The 14th Amendment in the Supreme Court's Plessy 1 and Brown 2 Decisions and Influences on Editorial Arguments about Segregation in the Southern United States,1960–1964

Introduction

Constitutional scholars have frequently underscored the role the 14th Amendment played in facilitating the remarkable evolution of America's system of democratic pluralism during the 20th century (Eskridge, 2002; Garrow, 1987; Klarman, 2007). From a socio-political standpoint, these scholars give much of the credit for advancing democratic pluralism to the efforts of great social movements of the last century such as the civil rights, feminist, and gay rights movements. Eskridge (2002), for example, wrote that significant changes in constitutional protections of individual rights “were driven by the identity-based social movements of the twentieth century” (p. 2064). He further noted that “waves of minority groups’ politics of recognition have transformed the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause from the last resort to the cutting edge of individual rights claims” in the United States (p. 2066).

This article aims to highlight the role journalism played in defending democratic pluralism in the southern United States during the early 1960s through editorial arguments that were built on individual rights provisions of the 14th Amendment. One intriguing feature of part of the segregationist press of the early 1960s was publication of both segregationist and integrationist arguments in editorial pages. Some newspapers in Alabama and Mississippi, where the strongest opposition to integration was registered (Davis, 2001; Wallace, 2013), made remarkably strong arguments for tolerance and “political equality” of races. Reasons for the paradox may have varied with each paper, but all could be linked to events associated with the explosive reaction in the region to the Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of Education decision of 1954 on school desegregation. The ruling, widely considered by legal historians as the most consequential High Court case of the 20th century (Klarman, 2007; Tushnet, 1994), abrogated the earlier “separate but equal” doctrine of the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896. Plessy gave the cloak of constitutional legitimacy to state segregation statutes throughout the South by approving a dual system of “social rights” based on race (Woodward, 1974).

Southern newspapers uniformly opposed Brown and joined the forces of “massive resistance” that greeted the Court's decision (Davis, 2001; Wallace, 2013). Some editors quickly emerged as leaders of the resistance to integration by helping craft and diffuse constitutional, social, and political rationales for “rescinding” the decision (Wallace, 2013; Klarman, 2007). Other segregationist editors, however, became concerned with violent incidents of “massive resistance” carried out by the Ku Klux Klan and the Citizen's Councils (Carter, 1955; Wallace, 2013). These editors were alarmed also by the divisive and defiant rhetoric of a new breed of staunch segregationist officials elected in the wake of the Brown decision (Klarman, 2007; Thornton, 2002). Editors viewed certain policies and actions of anti-integration groups as threats to legitimate Constitutional rights of Black Americans (Klarman, 2007).

The Constitutional bases for debates over segregation revolved generally around discordant interpretations of 14th Amendment rights between Plessy and Brown. Whereas Plessy emphasized “negative rights” of individuals and 10th Amendment states’ rights to institutionalize segregation, Brown emphasized “positive rights” and subordinated states’ rights to the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Thus, at the heart of Constitutional wrangling over segregation was the legitimacy of the concept of “social rights” in a pluralist democracy. The concept was a bequest to culture by William Graham Sumner's Social Darwinist theory of the 19th century (Hofstadter, 1992). Sumner's ideas enjoyed widespread influence in academic, legal, and political institutions during and after Reconstruction (Hofstadter, 1992). It is interesting that the theory still permeated public consciousness in the 1960s. As Peters (1959) observed, Southern segregationists rationalized their opposition to Brown “by warning about what happened to Portugal, Egypt, and Brazil—all major world powers until racial intermarriage turned them into nations of backward, lazy, ignorant people” (p. 206).

Most Southern editors, however, sensed that they needed “a more respectable and intellectual argument” in defense of segregation (Wallace, 2013, p. 51). They found it in Plessy's Constitutionally-based rationales such as states’ rights (Wallace, 2013, p. 53).

