but there was a legal requirement in Georgia that their front fenders be painted black so that everyone would know that the passengers were not precious white children. In 1955, with the first stirrings of racial unrest, the Georgia Board of Education fired all teachers who were members of the NAACP and directed that no teacher could serve who did not support racial segregation.
Although the school integration decision of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education came the year after we returned home, “separate but equal” was not challenged or changed in our community. Having witnessed President Truman’s end of segregation in the military, Rosalynn and I supported in a relatively unobtrusive way the evolutionary process of ending the more oppressive elements of racial distinctions in our community. I volunteered to head an evangelism effort sponsored by Billy Graham, using a motion picture that encouraged all people to work together as equals in our Christian faith. I formed a biracial steering committee and was not very surprised when no white church would permit us to have racially mixed planning sessions. We met in an abandoned schoolhouse in Americus, the county seat, and followed the rules and procedures that Billy Graham prescribed, including the use of radio and newspaper advertisements. On the final evening of the crusade, hundreds of black and white people watched the film in the local theater together, and several dozen viewers accepted Jesus Christ as savior. Some of the more conservative white men participated without restraint. There were a few other prominent citizens in the county who shared our moremoderate beliefs, including the president of Georgia Southwestern College, the county attorney, and the owner of the only local radio station.
As the race issue and civil rights protests became more prominent, Rosalynn and I found our previously ignored progressive attitude to be more controversial. One morning when I drove into the only service station in town, the owner refused to put gasoline in my pickup truck. I had to install an underground tank and pumping station to service our private vehicles and farm trucks. Later, about a dozen of my best customers came to my warehouse office, reminded me that they had been close friends of my father, and offered to pay my annual membership dues in the White Citizens’ Council. This organization had been formed in Mississippi, rejected the violence associated with the Ku Klux Klan, and was publicly sponsored by Georgia’s U.S. senators, our governor, and all other statewide political officers. I refused to become a member, and they told me I was the only white man in the community who had not joined. A sign was put on our office door one night, COONS AND CARTERS GO TOGETHER.
Our oldest son finished high school in 1965, and our family took a two-week automobile trip through Mexico. When we returned, not a single customer came into our office, and I finally learned that members of the John Birch Society had been to the county agricultural department, obtained a list of our customers, and informed each that I had been away in a Communist training camp to learn how best to integrate the public schools. I quickly visited each one and explained what we had been doing, and most of our more loyal customers returned. The college president and radio station owner remained under such pressure that they moved away. I briefly considered leaving Plains too, and accepting one of the many offers I had received from shipbuilders that would have utilized my knowledge of nuclear power and my top secret security clearance, but the economic pressures dissipated as we capitalized on the wide geographical area now covered by our seed peanut sales and other business contacts. These racial struggles now seem like ancient history.
After five years in the haunted house, we bought a lot on the edge of Plains and built a home of our own in 1961. An architect produced a design on
Although the school integration decision of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education came the year after we returned home, “separate but equal” was not challenged or changed in our community. Having witnessed President Truman’s end of segregation in the military, Rosalynn and I supported in a relatively unobtrusive way the evolutionary process of ending the more oppressive elements of racial distinctions in our community. I volunteered to head an evangelism effort sponsored by Billy Graham, using a motion picture that encouraged all people to work together as equals in our Christian faith. I formed a biracial steering committee and was not very surprised when no white church would permit us to have racially mixed planning sessions. We met in an abandoned schoolhouse in Americus, the county seat, and followed the rules and procedures that Billy Graham prescribed, including the use of radio and newspaper advertisements. On the final evening of the crusade, hundreds of black and white people watched the film in the local theater together, and several dozen viewers accepted Jesus Christ as savior. Some of the more conservative white men participated without restraint. There were a few other prominent citizens in the county who shared our moremoderate beliefs, including the president of Georgia Southwestern College, the county attorney, and the owner of the only local radio station.
As the race issue and civil rights protests became more prominent, Rosalynn and I found our previously ignored progressive attitude to be more controversial. One morning when I drove into the only service station in town, the owner refused to put gasoline in my pickup truck. I had to install an underground tank and pumping station to service our private vehicles and farm trucks. Later, about a dozen of my best customers came to my warehouse office, reminded me that they had been close friends of my father, and offered to pay my annual membership dues in the White Citizens’ Council. This organization had been formed in Mississippi, rejected the violence associated with the Ku Klux Klan, and was publicly sponsored by Georgia’s U.S. senators, our governor, and all other statewide political officers. I refused to become a member, and they told me I was the only white man in the community who had not joined. A sign was put on our office door one night, COONS AND CARTERS GO TOGETHER.
Our oldest son finished high school in 1965, and our family took a two-week automobile trip through Mexico. When we returned, not a single customer came into our office, and I finally learned that members of the John Birch Society had been to the county agricultural department, obtained a list of our customers, and informed each that I had been away in a Communist training camp to learn how best to integrate the public schools. I quickly visited each one and explained what we had been doing, and most of our more loyal customers returned. The college president and radio station owner remained under such pressure that they moved away. I briefly considered leaving Plains too, and accepting one of the many offers I had received from shipbuilders that would have utilized my knowledge of nuclear power and my top secret security clearance, but the economic pressures dissipated as we capitalized on the wide geographical area now covered by our seed peanut sales and other business contacts. These racial struggles now seem like ancient history.
After five years in the haunted house, we bought a lot on the edge of Plains and built a home of our own in 1961. An architect produced a design on
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