IV
The constitution of 1868 authorized the first public school system of South Carolina. Many years passed, however, before the state had a functioning public school system worthy of the name, even for the whites. Funds allocated by the state for public education increased slowly. Though largely spent on white schools such outlays brought limited advancement to Negro education through the trickle down process. Discrepancies between the white and Negro systems continued to grow. Not until the end of the nineteenth century did the total amount spent on Negro education surpass that spent in 1879-80, despite increasing enrollments. Not until 1919-20 did per capita expenditures on Negro schools exceed those of the Hampton administration.39
In 1921 Professor Simkins, after making an unverified assertion to the effect that “the educational separation of races in South Carolina at present meets the approval of both races,” admitted that the disproportionate share of the school funds spent for education of the whites displeased the Negro. At this time the white schools received $11.97 per capita while the Negro pupil received only $1.23.40
Until the late 1940’s when the NAACP began bringing suits for equal and/or integrated public schools, little support was given in the state for providing public education for Negroes, a situation reflected in the wide discrepancies in the funds spent for white and Negro schools. This attitude, in its most extreme form, was expressed in the inaugural address of Governor Cole Blease in 1911. Blease, a blatant Dixie demagogue, recommended “liberal appropriations for all our state institutions of learning for white boys and girls.” He also favored the improvement of “the free school system so that every white child in South Carolina” could be given “a good common school education.” As for Negro education, the Governor declared that “when the people of this country began to try to educate the Negro they made a serious and grave mistake,” the worst results of which were yet to come. “So why continue?” he asked.41
In 1941 Governor Maybank, reputedly more enlightened, appointed a committee to study the state’s education system. It found, among other things, that nineteen counties in the state had no high school for Negroes and that there were 1644 school buses for whites and eight for Negroes.42
The relative status of white-Negro education in South Carolina can be illustrated, and better yet dramatized, by reference to a few statistics for the years 1940 and 1952. In 1940 statistics reflected the relative unconcern for quality Negro education. On the other hand, the 1952 figures indicated the progress that had been made by the time the Clarendon County school case was making its way through the courts. The NAACP used these statistics with devastating effect in developing its argument against separate-but-equal systems.43 Since 1952 substantial improvements have come in both white and Negro schools. Schools for Negroes have been rapidly approaching at least a statistical equality with those of the whites.
| 1940 | 1952 | |||
| White | Negro | White | Negro | |
| Expenditure per pupil | $50.81 | $15.16 | $159.34 | $95.65 |
| Capital outlay per pupil | 6.25 | .66 | 24.70 | 11.45 |
| Average length of school year (days) | 175 | 147 | 180 | 178 |
| Average annual salary of classroom teachers | $938 | $388 | $2,644 | $1,985 |
| Average years of college of classroom teachers | 3.7 | 3.4 | ||
| Books in school libraries per pupil | 2.3 | 0.7 | 3.0 | 0.9 |
Other statistics bear investigation in connection with the state’s public education program. In 1950 the per capita income of South Carolinians was $844, 46th in the nation. In the same year the state spent 3.3 percent of its total personal income on public schools, tenth highest percentage-wise in the country. In 1952, 42.7 percent of the pupils attending public schools in the state were Negroes, a somewhat higher percentage than Negroes in the total population. Between 1940 and 1950 the white population of the state increased 19.3 percent while the Negro population increased only 1.0 percent. Yet during the period 1940-52 the Negro school population increased 12.5 percent compared to a white pupil increase of 9.9 percent.44
As late as 1918 only one public Negro high school was operating in the state! Not until 1930 did South Carolina have an accredited Negro high school. By 1950 there were 80 state accredited Negro high schools, only ten of which, however, were recognized by the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. By comparison there were 301 state accredited white high schools, 56 of which met the accrediting standards of the Southern Association.45
The same inequality evidenced on the public school level existed in higher education. The state maintains five institutions of higher learning for whites and one for Negroes. The Negro institution was originally rather thoroughly named the Colored Normal, Industrial, Agricultural, and Mechanical College. The total state appropriation for the white colleges in 1949 was in excess of $4,500,000 while that for the Negro college was less than $600,000. Dr. Lewis K. McMillan, former professor of history at the Negro institution, described the college as “a glorified high school” treated as a “step child” by the state. Until after World War II the college did not have a nominal graduate or law school. However, in the light of a spate of federal court decisions admitting Negro students to white state universities when equal educational opportunities were lacking in state-supported Negro schools, the 1945 state appropriations act authorized the college to establish “graduate, Law, and Medical departments and such other departments as may be necessary to provide training in all lines of college activities for students attending this college.” No money was appropriated until 1946 and then a completely inadequate $25,000 for the graduate school. In 1947 $60,000 was appropriated for the Law School. “Medical and pharmaceutical training” was authorized to the extent of a paltry appropriation of $15,000 in 1950.46
While federal court cases in other states provided a general impetus to this program, the danger that a Negro might be admitted to the University of South Carolina loomed ominously on the horizon in 1946 when a Negro, Cleveland M. McQueen, applied for admission as a graduate student in the School of Education. The state answered his request with the appropriation for a graduate school at the Negro college.47 In the same year another Negro, John Wrighten, applied for admission to the University Law School and was denied admittance. He then took his case to the courts which ruled that unless the state provided a law school at the Negro college “on a substantial parity with the University Law School” by September, 1947, Wrighten had to be admitted to the latter. By the deadline a law school had been established and Wrighten made no further appeal.48 Until January, 1958, no Negro made a concerted effort to gain admission to one of the white institutions of higher education. Two Negroes applied for admission to Clemson College in 1956 but did not press their applications after being refused. But in January, 1958, as will be seen in Chapter VII, Negro students were clearing the decks for a law suit to force admission to the University of South Carolina.