This article advances the thesis that moderate segregationist editors felt compelled to shift closer to Brown's interpretation of 14th Amendment rights in the context of countering the exclusionary rhetoric and policies of hardline segregationist officials. The shift was necessary for advancing editors’ own “accommodationist”perspectives regarding Black “political rights”. Arguments by moderate editors evolved into qualitatively stronger narratives for a more pluralistic political culture in the South. We argue that segregationist editors paradoxically produced fairly strong integrationist narratives that helped temper the fervor of “massive resistance” during the early 1960s.

In underscoring the paradox that segregationist newspapers defended democratic pluralism, our thesis offers confirmation of Condit’s (1987) theory that society's public morality can be “crafted” through rhetorical narratives that shape public consciousness. Condit outlined the process for gradual replacement of moral “intuitions” about race in America through translation of common human needs into acceptance of greater equality. For Black Americans, the abolitionist rhetoric of “common humanity” of all people signified a historical turning point for evolution of public consciousness about race and therefore of a new public morality (p. 90). Condit argues that society's widely-shared moral codes about race evolved in an inductive process that started from “particular moral quandaries and ended up in general principles” (p. 82). She says this process led to a “public presumption even in the South … to include Blacks in the code of justice” (p. 92). It is noteworthy that Condit credits the “public rhetoric” of abolitionist editors such as William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass with spearheading America's moral transformation on race.

It's interesting, too, that Condit's theory aligns with, and furnishes an empirical example of Rawls’ (1999) concept of “reflective equilibrium” regarding the process of establishing broad-based conceptions of justice in pluralist democracies. Rawls explained that an individual's sense of correctness about his/her political convictions is a function of how close one is to “reflective equilibrium”. This is a psychological state a person experiences by consciously reconciling specific beliefs with more general principles about a moral issue. Unlike Condit, however, Rawls says the process works from both ends; that is, it can be either inductive or deductive. As he put it:

In searching for the most favored description of the initial situation we work from both ends. We begin by describing it so that it represents generally shared … conditions. If these principles match our considered convictions of justice, then well and good … By going back and forth we shall find a description … that both expresses reasonable conditions and yields principles which match our considered judgments duly pruned and adjusted (1971, p. 20).

By the same token, segregationist editors who subscribed to Plessy's “separate but equal” doctrine began by defending black “political rights” and opposing black “social rights”. When the defense of “political equality” proved inadequate in the face of gross violations of rights by staunch segregationist groups, moderate editors felt compelled to seek “reflective equilibrium”—as suggested by progressively stronger pluralist narratives in their editorials.

After a brief overview of segregationist editors who supported black political rights in the context of the “massive resistance”, we take a closer look at contradictory editorial arguments against integration, but in favor of political equality for Blacks, in the Birmingham News—the most influential newspaper of the city widely considered as the epicenter of the 1960s civil rights movement (Loder-Jackson, 2015; McWhorter, 2001). Hank Klibanoff, a native of Alabama and an authority on the civil rights campaign of the 1960s, says the “Birmingham News had a greater impact” than any other newspaper in Alabama during the civil rights struggle (Quoted in Cornish, 2013). We assume that Dr. King's focus on Birmingham as the epicenter of his civil rights campaign in the early 1960s would produce frequent and sustained editorial treatment of racial segregation.

While previous studies have mentioned “conflicted” southern editors over race relations, none of them juxtaposed paradoxical arguments that captured the moral conflicts faced by segregationist editors as laid out in this article. This study therefore seeks to fill a gap in our understanding of how southern editors who supported segregation nonetheless made a positive contribution to the goals of the civil rights movement by defending democratic pluralism in the early 1960s (Edmondson, 2014; Whitt, 2010).

The 14th Amendment in the Plessy and Brown Decisions

Homer Plessy of New Orleans, 7/8th White and 1/8th Black, was arrested and imprisoned in July 1892 after he boarded a train and sat in the coach for whites. He violated a Louisiana statute requiring segregation of races on trains. ³

Plessy's lawyers argued that the imprisonment violated his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. But in instituting its “separate but equal” doctrine, the Court concentrated on drawing distinctions between two different rights under the Constitution: the plaintiff's “political rights” and his “social rights.”

