Eisenhower Responds to Texas Governor Allan Shivers About the Supreme Court School Segregation Cases (1953)

Date: July 21, 1953

Created By: Dwight D. Eisenhower

Original or Replica: Original

Era: Civil Rights, The Presidency

Collection: Eisenhower Presidential Library

Citations: DDE’s Records as President, Official File, Box 614, OF-142-A-4 Negro Matters – Colored Question – Segregation – Integration (1); NAID #12171144

In this July 21, 1953 letter, President Dwight D. Eisenhower responds to Texas Governor Allan Shivers regarding the school segregation cases then pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Shivers had apparently called Eisenhower’s attention to the Court’s invitation for the Attorney General of the United States to submit a brief or participate in oral arguments concerning the constitutionality of racial segregation in public schools.

Eisenhower tells Shivers that Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. was giving the issue close attention and that Brownell joined him in appreciating the governor’s views. However, Eisenhower explains that the administration had not yet completed its legal study of the Supreme Court’s invitation and therefore does not state what position the federal government would ultimately take. A handwritten postscript indicates that South Carolina Governor James F. Byrnes had also spoken with Eisenhower about the issue and that the president had asked Byrnes to share his views with Brownell. Written while the cases that would become Brown v. Board of Education were before the Supreme Court, the letter provides insight into the Eisenhower administration’s consideration of the federal government’s role in the landmark constitutional challenge to public school segregation.