Pearsall Plan

“The Pearsall Plan to save our schools”, known colloquially as the Pearsall Plan, was North Carolina’s attempt at a moderate approach to integrate their schools after racial segregation of schools was deemed unconstitutional in the famous Brown v. Board of Education trial.^[1] For many southern states, North Carolina included, the Brown ruling posed a significant problem as they would have to integrate their schools while still appeasing their residents, many of whom maintained prejudices against such integration. North Carolina decided upon an approach that highlighted moderation, acknowledging that school integration was inevitable, rather than acting in strict defiance like Alabama and other southern states.^[2] In an attempt to find a creative solution to the mandated desegregation, the North Carolina Advisory Committee on Education established the Pearsall Committee, named after its chairman, Thomas J. Pearsall, an agricultural landholder and notable public figure from Rocky Mount, North Carolina.^[3] The Pearsall Committee created the Pearsall Plan, which worked to slow the integration the North Carolina public school system, a legislative scheme that would hinder the fight for equality for students across the state for years. This legislature was crucial in creating a society that was conducive to the drastic social changes that would occur as a direct result of school integration.

Terms of the Pearsall Plan

The Pearsall Plan employed a moderate approach by deflecting the power to integrate schools from the North Carolina State Board of Education to the individual local school boards.^[4] The Pupil Assignment Act, which preceded the Pearsall Plan, even allowed parents to receive a monetary grant if a child was placed into a mixed school against their will.^[5] Thus, in an attempt to avoid this problem, many school districts maintained separated schools and denied the transfer waivers of black students into white schools.^[6] It also provided that any child not accepted to a private school, who would subsequently be placed into a mixed public school, would not be forced to attend school.^[7] Furthermore, any school that was deemed “intolerable” could be voted to be shut down by the community.^[8] This allowed a predominantly white neighborhood to vote to shut down a mixed school if they felt it unfit to share such a classroom. According to the Pearsall Committee, their proposition was, “the building of a new school system on a new foundation – a foundation of no racial segregation by law, but assignment according to natural racial preference and the administrative determination of what is best for the child.”^[9] In their opinion, the segregation of schools was natural and would continue to prosper without the aid of laws. The struggle for unified schools in North Carolina continued for the next two decades, ultimately resulting in the integration of schools, proving this committee wrong.

Defiance Against the Government

Many critics cite the wording of the Pearsall Plan as evidence that the plan was more of an act of defiance against the Supreme Court than a true attempt at desegregation. The fact that the paper is titled “the Pearsall Plan to save our Schools” implies that the government was destroying the public school system by releasing this mandate. It gives the appearance that the document is intended to question the ruling of the government rather than react to it what has been handed down to them. Suggesting that integration will lead to situations in which schools become “intolerable” further attests that the Pearsall Plan was made to halt integration rather than trying to moderate integration as suggested by the Pearsall Committee. The question and answer section of the Pearsall Plan states that the legislative action was not a defiance of the US Supreme Court’s decision; rather, it was “an attempt to stay within that decision, even though a great majority of our citizens disapprove of the Supreme Court’s ruling.”^[10] The committee was persuaded that the ruling was not what the community wanted and thus created a plan to minimize its effects. The same section then continues to question the ruling of the Supreme Court, claiming that they abused their power by taking over the rights of the state.^[11] This bitterness is one of the main reasons that the Pearsall Plan was challenged after its initial employment.

Necessity of the Plan

The Pearsall Committee recognized that the integration of schools was inevitable and would provide a plethora of social changes that would greatly alter the lives of everyone in the state of North Carolina. In realization that the state was not ready for the incumbent shift in social dynamic once schools were integrated, the Pearsall Committee, especially Thomas Pearsall, felt as though they needed to create a plan in which North Carolina could prepare itself. Pearsall’s son, Mack, would reflect on his father’s realization of this saying his father had anticipated, “a very tension filled environment – a major change in lifestyles and folkways and mores.”^[12] For this reason, the committee tried to create a plan that would enable only as much action as the people of North Carolina wanted. Rushing into change would only lead to chaos, something that the state desperately tried to avoid. They were successful in doing this; however, the committee failed to recognize the effects of allowing the communities the power to enact no change in their educational model. The Pearsall Plan is most criticized for this reason. In many places, there were multiple years of stagnancy after the release of the Pearsall Plan during which nothing was accomplished. Finding the right balance between action and bedlam was the key for committee.^[13]

Political Implications

The Pearsall Plan was also a strategic political move that forced the general public to react to Brown rather than the politicians. The legislature hands the power directly to the school boards to determine the placement of students, giving them the liberty to decide the policies for their school and simultaneously permitting the inhibition of segregation. The practice of handing responsibility to the school boards would provide politicians the ability to step away from the spotlight and maintain a neutral stance on school desegregation. According to a particular resident at the time, the state’s passive decision to let the town boards decide was to “make it clear that the state itself, from Raleigh, is not masterminding or trying to assure a particular result.”^[14] By doing this, the state school board escaped the pressure of making a decision that would be controversial regardless of how it was ruled. This would be useful for politicians as they tried to further their political careers and not lose the favor of any group of society.

