Jim Crow in Savannah's Parks in the 20th Century presented by Jeffrey M. Ofgang: Leaders and Opponents

Malcolm R. Maclean (1919-2001) was Mayor of Savannah and helped steer the city through integration of lunch counters, restaurants, stores, theaters, and parks in the 1960s. Unlike many other Southern cities, Savannah avoided sustained racial violence and largely integrated before the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Maclean's sympathy for the civil rights movement stemmed partly from a pragmatic desire to preserve the city's progressive reputation. While the NAACP was organizing student sit-ins and boycotts of downtown businesses, Maclean recruited civic and business leaders --a racially-integrated "Committee of 100"--to press for integration. Maclean was born in prosperous East Hampton, N.Y. and said he had no Black classmates in college before he went to Harvard Law School after serving in the Navy in World War Two. After he was appointed mayor in 1960 to fill the unexpired term of W. Lee Mingledorff, Maclean was elected by a bi-racial coalition in 1962.

Maclean said in a speech in 1961 that the issue of race "sputters like a fuse to a powder keg." Decades later, in an oral history interview, Maclean recalled he was "the most unpopular fellow you ever met" as he pursued Savannah's peaceful integration because "I didn't do it fast enough for one side and way too fast for the other." Maclean was soundly defeated for re-election in 1966 by the auto dealer J. Curtis Lewis, Jr., the first Republican to be elected mayor of Savannah. Maclean said Lewis "got like almost every white vote in town." This reflected the national shift of conservative and segregationist Democrats to the Republican Party after the Civil Rights Act became law. Maclean never ran for office again and went back to work at his law firm. 

Attorney Wade Herring recalls his former employer Malcolm Maclean in this 2016 "Hungry for History?" lunchtime talk at the Savannah Municipal Archives.

W.W. Law (1923-2002) was President of the Savannah chapter of the NAACP from 1950 to 1976. For much of that time, Law also headed the Georgia state NAACP. In 1960, Law threw the weight of his chapter behind the high-school and college students who launched peaceful direct action protests for Black civil rights. With the Rev. Hosea Williams, Law organized the sit-ins and boycott leading to the desegregation of downtown businesses. Law led the boycott of segregated Grayson Stadium in 1962. He was instrumental in the "wade-in" protests at the segregated beaches on Tybee Island and the fight to desegregate Jekyll Island State Park.

After being drafted into the Army during World War Two and graduating with a biology degree from Georgia State College, now known as Savannah State University, Law planned to become a science teacher. However, his earlier work organizing youth at the NAACP made employers wary. Law took a job as a postman and worked for the Post Office for forty years. His civil rights activism made him a target, and he was fired from the Post Office in 1961. President John F. Kennedy intervened to save his job and Postmaster General J. Edward Day eventually lost his own job over Law's firing. W.W. Law was also a guardian of Savannah's Black history. He worked to preserve the Gullah-Geechee culture that influences African American language and customs in coastal Georgia. Law founded the Savannah-Yamacraw chapter of the Association for the Study of Afro American Life and History and helped establish the Rev. Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum and the Beach Institute African American Cultural Center. Law was active in efforts to preserve historically significant buildings in Savannah's Black neigborhoods. He organized the Beach Institute Historic Neighborhood on the Eastside in his effort to fight white gentrification. Law led the NAACP's drive to rehabilitate the Black portion of Laurel Grove Cemetery. The Black portion, Laurel Grove South, was long neglected by city government. 

WTOC's Doug Weathers produced this documentary based on interviews with W.W. Law over the years.

One of the strongest institutional voices of the Black community in the first half of the 20th century was the weekly Savannah Tribune, owned and edited by Sol C. Johnson (1868-1954). Johnson was born in Laurel Hill, North Carolina and started at the Tribune as a printer's assistant, eventually succeeding John Deveaux as editor in 1896 and buying the newspaper when Deveaux died in 1909. Johnson's Tribune covered Black church clubs and fraternal organizations, Black nightlife, Black athletes--all topics ignored by the white-owned newspapers, who rarely mentioned Black people unless they were arrested or killed in accidents. The Tribune news pages covered city government, and its editorial page alternately scolded, pleaded with, and flattered Savannah's mayors and City Council to give Black constituents equal treatment and value for their tax dollars. Johnson forcefully advocated for better schools, recreation, and jobs for Savannah's Black residents and called out the injustices of Jim Crow segregation. At the same time, Johnson called on Black readers to take initiative to better themselves and start businesses. He was a registered Republican who supported Herbert Hoover for President in 1932 and opposed President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs even though they provided jobs for Black people during the Depression.

W. Lee Mingledorff, Jr. (1914-1985), a descendant of the Salzburger settlers of Georgia, was elected Mayor of Savannah three times in the 1950s, serving from 1954 until 1960, when he resigned to launch an unsuccessful campaign for Chatham County Commissioner.

Mingledorff worked with a new city-manager form of government, launching an urban development program, and helping to start the Metropolitan Planning Commission. However, Mingledorff was less interested in desegregating businesses and public facilities. His successor, Malcolm Maclean, said Mingledorff thought storeowners should be able to decide whether to serve and hire Black people. Mingledorff himself was a businessman, managing Savannah Shipyards during World War Two and founding a heating and air-conditioning supply company. When Black golfers tried to play at Bacon Park Golf Course in 1959 on a Sunday and not on the "Caddies Day" specified for Black players, they were turned away, and Mingledorff declared, "We will not have an incident on the golf course even if we have to close it altogether." In March 1960, on the first day of the historic sit-in protests at downtown lunch counters, Mingledorff said, "I regret that such an incident had to take place in Savannah where our race relations had been so excellent. I hope that such incidents can be avoided in the future." The next month, as Mingledorff tried to quash the protests, the City Council passed an ordinance barring more than two people from picketing a business. Mingledorff was quoted as saying he did not care whether the ordinance was constitutional. The longtime NAACP leader W.W. Law recalled that, in 1960, some Black voters waited in the rain until midnight at an overcrowded polling place just so they could vote against Mingledorff for county commissioner.