Home > Political Insider > Archives > 2008 > May > 11 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USThe day ‘white’ and ‘colored’ signs disappeared from the state Capitol
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Over the past several years, the state Capitol has earned a reputation for very loud fights over very small things.
It wasn’t always so. Once upon a time, Jericho-sized walls came tumbling down under the Gold Dome, and without the bleat of a single trumpet, much less a press conference.
Worlds were overthrown with a minimum of fuss. Revolutions required 15 minutes, a quiet phone call or two, and a certain sense of right and wrong.
Last year, Senate President pro tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) began an oral history program, recording interviews with past political figures of Georgia and posting the video on the Internet.
Former Gov. Carl Sanders, now 82, was added just a few days ago. He’d been preceded by state Sen. Leroy Johnson, the first black lawmaker elected since the days of Reconstruction. He’s 79.
Without coordination or prompting, both men — each interviewed by Eric Johnson — tell the same, little-known tale of the day 45 years ago that desegregation came to the Capitol.
Former state senator Leroy Johnson (left) and former Gov. Carl Sanders in the state Capitol. Rich Addicks/AJC
In January 1963, the seat of state government, like the rest of Georgia, was divided not so neatly into black and white.
Restrooms and drinking fountains were labeled “white” and “colored.” The galleries perched above the House and Senate chambers were likewise segregated. The army of young pages who delivered messages to lawmakers was uniformly pale. A driver’s license office in the basement had two separate lines.
Into this hostile world walked 34-year-old Leroy Johnson, a Morehouse graduate forced to study law in North Carolina because “the University of Georgia was not accepting Negroes.”
For most of the session, Johnson’s days were spent in silence. “Not one senator spoke to me,” he said.
Sanders, who had likewise just begun his term, was watching Johnson closely. “He could have been a pain in the neck, as far as I was concerned,” the former governor remembered.
With little else within reach, Johnson’s objective became the desegregation of the state Capitol. The question was how to go about it.
Given the combustible environment — only months later nearby Birmingham would point fire hoses and police dogs at protesters — Johnson judged that it was better to make a point than a scene. It took him three weeks to recruit his first black pages, and then he started.
“I carried my pages into restrooms that said ‘white’ instead of ‘colored.’ And when we got to the water fountain, I had them drink from the water fountain that had the sign that said ‘white’ instead of ‘colored,’” he said.
Johnson created incidents, but not drama. “None of this was done with a news camera pointed to capture the fact,” he said.
Guards sent word to Sanders that two all-important lines were being crossed.
In the Georgia of the ‘60s, a governor was something akin to a king. He named the House speaker and each committee chairman. More important, he ruled the building itself. Sanders’ reaction would set the tone for white inhabitants of the Capitol, regardless of rank.
That night, “white” and “colored” signs disappeared from every water fountain and restroom in the Capitol.
“The courts had already ruled, saying [this was] unlawful,” said Sanders, who like Johnson was a lawyer. “I went ahead and did what I knew the law said to do. And while I was doing that, George Wallace was over in Alabama standing in the schoolhouse door.”
But Sanders had taken note of Johnson’s quiet style, which allowed the governor to respond in kind. “He helped me do some things that I knew had to be done — and do them in a way that wouldn’t create problems,” Sanders said.
The identical thought occurred to Johnson. “[The governor] appreciated that more than I realized then,” the native Atlantan said. “I could have caused chaos with his administration. That was not my intent. My intent was to try to correct what I thought was wrong. And that’s what we did.”
The two had not yet met face to face, but Johnson knew he’d found the ally that mattered. The senator went to the driver’s license office in the basement and stood in the line for whites. A phone call was made, and separate service for black Georgians disappeared.
A cafeteria worker told Johnson she couldn’t serve him. Johnson advised her to check with her supervisor. The senator got his food, but white diners emptied the room when he sat down. Changing policy was one thing. Changing minds was another.
Yet in the end, as the South was slowly learning, matters of race would bend to political necessity. The silent treatment given Johnson ended near the end of his 1963 session, on the day his Senate colleagues found they needed his vote on a bill.
“I learned that, in politics, you get not what you deserve, but what you can negotiate,” Johnson said.
The Johnson-Sanders revolution extended beyond the Capitol grounds. Shortly before adjournment, the Senate scheduled a luncheon at the whites-only Commerce Club, the exclusive lunching place for downtown Atlanta’s power elite.
Johnson arrived, pushed passed a protesting guard, and took a place at the prepared table. The white maitre d’ approached. “He took my plate, my silverware, my glass, and walked out,” Johnson explained.
For the first time, the Atlanta senator issued a threat. Call the governor, Johnson told state Sen. Hugh Gillis, or he would call the newspapers.
Now, in Sanders’ account, Johnson called the governor himself. But Johnson insists it was Gillis. In any case, here’s what happened next:
“I said, ‘Give me about 15 minutes,’” Sanders said. “I called Mr. Bob Woodruff out at the Coca Cola Co. He and Mills Lane [the head of C&S Bank] had created the Commerce Club. I said, ‘Senator Johnson’s at the Commerce Club, and they won’t let him in. If they don’t let him in, we’re going to have the biggest row you’ve ever seen or heard around here.’”