Criticisms of the Plan

These amendments were highly criticized from the African-American community in North Carolina because they appeared to solely help the white citizens and provided no benefits, often times hindering the exploits of the African-American students. Many of these critics cited the unequal representation of the races on the committee as a primary reason why this robbery of African-American students’ rights could happen. They felt as though a committee with sixteen white citizens and only three black citizens could not accurately represent all facets of society.^[15] Furthermore, the way the legislature was written proved to be a hindrance to the black students. A student wishing to challenge the ruling of their assignment had to contact their school board directly, thus making it more difficult to prove that the school boards as a whole were snubbing students of their school choices. It also contained many distinct and detailed clauses that uneducated and under-educated parents could not correctly fill out, preventing the appeals of students as their proposals did not exactly follow the administrative appeal process. As a result, “most school boards denied every request filed by a black student to transfer from an assigned black school to a white school” until the early 1960s.^[16] As a result, only one family was granted a monetary voucher for being placed into an integrated school.^[17] These motions left North Carolina behind Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia in terms of enrollment of blacks in integrated schools.^[18] This fact would bother many African-Americans in North Carolina who were hopeful that the Brown ruling would act as a stimulus towards school desegregation.

Reaction Towards the Plan

Though many people supported the integration of schools, they were wary about the implications of such quick social change after the Brown ruling. The Pearsall Plan rejected the chance that social change would occur at all, which was not the intent of the people. A poll released in February 1956 stated that forty-seven percent of African-Americans in the South did not support the Brown ruling to integrate schools because they feared their children would be spurned and not afforded a truly fair education from white teachers.^[19] Yet, they simultaneously did not support the plan laid out by the North Carolina Department of Education because it had the potential to halt the social trend towards change altogether. It was not just the African-American sector of society that had this sentiment, however. The white Greensboro superintendent of schools, Benjamin L. Smith, demonstrated the same feeling towards the desegregation of schools when he wrote, “After careful deliberation it is my opinion that desegregation is an idea whose hour has arrived.”^[20] He was a believer that North Carolina and the United States of America were ready for desegregation to begin. However, he cautioned the people against moving too fast saying, “Three hundred years of social distinctions have established customs and traditions that cannot and ought not be overthrown over night.”^[21] For many, this summed up the whole issue; it was not a matter of whether desegregation should happen, it was a matter of how desegregation would happen so that it would benefit everyone.

Impact on Charlotte

Dorothy Counts on her way to school

Though in general, the sentiments regarding the Pearsall Plan were similar throughout North Carolina, the results of school integration would have a wider ranging effect on the city of Charlotte. Since the beginning of the 20th century, Charlotte was completely segregated, both in schools and in the entire culture of the city.^[22] There was even a divide between the parts of town where the blacks lived and where the whites lived. Thus, when Brown was passed, the effort to desegregate in Charlotte revolved around a complete culture revolution rather than just a change in the education system. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was integral in helping to advocate for black students in their attempts to attend the predominantly white schools, which had better resources for their students.^[23] However, despite this backing, there was harsh criticism of the idea that schools could simply be integrated because there was such a massive difference in the cultures of the students. The vast majority of the applicants that attempted to switch into the better funded schools were rejected and segregation in the city continued. Finally, during the summer of 1957, the Charlotte School Board agreed to enact voluntary desegregation to avoid further national or state-ordered mandates.^[24] The effort turned out to be relatively unsuccessful as the protesters at Harry Harding High School received national attention for their protest of the enrollment of Dorothy Counts, embarrassing the city leaders.^[25] They crowded around the doors to the school in an attempt to prevent Dorothy from entering, resulting in two arrests.^[26] This misconduct, however, would fuel a series of successful and peaceful desegregation efforts as blacks and whites worked together to reform the city’s reputation and end segregation throughout the city.

Thomas Pearsall's Regret

Thomas J. Pearsall, who is most credited for the Pearsall Plan, would later regret leading such an important and controversial decision in the integration of schools. After falling ill with lymphoma, Pearsall reflected on how the actions of the committee had affected everyone. His wife noted that in his waning days, Pearsall’s interactions with black people became more strained as he felt that he had done wrong to them. He was quoted saying, “I don’t want to go to my grave feeling that I haven’t done the best I could for the blacks.”^[27] Though others reassured him that he did in fact, do everything possible to appease everyone, evidence shows he, himself, did not believe this to be completely true. This is perhaps due to the fact that at the time of his death, in 1981, the majority of the schools in North Carolina had been forced to integrate, often ending in clashes between the races. However, despite the tremendous guilt he experienced, Pearsall’s reputation remained relatively clean. He is highly regarded for his work with the Pearsall Plan despite setting back the integration of North Carolina schools a number of years. This is an indication that people did not blame Pearsall but rather the local prejudices that ultimately would hinder the ability for everyone to access equal opportunities. His son, Mack Pearsall, noted that his father dedicated a portion of his life working towards equality for all people and struggled when producing the Pearsall Plan because he feared he would go down in history as an enemy of the black community.^[28] Though Pearsall stalled the ability of blacks to gain equal educational opportunities, many people still claim that his actions were necessary in preventing the chaos from erupting from the Brown v. Board of Education result.

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