South Carolina Governor Urges Eisenhower to Defend School Segregation (1953)

Date: November 20, 1953

Created By: James F. Byrnes

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 (3); NAID #12171148

This letter was written by South Carolina Governor James F. Byrnes to President Dwight D. Eisenhower on November 20, 1953, while the Supreme Court was considering the school segregation cases that would become Brown v. Board of Education. Byrnes references Eisenhower’s statement that he would personally review the Department of Justice’s position and encloses portions of a legal brief prepared on behalf of South Carolina school officials urging the administration to support the constitutionality of segregated public schools.

Byrnes argues that decades of judicial precedent had upheld state laws requiring separate schools provided equal facilities were maintained. He contends that the Supreme Court should not overturn its earlier decisions or reinterpret the Fourteenth Amendment, maintaining that education was a matter reserved to state governments. He further asserts that school policies should reflect local conditions and that South Carolina’s system did not constitute unreasonable discrimination.