A mob of some 200-400 Mansfield citizens formed outside the doors of Mansfield high school on August 30th, 31st, and September 4th 1956. This mob gathered in order to make sure that segregation continued at Mansfield High. During the crisis two more effigies were found. One hanging from the flagpole outside the school and one hanging above the entrance to the school. State newspapers continued to cover the violence and court procedings during the days of the crisis.
During the Mansfield Crisis, news coverage by the white newspapers were focused on the events in front of the school, highlighting the tensions and altercations that occured. Several used the clashes in Sturgis, KY and Clinton, TN to draw comparisions to the events in Mansfield. The actions by Governor Shivers and inaction by President Eisenhower were highlighted, some with praise, others with condemmation, by both black and white newspapers. Coverage of the appeals process by J. A. Gooch on behalf of the school board was outlined also by both black and white newspapers. Events in Fort Worth surrounding the integragtion of a black family into an all white neighborhood were also documented by black and white newspapers.
The Austin American Newspaper also includes a detailed account of the court proceeds evolving Mansfield. On September 2nd the newspaper published an article that includes the fight for Mansfield to legally remain segregated. Attorney for the Mansfield school district, J. A. Gooch receives permission from the U.S. Supreme Court justice Sherman Minton to request a delay of integration. Gooch sent a copy of the story of the controversy at Mansfield along with a petition to Judge Hugo Black in order to receive a delay of court order. This petition was one of the last means left in order for the school board to lawfully no allow Negro on campus.
This article relates the still simmering tensions in Mansfield. While stating that nothing happened over the weekend, it leaves no doubt that the mob will return on Tuesday to continue to keep black students from enrolling. It also apprises the readers that Floyd Moody, one of the black students from the court case, had registered at a Negro School in Fort Worth. The rest of the article is meant to inform the reader of the current legal battle for the Mansfield School District and what channels of appeal are still available to them.
These two article discuss the situation in Mansfield and Fort Worth. The first article gives scant details about the scene at Mansfield other than a police presence and a “group” estimated at 200 men and women. While the situation in Mansfield was considered possibly explosive by the County Sheriff Harlon Wright, he did not consider the effigy hung on Main Street to be a “serious matter”. Instead, District Judge David McGee did, especially in conjunction with another effigy hung up in similar fashion in Fort Worth. Both articles set the scene for racial tension in the area, as well as the response from those in charge.
This article, and the picture that accompanied it on the front page, builds the tension that had already started to boil the day before. It details the mobs’ efforts to search for blacks’ on incoming school buses, as well as a confrontation and shoving match that ensued between the mob and Assistant District Attorney Grady Hight of Fort Worth. Governor Shivers wastes no time in laying blame with the NAACP for the problems at Mansfield as he sends orders to both the Texas Rangers and the school. The NAACP, through attorney L. Clifford Davis, refuses to subject the black students to the threat of violence and unsuccessfully attempts to enroll them via telegram. The article also progresses the courtroom battle for the Mansfield School District saying the appeal in Houston was denied.
This article relates the reaction from a Federal District judge to an effigy found hanging on Main Street in Mansfield. Equating the seriousness of the effigy to voter fraud, the judge also hints that more trouble may be coming to Mansfield in the next few days. The article also notes the reactions of the Tarrant County Sheriff and L. Clifford Davis, neither of whom takes the effigy to be a “threat of violence” against the blacks of Mansfield.
This article relates the reaction from a Federal District judge to an effigy found hanging on Main Street in Mansfield. Equating the seriousness of the effigy to voter fraud, the judge also hints that more trouble may be coming to Mansfield in the next few days. The article also notes the reactions of the Tarrant County Sheriff and L. Clifford Davis, neither of whom takes the effigy to be a “threat of violence” against the blacks of Mansfield.