Justices granted that Blacks were entitled to “equal political rights” with Whites because of “positive freedoms” guaranteed under the 14th Amendment. But they rejected “social equality” of races—presenting arguments about individuals’ freedom of association (or “negative rights”) provided for in the Constitution's First Amendment. This latter argument, along with 10th Amendment provisions about states’ rights, became the primary rationale for upholding the Louisiana segregation statute under consideration in the Plessy case.

Writing for the majority, Justice Henry Billings Brown noted that, “The distinction between laws interfering with the political equality of the negro and those requiring the separation of the two races … has been frequently drawn by this Court” and that, “positive rights privileges are undoubtedly secured by the Fourteenth Amendment by way of prohibition against state laws affecting those rights and privileges.” But the justices rejected the notion that 14th Amendment privileges conferred equal “social rights” on different races. The decision noted that,

If the political rights of both races be equal, one cannot be inferior to the other politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane.

Justices based their justification for social inequality upon arguments of freedom of association for individuals. As Justice Brown explained, “If the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality, it must be the result of a mutual appreciation of each other's merits and a voluntary consent of individuals.”

Furthermore, Plessy deemed states’ rights so paramount that states were given the “discretion” of deciding the parameters of rights under the 14th Amendment:

So far, then, as a conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment is concerned, the case reduces itself to the question whether the statute of Louisiana is a reasonable regulation, and with respect to this there must necessarily be a large discretion on the part of the legislature. In determining the question of reasonableness, it is at liberty to act with reference to the established usages, customs, and traditions of the people ….

The Brown v. Board of Education decision rejected the argument about “social inequality” that had become Plessy's main legacy. In reference to the meaning of the 14th Amendment regarding social equality, justices in the Brown case also invoked “positive freedoms” of individuals under the Amendment:

The words of the Amendment … contain a necessary implication of a positive immunity, or right, most valuable to the colored race—the right to exemption from unfriendly legislation against them distinctively as colored—exemptions from legal discrimination implying inferiority in civil society, lessening the security of their enjoyment of the rights which others enjoy and discrimination which are steps toward reducing them to the condition of a subject race. ⁴

Disagreement between Plessy and Brown therefore lay in conflicting interpretations of rights under the 14th Amendment. Because both decisions invoked precepts of democratic political theory to buttress each of the contradictory interpretations of the amendment, we look to Habermas’s (1994) discussion of the concepts of “positive” and “negative” freedoms in order to subject our analysis to a uniform conceptual yardstick.

Habermas (1994) draws distinctions between two inherited models of democracy—the “liberal” and “republican” traditions: “According to the liberal view, the citizen's status is primarily determined according to negative rights they have vis-à-vis the state and other citizens” (p. 2). This, Habermas notes, is freedom from government interventions in such matters as private contracts between citizens or groups—so long as expressions of those rights do not infringe on others’ rights. On the other hand, the republican tradition derives citizens’ rights of political participation from “positive liberties” that guarantee “not freedom from external compulsion but the possibility of participation in a common praxis” (p. 2).

Freedom is thus negative when there is an absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints placed on the freedom of individuals, invariably by a state actor; and it is positive when there is a requirement for state intervention mechanisms designed to enable certain individuals or groups to exercise fuller freedom (Carter, 2018; Pettit, 2002). This is necessary in the context of a divided society where one group is more dominant than the other. The “republican” theory of democracy, first enunciated in Rousseau’s (1997 [1762]) Social Contract, envisioned “positive liberty” in recognition of the need for state intervention on behalf of society's weaker groups.

