The Augusta Courier

Eight Governors Sign Pledge To Maintain School Segregation

Governor Herman Talmadge of Georgia and seven other governors attending the Southern Governors Conference last week pledged themselves to "exercise every proper prerogative" to maintain segregation of the races in the schools of their states.

The governors issued a joint statement which declared that forced mixing of the races in public schools in their states "would be destructive to the American principle of self-government as well as damaging to the public school system in our states." They pledged themselves to "exercise every proper prerogative to preserve the basic principles of our constitutional government and, as applied to education, to preserve the right of the states to administer their public school systems to the best interests of all people."

The segregation issue was brought up at the Conference in the opening address by Florida's Governor Johns who proposed that the Southern states initiate a movement to amend the United States Constitution to permit the individual states to maintain "separate but equal" schools for the white and negro races.

Although the Conference turned down a resolution to that effect, the Florida Governor said he was "completely satisfied" with the policy declaration and considers it a "moral victory for my insistence that Southern governors take some action on segregation."