Southern Governors' Conference

Southern Governors' Conference
Name	Southern Governors' Conference
Formation	1930s
Type	Intergovernmental forum
Region	Southern United States
Membership	Governors of Southern states
Purpose	Policy coordination, economic development, regional cooperation

Southern Governors' Conference

The Southern Governors' Conference was an intergovernmental forum of the governors of Southern states in the United States that met periodically to coordinate regional policy. During the mid-20th century its gatherings became a focal point for discussion of segregation, states' rights, and responses to federal civil rights initiatives, making it a consequential actor in the history of the US Civil Rights Movement. The conference mattered because it provided a venue for governors such as Orval Faubus, George Wallace, and Ross Barnett to align policy and rhetoric across state lines.

Overview and Origins

The conference emerged in the 1930s and expanded after World War II as Southern governors sought collaboration on economic recovery, infrastructure, and public education. Its membership traditionally included governors from states commonly designated as the American South—for example, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Early agendas emphasized agricultural policy, transportation such as the development of the Interstate Highway System, and regional economic development through institutions like the Tennessee Valley Authority and regional planning authorities. Over time, civil rights issues increasingly occupied meeting agendas as federal judicial and executive actions challenged long-standing state practices.

Role in Segregationist Policy and Resistance

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s the conference became a platform where governors articulated and coordinated resistance to desegregation. In reaction to Brown v. Board of Education and other federal rulings, participants often invoked segregation, massive resistance, and interposition doctrines. Prominent segregationist governors—including Orval Faubus of Arkansas (noted for the 1957 Little Rock Crisis), George Wallace of Alabama, and Ross Barnett of Mississippi—used the conference to shape a common posture that combined legal challenges, executive orders, and public declarations. The conference facilitated exchange of strategies such as deployment of state police, use of school choice rhetoric, and legislative maneuvers intended to delay compliance with federal mandates.

Interactions with Federal Civil Rights Initiatives

The conference's relations with the federal government were marked by recurring tension. Presidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower through Lyndon B. Johnson dealt repeatedly with Southern governors at national and regional levels. While some governors pursued negotiated accommodations with federal authorities and participated in federal programs like the Economic Opportunity Act and Department of Health, Education, and Welfare initiatives, others embraced confrontational stances culminating in public clashes over school desegregation, voting rights, and public accommodations. The conference occasionally issued unified statements criticizing federal court orders or urging congressional opposition to civil rights legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Key Meetings and Declarations (1950s–1960s)

Key gatherings in the late 1950s and early 1960s produced declarations that reflected the regional defense of traditional practices. The 1957 responses to Brown v. Board of Education included resolutions favoring state control of public schools and condemning perceived federal overreach. Meetings during the 1960–1965 period often addressed federal probes into voter registration in Mississippi and Alabama, the sit-in movement associated with activists from North Carolina A&T State University and other historically black colleges, and interstate coordination of legal defenses for state laws. The conference statements were frequently cited by state legislatures and governors' offices in legal briefs and public speeches during crises such as the Ole Miss riot of 1962 and the Birmingham campaign.

Influence on State Legislation and Enforcement

Resolutions and policy templates disseminated via the conference influenced state legislatures and executive action. Southern governors coordinated model statutes aimed at preserving segregated institutions, drafting measures related to school governance, state tuition grants, and controls on public protest. Enforcement practices were also shaped by conference discussions: decisions about deploying state troopers, activating National Guard units, and using criminal statutes against civil rights demonstrators reflected mutual learning and political solidarity among governors. Even when measures were later overturned by the judiciary or nullified by federal law, their interim effect often delayed desegregation and voting integration.

Internal Divisions and Shift in Stance

Though often characterized as monolithic, the conference exhibited internal divisions. Some governors—especially in more urbanized or economically diversified states—favored gradual accommodation and cooperative federalism to secure federal grants and industrial investment. Others held to staunch resistance grounded in appeals to tradition and social order. Over the late 1960s and into the 1970s, economic imperatives, changing public opinion, and federal enforcement led many governors to moderate public positions. Figures such as Nelson Rockefeller (not a Southern governor but emblematic of national pressures) and business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce helped shift discourse toward stability and growth over confrontation, prompting a slow realignment in Southern gubernatorial politics.

Legacy and Impact on Southern Political Culture

The conference left a complex legacy: it served both as a bulwark for states' assertions of autonomy during the civil rights era and as an instrument through which the region eventually adapted to federal mandates and national economic trends. Its role in coordinating resistance contributed to episodes of social unrest and legal contestation, yet its later evolution also exemplified the South's pragmatic accommodation to market forces and federal programs. The Southern Governors' Conference is an important subject for understanding the interplay among state leadership, judicial power exemplified by the Supreme Court of the United States, and social movements such as the modern Civil Rights Movement that reshaped American politics and governance. Civil rights leaders and organizations including NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Congress of Racial Equality engaged directly and indirectly with gubernatorial policies, underscoring the conference's place in the broader history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century reform and resistance.

Category:Political conferences in the United States Category:History of the Southern United States Category:Civil rights in the United States