The concept of “common praxis” in Habermas's description of the republican tradition is original with Rousseau’s (1997 [1762]) discussion of the “common will” that was framed as a means of addressing the concerns of minority groups. The concept assumes greater urgency in divided societies where it finds expression in laws that enjoy “universal legitimacy” but not necessarily “universal popularity” (Lowell, 1981). As Lowell (1981) explained,

Rightful government is based upon the consent of the governed, for the consent required is not a universal approval by all the people of every measure enacted, but a consensus in regard to the legitimate character of the ruling authority … The power of the courts in America to hold statutes unconstitutional furnishes an illustration of this doctrine (p. 6).

In conferring constitutional legitimacy on “separate but equal” doctrine, justices in the Plessy case imbued it with both “negative” and “positive” rights. It was the Court's attempt at reconciling the paradoxical freedoms endemic to “liberal” and “republican” theories of democracy in one decision. In Brown, however, justices interpreted the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause in a manner that subordinated any “negative rights” undergirding segregation to the “positive rights” of Black Americans.

Contemporary constitutional scholars emphasize the need for a more encompassing interpretation of 14th Amendment rights in order to establish bona fide democratic pluralism. As Eskridge (2009), for example, noted,

The Fourteenth Amendment … created rights-based protections that contributed to the constitutional project of supporting pluralist democracy by ensuring deliberation involving a variety of groups and protecting minorities against majority overreach (p. 1246).

The Legacy of Plessy and “Massive Resistance” to Brown

The Brown ruling provided the impetus that propelled both the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the “massive resistance” in the South to desegregation initiatives by the federal government (Garrow, 1994; Guthrie & Springer, 2004; Thornton, 2002). The broad coalition of Southern opponents of integration, including elected officials, business interests, teachers, and the press, formed spontaneously to mount a multi-pronged campaign of resistance against the Court decision (Lewis, 2006; Roberts & Klibanoff, 2006).

Editorial arguments in favor of segregation were built around the three legal principles institutionalized in the political culture of the South by Plessy—that forced integration was a violation of states' rights; that people of the South “live separately but with equal privileges”; and that the races do not mix because “we are inherently different.”

But arguments of “interracial harmony” and “equal” privileges for Blacks were undermined by violent measures to prevent Blacks from asserting their rights (Roberts & Klibanoff, 2006). Groups such as the White Citizens’ Council and the Ku Klux Klan resorted to physical intimidation tactics including murder in order to forestall change (Watson, 2010).

These tactics drew the condemnation of a majority of editors across the South who supported respect for the rule of law and sought to undo Brown's effects through democratic means such as persuading American public opinion in the North and West to support the Southern position on segregation (Roberts & Klibanoff, 2006). Frictions between more liberal editors and hardline segregationist groups were most pronounced in Alabama and Mississippi during attempts by Black students to enroll in schools and universities (Wallace, 2013). For example, in 1956 when Autherine Lucy became the first Black student admitted to the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, a mob of 1,000 protesters threatened violence against her on February 6. The university administration responded by asking her to leave campus.

Buford Boone, editor and owner of the Tuscaloosa News, condemned the threatened violence and the university's reaction—describing it in an editorial as “a development over which the University of Alabama, the people of this state, and the community of Tuscaloosa should be deeply ashamed.” ⁵ Boone argued that, “the frenzied will” of a mob was antithetical to the democratic values of Alabama. He made a plea for “respect for the rule of law” and for Lucy to be treated like any other student. The editorial earned Boone the Pulitzer Prize in 1957, but not before causing an organized boycott of Boone's paper and threatening phone calls “every 20 min during the night” for several months (Wallace, 2013, p. 154). Boone was also hit with several libel suits intended to pressure him into abandoning his support for Black rights (Raines, 2006).

Other Southern editors risked even more in defense of equal rights and the rule of law. Hazel Brannon Smith of the Lexington Advertiser (Mississippi) faced relentless pressure for criticizing police for failing to protect Black citizens from violence by racist hooligans (Whitt, 2010). For her “trouble”, she was slapped with numerous libel suits by police and state officials (Whalen, 2000). Her paper was boycotted by the community and by local businesses—eventually driving her out of business (Edmondson, 2014).

