Opposition to the implementation of the <cite>Brown</cite> decision and school busing
Talmadge explains his opposition to the ways in which the <cite>Brown</cite> decision had been implemented since 1954. A United States senator for nearly that entire time span, Talmadge asserts that while he was not opposed to the meaning behind the <cite>Brown</cite> decision, he did not believe that efforts to achieve desegregation—such as busing—offered the right solution. Overall, Talmadge believed that such efforts had led to the degeneration of public schools and he asserts his view that a better solution could be found.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Herman Talmadge, July 29 and August 1, 1975. Interview A-0331-2. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JACK NELSON:
-
Let's go back to one of the Supreme Court decisions which had tremendous
impact really around the country but beginning mostly in the South.
That's Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, the
school decision.
- SENATOR HERMAN TALMADGE:
-
That was in 1954, as you recall, and it reversed previous decisions that
held that children could be classified by race for assignment to public
schools. Now, we've gone the opposite extreme, overriding the Brown
decision and now they hold that you have got to assign schools by color
to achieve a racial balance. You realize all the discord that it has
brought throughout the nation. It has worked
better in the South than it has anywhere else in the country because
there is a common warm bond of friendship between lots of blacks and
whites in the South. You don't have that in other sections of the
country and you see the riots that they are having in Boston now and
other areas outside the South where it has been implemented. It is a
very foolish program in my judgement. It is extremly costly and
counterproductive and according to the polls, only 4% of the whites and
9% of the blacks support it.
- JACK NELSON:
-
Now, this is busing to achieve racial balance. What about the decision
itself of '54, outside of any busing and . . .
- SENATOR HERMAN TALMADGE:
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Well, that is a fait accompli. No one is trying to
return to the status quo of twenty odd years ago, but
I think that certainly our school systems have degenerated since that
time. Most of the urban problems that we have at the present time in
part are related to that decision. You had a mass exodus of the whites
from the central cities to the suburbs to get to what they thought were
better schools. You had a decay of values within the central cities and
a erosion of your tax base and some of the problems like New York is
being confronted with are going to confront other cities, largely
because of mass flight. I doubt if the schools now are as good as they
were twenty odd years ago.
- JACK NELSON:
-
What about Earl Warren as a Chief Justice, Senator Talmadge? I assume
that you didn't care too much for him.
- SENATOR HERMAN TALMADGE:
-
I knew Earl Warren well, we served in the Governor's Conference together
before he went on the Supreme Court bench. Our personal relations were
very cordial. He is personally a very warm, friendly, kind
of a man, or was. He was never any legal scholar and I
think that he is one of the poorest Chief Justices in the history of the
republic.
