Southern Manifesto: How Southern States Resisted Integration

With the Southern Manifesto—or the Declaration of Constitutional Principles—southern politicians announced their intent to combat desegregation. Although senators and members of congress from all the states that comprised the Confederacy signed the 1956 manifesto, certain politicians from Florida, North Carolina, Texas, and Tennessee refrained. The signatories were primarily southern Democrats (who gained the moniker “Dixiecrats” in certain circles at the time), although some Republicans also signed.

The Southern Manifesto followed the 1954 US Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared segregation in US public schools no longer constitutional or legal. Segregationist members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives called the decision “a clear abuse of judicial power” that emanated from Washington, DC, at the expense of state sovereignty. They drafted the Southern Manifesto to proclaim they would use all lawful means to retain the Jim Crow laws, which were attempts at upholding segregation. The politicians had put Jim Crow laws into place after the Civil War, despite the ratification of Reconstruction Amendments, which granted rights and citizenship to Black Americans.

Southern states fought to preserve segregation after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. Seven of those states sought to prevent desegregation in the following ways:

1. 1. Alabama: Although not a signatory of the Southern Manifesto, Alabama Governor George Wallace stood behind its goals. He made a name for himself by declaring, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” In 1963, he stood in the doorway of the University of Alabama to prevent Black students from entering.
2. 2. Arkansas: Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas insisted on couching the segregationist goals of the Southern Manifesto in a states’ rights argument to make it more palatable. Within a few years of its issuance, his state capital of Little Rock saw one of the most intense episodes of resistance to desegregation. As Black teenagers were about to integrate with white classmates at Little Rock Central High School, President Eisenhower sent National Guard troops to keep them safe.
3. 3. Georgia: Senator Walter F. George from Georgia introduced the Southern Manifesto in the Senate. In it, southern politicians insisted that federally and judicially mandated school desegregation efforts were not in keeping with the original constitution of the United States. Several years after that, violence erupted over desegregation attempts at the University of Georgia.
4. 4. Louisiana: When school integration began in Louisiana, many white parents withdrew their children from schools that Black children now attended. Riots and death threats toward Black children were common. It took well over a decade for the state’s schools to truly integrate.
5. 5. Mississippi: Both senators from Mississippi—James O. Eastland and John Stennis—signed the Southern Manifesto. One holdout district in Mississippi prevented the state from fully desegregating until 2016.
6. 6. South Carolina: Strom Thurmond, a longtime South Carolina senator, was one of the principal architects of the Southern Manifesto. After he wrote the initial draft, it went through a series of reviews, eventually culminating in the final revision by Richard Russell, a Georgia senator. South Carolina maintained complete school segregation for nine years after the 1954 Brown decision—the first school to desegregate in the state did so in 1963.
7. 7. Virginia: Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr. of Virginia coined the term “massive resistance” in reference to his and other southern states’ attempts to forestall implementing the Brown v. Board decision. “Private” segregationist schools cropped up with government funding to supplant the slowly integrating public school system. The Virginia state government also opted to shut down certain school districts rather than allow them to integrate.

Despite the efforts of segregationist politicians and civilians, the march toward racial justice continued. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s put the mistreatment of Black Americans and the continuance of segregation front and center both domestically in the United States and internationally. Congress passed multiple bills to shore up civil rights and voting rights for Black Americans, and the Supreme Court issued additional decisions to combat segregation. By the 1970s, the South became the most integrated region in the United States.

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