And what did Woodruff say to the governor? “Give me 15 minutes,” Sanders recalled.
A quarter hour later, back at the Commerce Club, the white maitre d’ quietly returned with a plate, glass and silverware, and arranged them in front of the African-American senator. Once he disappeared, black waiters in the dining room applauded.
“That integrated the Commerce Club,” the governor concluded.
Sanders and Johnson were at the Capitol last week, to sit for the photograph that accompanies this account, and to fill a few gaps in the story.
For instance, what happened that morning four decades ago, when the Capitol doors opened, and it was found that the cardboard commands that had kept whites and blacks separate for so many years had suddenly disappeared?
“Nothing at all. I never did hear a complaint or word about it,” the former governor said.
Johnson finished Sanders’ thought. “As if they had never been there.”
Comments
By RJ
May 11, 2008 6:32 PM | Link to this
Thanks for sharing these powerful change events! This piece provide shining examples of how mountains can be moved “when you are not interested in who gets the credit”…the credo of Mr. Wooddruff.
By Dusty
May 11, 2008 6:36 PM | Link to this
This is a good story about two men who did what was “right”. Because they knew it was “right”, they did it quietly and with resolution.
I hope today under the Gold Dome there are men and women of the same character in whatever decisions are to be made. In the furor and posturing, the calculating propaganda, todays politics are assumed to be a mix of chicanery and profit-making deals. Where of the men of yesterday’s character? Are they there and we do not recognize them?
I fear that many of our assumptions are true and the day of ethics and responsibility are gone. I wish someone could convince me otherwise.
By RES
May 11, 2008 7:16 PM | Link to this
What this nation and state need today is more people like Carl Sanders and Leroy Johnson.
By Craig Spinks /Augusta
May 12, 2008 12:13 AM | Link to this
Mega-dittoes, RES! Johnson and Sanders: Forgotten men from an era when The People, their politicos and their pundits appreciated that actions spoke more loudly and more lastingly than words.
By Whitney
May 12, 2008 7:12 AM | Link to this
A great story. We must remember these mistakes and what we did to not repeat them. Senator Eric Johnson in capturing the history and voices is doing Georgia a great service. Well done.
By American Dream
May 12, 2008 7:45 AM | Link to this
Everyone can learn a lesson or 3 from men like Misters Johnson and Sanders. Thanks to Senator Johnson for recording this history.
By KP
May 12, 2008 8:44 AM | Link to this
Stories like this, make you proud to be a Georgian. Two strong and courageous men who did what’s right. Not to make a scene or to make news, but simply to do what’s right.
By The Oddball
May 12, 2008 11:06 AM | Link to this
Good on you, Senator Eric Johnson, for undertaking such an important project.
Now, if we can just find a few more Sanders and Leroy Johnsons and convince them to enter the public arena, and a few Woodruffs to back them up …
By gttim
May 12, 2008 11:11 AM | Link to this
Hell of a story! While I was not old enough to vote for Sanders, I remember my parents having his bumper sticker on their car. Makes me proud of them!
By Hank
May 12, 2008 3:54 PM | Link to this
No if the Georgia Legislature can overturn the Public Gathering Laws which were designed to suppress blacks while disarming them. This state will truely have made some changes.
By GA state worker
May 12, 2008 5:09 PM | Link to this
Dusty said “I hope today under the Gold Dome there are men and women of the same character in whatever decisions are to be made.”
I can’t speak for the legislature, but I am an employee of the state of Georgia. Of all the places I’ve worked in my career (public and private) I am proud to say that our workforce and leadership is as diverse and talented as any I’ve seen. Governor Perdue has chosen the best he can find to run our government agencies regardless of race, gender or party affiliation. We have Commissioners and Directors that run our government offices of every race, gender and background and they are all great and caring professionals. I’m proud to work with my colleagues and I can assure you that character resides under the gold dome.
By Dave
May 12, 2008 7:41 PM | Link to this
While I by no means wish to impugn, Ga State Worker, as I have worked for the state on two occasions and found many state employees to be truly committed to serving the public; however, the comment regarding the caliber of people the Governor has appoint to leadership is not true across the board. Several agencies have “hacks” who have completely destroyed moral and effectiveness. State workers know which agencies I’m talking about.
By gafarmer
May 12, 2008 8:32 PM | Link to this
Johnson and Sanders, statesmen and public servants instead of politicians. We will never have enough people of character like them.
By Valora Strickland
May 13, 2008 6:27 PM | Link to this
Very interesting. In recent weeks, I’ve read two stories in another publication about another governor of Georgia, who, happened to run against the Honorable Carl Sanders, who, over the years has touted his tolerance but yet when it came down to it, played the race card in order to get elected. Even indirectly, if I recall correctly, hooked up with the KKK. Who was it? Jimmy Carter.
By SharonH
May 14, 2008 2:12 PM | Link to this
That’s a hell of a story. Those two men are heroes and revolutionaries. Very impressive, I wish I’d heard more about them.