Hoxie is a city in Lawrence County, Arkansas, United States. It lies immediately south of Walnut Ridge. The population was 2,780 at the 2010 census.
History
The third Arkansas school to integrate
Prior to 1955, Hoxie maintained a dual system of education for younger students, one for white students and another one for black students. Rather than maintain two high schools, white high school students were educated locally, while black high school students were bused to a black school in Jonesboro. The negro school for grades 1-8 had only one teacher. On June 25, 1955, in response to the recent Brown v. Board of Education ruling, Hoxie's superintendent, Kunkel Edward Vance, spearheaded plans to integrate the schools, and he received the unanimous support of Hoxie's school board. On July 11, 1955, Hoxie schools recommenced and allowed African American students to attend. In order to do "what was morally right in the sight of God" and to "uphold the law of the land", Vance insisted that all facilities, including restrooms and cafeterias, be integrated.
Although there were many nervous parents, the schools opening on July 11 went smoothly. The teachers and children got along fine, but unlike the two other school districts in Arkansas (Charleston and Fayetteville) that implemented partial integration, Hoxie attracted national attention. A team of photographers from Life Magazine was on hand to document the event. After the publication of the Life article, segregationists from outside the area converged on Hoxie in an unsuccessful attempt to reverse the school board decision. Handbills were printed making wild assertions including allegations of a plot between negroes, Communists, and Jews, and advocating for the death of "Race Mixers". A group of local citizens, led by soybean farmer Herbert Brewer, confronted the school board in an unproductive meeting. After the meeting, Brewer organized a White Citizen's Council, which called for students, both black and white to boycott the schools. Approximately one third of the white students refused to attend the schools beginning on August 4, 1955.
A lawyer, Amis Guthridge, the leader of White America, inc., attempted to draw more outside influence into the fray, inflaming passions with statements such as calling school integration a "plan that was founded in Moscow in 1924 to mongrelize the white race in America" and claimed that "white Methodist women" wanted integration so they could get negro men into their bedroom. Johnson, Guthridge and others fanned the flames, and were joined by Orval Faubus in trying to invoke fears of miscegenation in white husbands and parents. In one rally, a speaker shouted "they do not want equality, you know they don't want equality"..."They want what you've got, they want your women!"
The Hoxie School Board filed suit against the segregationist leaders from Hoxie and elsewhere in the state and charged them with trespassing on school property, threatening picket lines, organizing boycotts, and intimidating school officials. In November 1955, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas Thomas C. Trimble ruled that pro-segregationists had "planned and conspired" to prevent integration in Hoxie. In December 1955, he issued a permanent injunction and restraining order against the segregationists. Their appeal in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals was opposed by United States Attorney General Herbert Brownell and the U.S. Department of Justice. This marked the first intervention by the attorney general in support of any school district attempting to comply with the Brown decision. On October 25, 1956, the court ruled in favor of the Hoxie School Board.
U.S. Attorney Osro Cobb recalls that the situation at Hoxie
had reached the point of possible bloodshed. Guns were being carried; threats were being made, and violence could have erupted at any moment. Notwithstanding, a conference exploring the situation and its possible effects on the community with the individuals at the core of the problem had worked a minor miracle. It demonstrated that while passions and prejudice in race relations often hurl reason aside, reason can be restored at the conference table where there is dedication by the parties to the public interest. That is the lesson to be learned from Hoxie.
In 2003, David Appleby produced a documentary entitled Hoxie - The First Stand detailing the events of school integration in Hoxie. The film later received the Peabody Award and the Du Pont Award for Broadcast Journalism.