Eddie Davis
In late-summer of 1960, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools became the eighth school district in North Carolina to host the early stages of school integration, when three black first-graders enrolled at Estes Hills Elementary School.Â
A year earlier, in 1959, two of the members of the CHCCS board, Henry Brandis and J.R. Manley, were on the losing end of a vote that would have allowed Stanley B. Vickers, a 10-year-old black student from Carrboro, to transfer to an all-white school in the district. The motion to allow Vickers to attend a white school was defeated 4-2.
At the time, Brandis was the dean of the UNC School of Law. Manley was, and still is, the pastor of First Baptist Church. Their courageous votes carried a legal and moral connotation that still rings powerfully more than a half-century later. In fact, Dean Brandis ultimately resigned from the board based on what he called the “indefensible†position taken by the majority. Rev. Manley, who was the first black member of the board, had received the highest number of votes in the preceding school board elections.Â
The reasoned votes of Brandis and Manley foreshadowed the ultimate decision by federal Judge Edwin Stanley in the landmark case of Vickers v. Chapel Hill City Board of Education. In that case, which was originally filed on behalf of the Vickers family by attorneys Conrad Pearson and Thurgood Marshall, the judge ruled that the constitutional rights of Stanley Vickers had been violated solely because of his race.Â
We have now reached the 50th anniversary of the first phase of school integration in Chapel Hill-Carrboro. May I suggest that one way for the school district to commemorate this anniversary and to commemorate the spirit of justice, fair play and inclusiveness would be for the current board members, none of whom were involved in the actions of the late 1950s and the early 1960s, to name the boardroom at the Lincoln Center in honor of Brandis and Manley.Â
I know that there have been many members of the board who have given quality service to the school district and that designating the boardroom the Brandis-Manley Boardroom might raise the issue of special treatment for these two former board members.
However, such a designation would send a strong message about the continuing commitment that the school district has to diversity and inclusion. This designation would allow the current board to honor the courageous stand on behalf of individual students by Brandis and Manley. The designation would honor the legal and moral legacy of Dean Henry Brandis. Finally, the designation would honor the lifelong advocacy that has been given to Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and the entire state of North Carolina by Dr. J.R. Manley.
This proposal has been submitted to the individual members of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education and to the school administration.
I hope citizens, parents and students of the school district will urge the school board to give ample consideration and deliberation to this proposal during this 50th anniversary season of school integration in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system.
Eddie Davis is a retired public school teacher who lives in Durham.