Texas Rangers pose in front of effigy at Mansfield High School
Texas Rangers stand in front of Mansfield High School, where an effigy of an African American hangs above the front door.
On August 31, 1956 segregationists gathered at the Mansfield High School to prevent African American students from registering for the upcoming school year. The same day Governor Allan Shivers dispatched Texas Rangers to Mansfield as a sign to maintain law and order. The memorandum instructed Colonel Garrison to “arrest anyone, white or colored, whose actions are such as to represent a threat to the peace" (see footnote below). The first day of school and final day of registration was Tuesday, September 4. Captain Crowder dispatched a total of nine Texas Rangers on site that Tuesday morning as a precautionary measure for crowd control (see footnote below). No African American students registered or attended Mansfield High School in 1956.
Bibliography: Robyn Duff Ladino, Desegregating Texas Schools: Eisenhower, Shivers, and the Crisis at Mansfield High (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996), 102, 111
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
1956
Texas Ranger in Mansfield
The Texas Rangers were deployed to Mansfield.
Governor Allan Shivers ordered Texas Rangers to be dispatched in an effort to maintain order at the school as segregationists gathered to protest the federal court order to integrate students in 1956. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) viewed the use of the Texas Rangers as an attempt to maintain segregation. Leaders of the NAACP saw the governor’s actions as contrary to the Supreme Court order. Governor Shivers blamed the problem at Mansfield on the NAACP and commented that “the paid agitators ought to be put in jail” (see footnote). The back and forth exchanges between both sides indicated the divisive nature of the integration issue as Mansfield became a battleground that challenged the “separate but equal” law when the NAACP filed Jackson v. Rawdon on October 7, 1955.
Bibliography: Robyn Duff Ladino, Desegregating Texas Schools: Eisenhower, Shivers, and the Crisis at Mansfield High (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996), 117-118.
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
1956
Portrait of A. Maceo Smith
NAACP leader Antonio Maceo Smith poses for a portrait.
As a leader in the NAACP, Dallas native A. Maceo Smith helped to form the Texas State Conference of Branches in 1937. This alliance between Texas chapters helped the organization revitalize in the during and after World War II.
"Smith, Antonio Maceo (1903-1977)," BlackPast.org. Accessed April 30, 2015. http://www.blackpast.org/aaw/smith-antonio-maceo-1903-1977
Public Domain
1945
Mansfield students enter high school under the shadow of an effigy.
An effigy hangs above the entrance to Mansfield High School as students file in the building on August 30, 1956.
An effigy hangs above the entrance to Mansfield High School as students file in the building on August 30, 1956. The effigy was hung as a protest to integration efforts in Mansfield. The effigy remained for several days.
Courtesy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Library, Arlington, Texas
1956-08-30
Mansfield segregated water fountain
A boy drinks from a segregated water fountain at a gas station in Mansfield on August 2, 1956.
This photo - taken the month of the Mansfield desegregation crisis in 1956 - depicts a microcosm of Jim Crow-era segregation. In addition to separate water fountains, blacks and whites were separated in bus seating, theater seating, restaurants, health care, housing and in other everyday activities across the South.
Courtesy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Library, Arlington, Texas
1956-08-02
"We Don't Serve Negroes"
One Mansfield eatery proclaims with a sign, "We Don't Serve Negroes."
Jim Crow laws marginalized African Americans by denying them access to private businesses and public facilities, creating "separate but equal" conditions. For example, many black Americans were forced to eat in the back of some establishments or not allowed in at all.
Courtesy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Library, Arlington, Texas
1956-08-02
John Howard Griffin with Fort Worth Star-Telegram
John Howard Griffin holds a Fort Worth Star-Telegram that shows an effigy someone hung of him.
Mansfield author John Howard Griffin, who wrote the book "Black Like Me," holds a Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper, which includes a photo of an effigy someone hung of him. Griffin spent most of his life studying racial equality. In "Black Like Me" he changed the pigmentation of his skin and traveled through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia to explore the different levels of discrimination African Americans faced living in the deep south.
Courtesy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Library, Arlington, Texas
1960-03-02
Students in front of Mansfield school bus
Five African American students planned to enroll at Mansfield High School.
Five African American students who planned to enroll in Mansfield High School stand in front of a Mansfield Independent School District bus. Students include Gracie Smith, Hattie Neal, Floyd Moody, John Hicks, and Charles Moody. The segregated school system in 1956 required African American students in Mansfield to attend I.M. Terrell High School in Fort Worth. Students would catch the Trailways bus from Mansfield to downtown Fort Worth and then walk about twenty blocks to the high school. The system made it difficult for students to participate in extracurricular activities and left students arriving home late in the evening. Inadequate bussing for students was one of many deficiencies found in the “separate but equal” clause for school districts. The Mansfield school board denied multiple improvement requests by the African American community, prompting the NAACP to petition the courts to force integration at the high school.
Courtesy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Library, Arlington, Texas
1956-08-31
Crowd with alligator
The crowd at Mansfield High School protesting integration gathers around a man holding a baby alligator.
During the protest against desegregation at Mansfield High School, John Pyles held a baby alligator as a warning to any African American who appeared on the school grounds that they would be "gator bait."
Courtesy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Library, Arlington, Texas
1956-08-30
Car painted with racial slurs
A car painted with racial slurs is parked near Mansfield High School.
A car painted with racial slurs is parked near Mansfield High School on August 30, 1956. Several hundred white citizens protested the registration of black students at the school. The protest was in response to the decision in the lawsuit of Nathaniel Jackson, a minor, et al. v O.C. Rawdon, et al. of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans overturning a lower court’s decision. The Fifth Circuit’s decision mandated that the Mansfield Independent School District allow African American students to register at the previous white-only Mansfield High School. No African American students registered that day.
Courtesy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Library, Arlington, Texas
1956-08-30