Two
thousand students from the Georgia Institute of Technology stormed
through Atlanta one night last week, whooping up and down Peachtree
Street, pushing aside troopers who tried to bar their way, and
generally raising hell. At the State Capitol, the boys pulled fire
hoses from their racks, adorned the sculpt head of Civil War Hero John
Gordon with an ashcan. A dozen effigies of Governor Marvin Griffin
were hanged and burned during the students' march, which culminated in
a 2 a.m. riot in front of the governor's mansion. Earlier in the day, the governor had incurred their wrath by a pinhead
act: he asked the State Board of Regents to forbid the athletic teams
of the university system of Georgia from participating in games against any team with Negro
players, or even playing in any stadium where unsegregated audiences
breathed the same air. “The South stands at Armageddon,” brayed Griffin to the regents. “The
battle is joined. We cannot make the slightest concession to the enemy
in this dark and lamentable hour of struggle. There is no more
difference in compromising the integrity of race on the playing field
than in doing so in the classrooms. One break in the dike and the
relentless seas will rush in and destroy us.”* The governor had a specific game in mind: Georgia Tech had contracted to
play the University of Pittsburgh in New Orleans' Sugar Bowl on Jan. 2.
Pitt has been selling its block of tickets on a desegregated basis,
and Bobby Grier, a Pitt reserve fullback, is a Negro. Many Southern leaders and editorialists scornfully denounced Griffin's
action. George Harris, president of the Georgia Tech student body, sent
a telegram to the Pitt student body, apologizing for Griffin's action:
“We are looking forward to seeing your entire team and student body at
the Sugar Bowl.” A spokesman for the governor indicated that he was
having some second thoughts about the Sugar Bowl game. One of Georgia
Tech's regents predicted that the board would back Griffin and adopt
for future seasons a rule against playing under unsegregated
conditions. But the 1956 Sugar Bowl game would be played as scheduled,
“just this once.” The Citizens' Council There was an orderly meeting of solid Mississippi citizens in Jackson
one day last week. Present in the city auditorium were 2,000
planters and small businessmen, 40 state legislators, Congressman
John Bell Williams and Governor Hugh White. They were well-dressed people
of the sort found at Rotary meetings or dancing at the country
club. This was the first statewide meeting of the Mississippi
Association of Citizens' Councils. They were addressed by U.S. Senator
James Oliver Eastland. His subject: school desegregation. Said he:
