Texas Governor Allan Shivers Urges Eisenhower to Support State and Local Control of School Segregation (1953)

Date: July 16, 1953

Created By: Allan Shivers

Original or Replica: Original

Era: The Presidency, Civil Rights

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 #12171143

In this July 16, 1953 letter, Texas Governor Allan Shivers writes to President Dwight D. Eisenhower concerning school segregation cases then before the U.S. Supreme Court. Shivers notes that the Court had invited Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. to submit a brief or participate in arguments involving segregation in the public schools of Virginia and South Carolina. He characterizes the Court’s invitation as unusual and suggests that it could place Eisenhower and his attorney general in a difficult political position.

Shivers argues that public education is primarily a state and local responsibility and warns that the Court’s eventual ruling could have significant economic and political consequences, particularly in southern and southwestern states. He contends that racial issues were already being addressed at the local level and expresses his belief that they should continue to be handled by state and local governments. Although Shivers assumes Brownell will accept the Supreme Court’s invitation, he urges the attorney general to advise the Court of this position. The letter provides insight into the arguments for local control used by opponents of federal intervention in school segregation as the Supreme Court considered the cases that would culminate in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.