Smith's friend and fellow editor, Hodding Carter of the Greenville Post-Democrat became a target of the Mississippi State Legislature for his condemnation of violent intimidation tactics by Citizens’ Council members in Mississippi and other states. Carter wrote an article titled, “A wave of terror threatens the South” in Look magazine's issue of March 22, 1955. About 20 days later on April 11, the state legislature voted 89–19 to censure him. He was referred to by some legislators as a “Negro loving scalawag” and “a lying newspaperman who should have no rights” (Carter, 1955, p. 74).

All three editors—Boone, Smith, and Carter—were segregationists despite their strong and principled defense of the rights of Black citizens (Davis, 2001; Wallace, 2013). All won the Pulitzer Prize for courageous journalism; which may explain the attention they received from journalism historians (Wallace, 2013). Against this backdrop we select for closer examination the work of a less celebrated and therefore more “regular” southern editor of the early 1960s, Vincent Townsend of the Birmingham News.

During the early 1960s the most influential figure at the News was editor and Vice President, Vincent Townsend. All accounts of Townsend's role in city and state politics indicate his “behind the scenes” leadership in helping Birmingham navigate through the most serious racial conflicts the U.S. had seen during that period (McWhorter, 2013). The editorial page of the News became an important tool in Townsend's bridge-building endeavors. McWhorter (2013), for example, referred to Townsend as “the city's power broker” (p. 21). Connerly (2005), wrote that Townsend “used his newspaper” to become “Birmingham's most powerful political actor” (p. 205). And a 2009 induction ceremony at the University of Alabama named Townsend one of only four people who had “brought lasting fame to the state of Alabama.” ⁶

Townsend was a segregationist; but one whose editorial narratives would evolve into promoting a more pluralistic democratic polity in Alabama.

The Birmingham News was founded on March 14, 1888 as The Evening News. It got its current name in 1895 following acquisition by new ownership. In 1955, the paper was purchased by Advance Publications—a chain that owns the News to this day.

Method

The most appropriate investigative tool for our thesis is a qualitative content analysis that juxtaposes paradoxical legal and moral arguments on segregation in the Birmingham News. Analysis of editorials about integration and voting rights from January 1, 1960, to December 31, 1964, was thus conducted. The study period covers the five years that saw the highest concentration of seminal events of the civil rights movement of the 1960s in Birmingham (Davis, 1997; Roberts & Klibanoff, 2006).

Although the Brown decision was issued in 1954, the most concerted efforts toward integration—either by the Federal government or by rights activists—did not occur until the early 1960s (Klarman, 2007). Delay of integration was part of a compromise between the Supreme Court and the Eisenhower Administration (Klarman, 2007). It was thus “the explosion in direct-action protests that began in 1960” that compelled district courts in the South to move more aggressively on integration (Klarman, 2007, p. 165).

The civil rights movement had two primary goals during that period—to effect integration and to secure voting rights for Blacks in the South (King, 1963). Integration and voting rights became entwined issues after Brown because opponents of integration sought to limit the political clout of Black voters in the wake of the Supreme Court decision (Thornton, 2002; Davis, 1997).

Random samples consisting of two composite months (60 days) from each year were drawn. The managed randomization approach yielded equal numbers of days from spring, summer, autumn, and winter months.

All editorials appearing during the selected dates were evaluated for relevance by reading each editorial in its entirety so as to determine Plessy- and Brown-related themes (segregation, states’ rights, social rights, school integration, voting rights, civil rights) in its arguments. We also sought editorials written in reaction to statements and/or actions of segregationist officials such as governor, mayor, city council members, police chief/police commissioner, and election officials. Editorials that contained these themes/topics were flagged for analysis and possible inclusion in our study. In all, 121 editorials were analyzed for arguments that contained Plessy- and Brown-related themes, as well as editor reactions to official actions or statements about race relations.

