Cocking affair

Last updated November 21, 2019

The Cocking affair was an attempt in 1941 by Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge to exert direct control over the state's educational system, particularly through the firing of Professor Walter Cocking because of his support for racial integration, and the subsequent removal of members of the Georgia Board of Regents who disagreed with the decision. It has been made into an opera entitled A Scholar Under Siege .

Eugene Talmadge was an American Democratic politician who served two terms as the 67th Governor of Georgia from 1933 to 1937, and a third term from 1941 to 1943. Elected to a fourth term in November 1946, he died before his inauguration, scheduled for January 1947. Only Talmadge and Joe Brown, in the mid-19th century, have been elected four times as Governor of Georgia. He is well known for actively promoting segregation and white supremacy, and for advocating for racism in the Georgia university system.

Walter D. Cocking was an academic administrator. As Dean of the College Education of the University of Georgia, he was fired in 1941, rehired, and fired again for supporting racial integration. The episode is known as the Cocking affair.

Racial segregation in the United States Historical separation of African Americans from American white society

Racial segregation in the United States, as a general term, refers to the segregation of facilities, services, and opportunities such as housing, medical care, education, employment, and transportation in the United States along racial lines. The term mainly refers to the legally or socially enforced separation of African Americans from whites, but is also used in regards to the separation of other ethnic minorities from majority mainstream communities. While mainly referring to the physical separation and provision of separate facilities, it can also refer to other manifestations such as the separation of roles within an institution. Notably, in the United States Armed Forces up until the 1950s, black units were typically separated from white units but were nevertheless still led by white officers.

Background

Governor Talmadge's first political interference was in 1935, when he supported a 1935 bill that would have given the governor additional control over funds appropriated to the Georgia Board of Regents, transferred the titles to all Board of Regents property to the state, and absorbed any trust funds or investments held by the university system.^[1] In addition to the obvious disadvantages for the university system, this would have made it difficult or impossible to fund building projects (such as the construction of a new gym at Georgia Tech) as the state could not take on Public Works Administration (PWA) loans.^[1]

Public Works Administration administered a comprehensive public works program to promote and stabilize employment

Public Works Administration (PWA), part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was created by the National Industrial Recovery Act in June 1933 in response to the Great Depression. It built large-scale public works such as dams, bridges, hospitals, and schools. Its goals were to spend $3.3 billion in the first year, and $6 billion in all, to provide employment, stabilize purchasing power, and help revive the economy. Most of the spending came in two waves in 1933-35, and again in 1938. Originally called the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, it was renamed the Public Works Administration in 1935 and shut down in 1944.

The whole plan embodied in the bill, to make the university system a football of politics, is in my opinion disastrous to the efforts being made to build up a great university system.
— Marion Smith, chairman of the Georgia Board of Regents, 1935^[1]

A compromise deal was reached; if the bill passed with the support of the regents, the state would provide funding to cover projects that would have been supported by PWA loans; however, Talmadge's effort to control the regents and the university system was relatively clear at the time.^[2]

Firing

Talmadge fired Walter Cocking, who was dean of the College of Education at the University of Georgia.^[3] Talmadge accused Cocking of championing integration, in this case the admission of African-American students to historically all-white educational institutions. Talmadge declared that he would fire anyone who stood for "communism or racial equality". Among others, Talmadge fired Marvin Pittman, president of Georgia Teachers College (later known as Georgia Southern University) for supporting Cocking against Talmadge.

The University of Georgia is a public research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia. Founded in 1785, it is one of the oldest public universities in the United States.

Racial integration, or simply integration, includes desegregation. In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely bringing a racial minority into the majority culture. Desegregation is largely a legal matter, integration largely a social one.

Georgia Southern University (GS) is a public research university in the U.S. state of Georgia. Its flagship campus is in Statesboro, and other locations include the Armstrong Campus in Savannah and the Liberty Campus in Hinesville. Founded in 1906 as a land grant college, Georgia Southern is part of the University System of Georgia and is the largest center of higher education within the southern half of Georgia. The institution offers over 140 different academic majors in a comprehensive array of baccalaureate, masters, and doctoral programs. The university has a combined enrollment of approximately 27,000 students from all 50 states and approximately 85 nations. Georgia Southern is classified as a Doctoral and Research Institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, plus a comprehensive university by the University System of Georgia.

Consequences

As a result of the firings, all Georgia universities lost their accreditation. Students rallied, and Pittman and Cocking were eventually rehired.^[3] This incident also contributed to Talmadge's loss in the subsequent election to Ellis Arnall.^[3]

Ellis Gibbs Arnall was an American politician who served as the 69th Governor of Georgia from 1943 to 1947. A liberal Democrat, he helped lead efforts to abolish the poll tax and to reduce Georgia's voting age to 18. Following his departure from office, he became a highly successful attorney and businessman.

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Cocking may refer to:

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References

1 2 3 McMath, p.193
↑ McMath, p.194
1 2 3 Cook, James F (2002). "Cocking Affair". New Georgia Encyclopedia . Georgia Humanities Council and University of Georgia Press. Retrieved December 23, 2010.

Works cited

McMath, Robert C.; Ronald H. Bayor; James E. Brittain; Lawrence Foster; August W. Giebelhaus; Germaine M. Reed. Engineering the New South: Georgia Tech 1885-1985. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.