderation of boosters and civic officials in Atlanta or Augusta may have been, it was surely preferable to the tragic silence of the economic elite in Birmingham or New Orleans. (p. 149)
Cobb, J.C. (1993). The Selling of the South: The Southern Crusade for Industrial Development>, 1936-1990. (2nd Ed.). Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Posted by Chip on June 27, 2004 at 12:26 PM | TrackBack