Influences of Plessy and Brown and Birmingham News’ Arguments on Democratic Pluralism

Plessy's influence on Birmingham News editorial positions was quite strong in the early 1960s after the paper praised the norms established by the 1896 decision in the editorial of May 18, 1954, written in response to the Brown decision:

The Supreme Court overturned the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine upheld by the Court in 1896. The News believes that the considerations of public interest and states’ rights which underlay the superseded decision still apply and would better serve progress in racial relations and education (p. 10).

Plessy-inspired themes such as states’ rights, the “separate but equal” doctrine, and the dual system of “social rights” all remained central to pro-segregation arguments in News editorials. The paper's segregationist position was expressed frequently—as in the editorial of January 18, 1960, titled, “A message from Atlanta,” that declared: “We are, here in the Deep South, a very long way from acceptance of integration, if ever it is accepted. The pattern is deeply ingrained” (p. 18). The editorial of April 20, 1960 titled, “Everybody wants into the act” telegraphed just how ingrained segregation was. Written in response to a New York Times report on violence in Birmingham against civil rights protesters, the editorial proclaimed:

There is little race hatred here—indeed far less than there is in New York. But there is a firm belief that the people of the South, of both races, in great majority are not prepared for mixing on any scale (p. 10).

Editorials defending segregation used Plessy's Constitutional rationales—especially states’ rights and, to a lesser extent, the dual system of social rights. In January 1960, for example, the Eisenhower administration was considering federal intervention to ensure that all citizens in the South could freely exercise their voting rights. The editorial of January 28, 1960, titled “After the South Again,” began as follows:

As a lethal dose for a human, there's little difference between prussic acid and arsenic. A single drop of either is by far too much. A similar relationship exists concerning the formulas advocated by the Civil Rights for federal intervention in the voting processes of the individual states. Federal invasion of the established prerogatives of the states in all phases of the voting process is completely repugnant in any degree and by any method (p. 10).

Other editorials defended the dual system of “social rights” as the legal basis for segregation. In early 1963, the civil rights movement was in high gear and activists were demanding integrated lunch counters. Birmingham saw some of the most violent confrontations over integrated eateries during this period (McWhorter, 2001; Roberts & Klibanoff, 2006). In May, 1963, The News responded to Supreme Court edicts on sit-ins by protesters in Birmingham and other Southern cities. In the editorial of May 22, 1963, titled, “Law, Private Property,” the News first established the Court's main ruling on this matter:

Supreme Court opinion on sit-ins cases established that trespass laws cannot be used to bar Negroes from a lunch counter if a state or community maintains law requiring segregation (p. 14).

The editorial then rhetorically asked what the Court would prescribe in the absence of segregation laws. Using Plessy's rationale in distinguishing between discrimination by the state and by private individuals, the editorial offered the following rebuttal:

It is imperative in our view that Federal and all courts refrain from going beyond the point of saying that government may not in law, require segregation. The 14th Amendment says that, “no state shall … deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of laws (emphasis in original) (p. 14).

Editors went on to argue that individuals operating their own private businesses ought to be able to decide who they serve and who they don't—just as Plessy had established. The similarities to Plessy—including rights to police protection for private establishments—is conspicuous:

There is an inherent property right in power to decide. if one operating any business whom one shall serve. The right of a man to govern use of his own property ought to be secure. Police action should be warranted to protect that right (p. 14).

The suggestion to invoke “police action” was directly from Plessy which stated, “Laws requiring separation of the two races … have been universally recognized as within the competency of state legislatures in the exercise of their police power.”

Another reason to oppose integration was given in the editorial of Jan. 18, 1960, titled, “A message from Atlanta.” The editorial was written in response to a pro-integration article published in Atlanta's Saturday Morning Post:

What is certainly true is that, considering the relatively short time the Negroes of America have been on the upward path from the African hinterland, the vast majority of them have not as yet achieved the norm or average capacity of whites generally (p. 18).

