Despite Lake's anti-desegregation language, state politicians supported his right to free speech
Giles explains how I. Beverly Lake fanned racial tensions. Although Governor Luther Hodges and Attorney General William Rodman Jr. opposed his rabid anti-integrationist rhetoric, they refused to bend to the NAACP's demand to fire Lake. The governor and attorney general argued that Lake was entitled to his First Amendment rights. Giles assesses Lake as a political expedient, using his pro-segregationist fervor for political gain.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Robert Giles, September 10, 1987. Interview C-0063. 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
- JAMES JENKINS:
-
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?
- ROBERT GILES:
-
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.
- JAMES JENKINS:
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He was just acting as an individual, individual criticism.
- ROBERT GILES:
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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 implication was
that something should be done about it or that the state should not
comply. Of course, certain groups would immediately attack Lake. I
recall the North Carolina Chapter of the NAACP did that. Others, who
were what you might term "liberal" on the race issue,
would attack him and call upon the governor to fire him. Well, of
course, the governor had no legal authority to fire him. He was hired by
the attorney general. Then they'd say, "The attorney
general should fire him." Well, all of that, as a practical
matter, prompted those two officials, the governor and the attorney
general, to come out and say, "We, of course, will not be
controlled by the NAACP or whoever it is. He is speaking. He has every
right to speak his personal opinions," and so on. As a matter
of fact, the Attorney General Rodman and the governor were incensed that
this fellow was using his state position, in a sense, to stir all this
up.
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
strongest about this matter. His heart is in the right place. I want to
find out how good a mind he's got."
That's the substance of what he said.
"I'm going to assign Beverly and make it clear that
we are counting on him to win this case." He followed up with
Beverly Lake and made it clear that he was looking to him to handle that
case in federal district court and to win it. Well, it wasn't
too long thereafter, a matter of just a few weeks or less, that Mr. Lake
submitted his resignation as assistant attorney general. In any event,
he wasn't around when eventually in due course the federal
district court ruled against the state on that application of a black to
get into the University.
- JAMES JENKINS:
-
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.
- ROBERT GILES:
-
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
distinguished professor of law at Wake Forest Law
School. He had a graduate law degree, I believe, from Harvard
University. He had been known, for whatever reason, to have supported
openly Frank Graham in the bitter senatorial race with Willie Smith when
race was an issue in that campaign. So I just wondered really what Mr.
Lake's convictions really were. I couldn't imagine
that a person with his background as a lawyer could seriously think that
the state of North Carolina or any other individual state could take on
the United States government.
- JAMES JENKINS:
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With any hope of winning.
- ROBERT GILES:
-
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.