Letter to the Dean of Men

On January 9th 1961, the University of Georgia began the process of segregation as Charlene Hunter and Hamilton Holmes entered campus. They were the first two black students to have enrolled at UGA to pursue their education. People from all over the country began to write letters expressing their disagreement over the issue to Dean Aderhold who had welcomed them both onto campus.
This letter addressed to Mr. Williams Tate, a member of the Dean of Men, was written by a woman from Augusta on January 18th 1961. In the letter she expresses how “sad” and “shocked” she is at the series of events in the University of Georgia. She considers students and faculty to have been “brainwashed” by ideals such as communism and socialism “instead of American patriotism.” By posing the question, “what has become of the rights of the white people,” she is protesting the manner in which student riots were shut down while the two black students were getting acclimated to campus living.
According to Kristine Taylor’s dissertation on racial violence in the post-war south to post-racial America, Dean Tate received hundreds of letters in which the “bulk of them commended him for his actions.” Taylor’s dissertation reveals that one of the reasons the dean was met with support for his consideration of what was lawful “in the wake of white riots.” However, the letter above shows one among many voices that were opposed to desegregation. Mrs. Avera states that she believes the NAACP “paid huge sums of money to do this terrible thing” and even claims that if Dean Tate were to continue supporting the issue, he has no right to his position of power. Such ideals at the time were the cause of many white riots that took place on the campus of UGA in protest of integration.