Discussion and Conclusion

Content analysis of Birmingham News editorials from 1960 to 1964 shows that Plessy v. Ferguson's dual system of “social rights” and its “separate but equal” doctrine still had palpable residual effects on Alabama's political culture in the early 1960s. The News, however, progressively supported fairness in voting and legal equality for Blacks. As a result, it was frequently at odds with the new breed of leaders elected after Brown and who consciously adopted policies that undermined race relations (Thornton, 2002).

Transformation of the paper's editorial positions from segregationist to “accommodationist” on race relations offers confirmation of Condit’s (1987) theory regarding “crafting of virtue” and public morality through rhetorical narratives. The process is perhaps best exemplified by the evolution of Birmingham News’ editorial positions about the meaning of 14th Amendment rights. Some of the paper's earlier editorials defended segregation by emphasizing 10th Amendment states’ rights over individual rights of the 14th Amendment—just as Plessy had established. Later editorials, however, mostly agreed with Supreme Court rulings that placed 14th Amendment individual rights above 10th Amendment states’ rights. For example, in 1962, when the High Court issued its Baker vs. Carr ⁸ decision in which neighboring Tennessee—facing identical reapportionment pressures from federal courts as Alabama—was forced to reapportion itself according to population, Alabama's elected officials rose up in arms over yet another “violation of states’ rights.” Baker vs. Carr ruled that the system of uneven apportionment of representation between urban and rural voters was unconstitutional.

The News sided with the High Court in giving primacy to 14th Amendment rights over 10th Amendment states’ rights, and rejected the arguments of Alabama's political leaders. In the editorial of April 4, 1963 titled, “Law Protects Individuals,” in which the paper addressed the Baker vs. Carr ruling, the News explained that,

The state has the right to regulate voting. But the Supreme Court was holding that the state cannot do this in a manner to deprive a citizen of an equal protection guaranteed by the federal Constitution. Tennessee's power could not be supreme over the right of an individual to fair and equal treatment under state law. The Supreme Court has an overriding right to take action to assure the citizens’ equal treatment under the 14th Amendment (emphasis in original) (p. 6).

Editors transformed the Birmingham News during the early 1960s into a platform for democratic deliberation aimed at drawing Blacks and Whites closer together. This happened in the context of racial polarization spurred on by the rhetoric of hardline segregationist leaders (Carter, 2000). Through numerous editorials, the News took the opposite route and sought to bridge differences between the races over a wide range of issues—including school desegregation, economic boycotts of downtown Birmingham businesses, and treatment of street protesters by police. For example, in 1964 at the height of acrimonious debates over civil rights legislation in Washington that caused rifts between groups in Alabama, the News worked to corral moderates on both sides in order to maximize the power of their collective voice. The editorial of March 24, 1964, titled, “Most in the middle” thus appealed to its readers:

Most of us, be we black or white, are in the middle. The people we are interested in are: The Negro at Fairfield who has job status equality and helps create the nation's might, the Negro truck driver whose skill behind the wheel guarantees deliveries, the Negro school teacher who looks ahead and sees growing opportunities for the young … The people we are interested in are: The white house holder who wants peace for his family and for every Negro family, the person who is willing to think about problems instead of reacting emotionally, the thinking white who knows that life is change, the white—man or woman—who realizes that all of us are going to have to find a way to accommodate human differences and do so in peace and joint citizen's responsibility (p. 14).

This editorial and others like it represented an effort to establish a pluralistic democratic consensus for building societal cohesion. It was what Rawls (2005) prescribed for creating “reasonable pluralism”: “Begin from shared fundamental ideas implicit in the public political culture in the hope of developing from them a political conception that can gain free and reasoned agreement in judgment” (p. 101). News editors’ perspectives in this and similar editorials also bolster Condit’s (1987) observation that, during the 1960s, “‘massive resistance’ never materialized in large part because the similarity of Blacks and the justice of their inclusion was accepted by an adequate number of active social agents” (p. 92).

The Birmingham News’ gradual parting of ways with the principles of Plessy thus suggests that some “mainstream” segregationist newspapers of the 1960s contributed to the goals of the civil rights movement through their embrace of pluralist principles enshrined in the 14th Amendment.