page_title: Terry Sanford
section_title: Race relations and civil rights
hierarchical_section_title: Terry Sanford / Gubernatorial career / Race relations and civil rights
caption_attribution_description: English: Governor Terry Sanford meeting with black school children at Happy Plains School in Alexander County. Photo by Lt. Lloyd Burchett of the North Carolina Highway Patrol. From the Raymond Stone Photograph Collection of Governor Terry Sanford's Education Tour, 1962, PhC.136, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
context_page_description: James Terry Sanford was an American lawyer and politician from North Carolina. A member of the Democratic Party, Sanford was the 65th Governor of North Carolina, a two-time U.S. Presidential candidate in the 1970s and a U.S. Senator. Sanford was a strong proponent of public education and introduced a number of reforms and new programs in North Carolina's schools and institutions of higher education as the state's governor, increasing funding for education and establishing the North Carolina Fund. From 1969 to 1985, Sanford was President of Duke University.
  An Eagle Scout, Sanford became an FBI agent after graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1939. During World War II, he saw combat in the European Theatre and received a battlefield commission. Following his return to civilian life after World War II, Sanford attended and graduated from the University of North Carolina School of Law and began a legal career in the late 1940s, soon becoming involved in politics. A lifelong Democrat, he was noted for his progressive leadership in civil rights and education, although his opponents criticized him as a "tax-and-spend" liberal.
context_section_description: At the time Sanford entered gubernatorial office, the state of racial affairs in North Carolina was essentially the same as it had been since the early 1900s. Segregation was common; despite token integration efforts in some urban schools and state colleges, 99 percent of black school children attended segregated schools, and though federal courts had mandated the integration of buses and trains, transit stations and most other accommodations—hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, public parks, and beaches—remained segregated. According to the North Carolina Advisory Commission on Civil Rights, only 31.2 percent of potential nonwhite voters were registered to vote, in contrast to 90.2 percent of white voters. In his inaugural address, Sanford appealed for mutual respect and understanding between races and said that "no group of our citizens can be denied the right to participate in the opportunities of first-class citizenship." He enrolled his daughter Betsee and his son Terry in the integrated Murphy School (it was attended by a single black student), an action which received attention in the state and national press.
  Sanford had considered racism to be immoral since he was student at the University of North Carolina, but initially wished to avoid dealing with issues of racial equality directly as governor, viewing it as a distraction from his main platform and politically dangerous. He had no planned strategy or agenda for the issue. However, he soon felt that he as governor he had to take some action to address the growing tension in the United States due to the increasing activity of the civil rights movement. Shortly after taking office, he began appointing black professionals to state offices. Ultimately, he placed over three dozen blacks on state boards, commissions, and committees. He also consulted black community and business leaders on civil rights issues such as Wheeler, sociologist John R. Larkins, and real estate developer John W. Winters. Winters was particularly insistent on encouraging Sanford and his staff to reconsider their views on civil rights. In 1961 Sanford and the Chairman of the Board of Conservation and Development, Skipper Bowles, decided to integrate North Carolina's state parks. Sanford generally believed that the use of persuasion and appeals to decency instead of invoking the law and employing force would mollify segregationists and lead to social change. He thought that the "basic goodness of people" would prevail in racial matters, and was often disappointed to encounter hostility from North Carolinians opposed to desegregation.
  In May 1961 a multiracial group of civil rights activists known as Freedom Riders prepared to enter North Carolina on intercity buses to ensure the desegregation of them and related transit facilities in the South. Sanford sought the advice of Thomas J. Pearsall, an attorney who had previously developed North Carolina's response to federally mandated school desegregation. Pearsall counselled Sanford to "approach the matter quietly, informally and without public notice" and be prepared to deploy the State Highway Patrol to "meet mob violence." Under Sanford's orders, the Highway Patrol monitored the buses' movements and guarded against potential violence from angry segregationist whites. Throughout his tenure Sanford would deploy state police at civil rights demonstrations to maintain order and deter violence, but he never used them to disperse demonstrators. He later said, "It was up to us to keep the order and let them demonstrate, which was constitutional. It was unthinkable to put them in jail for that." He also expressed support for President Kennedy's actions to maintain order during the integration of the University of Mississippi. Sanford remained conscious of the desires of the white constituency which had elected him, and in one instance wrote federal officials to request that a group of white North Carolinian army reservists be reassigned from the predominantly black army unit to which they were posted. Sanford let the matter drop after the United States
caption: Sanford with black schoolchildren in Alexander County, 1962
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