A Civil Rights Plank for the Sit-Ins Era

The first few months of 1960 may well be recorded in the annals of civil rights not because Congress agonizingly passed another voting bill but because four college freshmen ordered a cup of coffee in a five-and-ten-cent store.

—Harold C. Fleming, Director of the Southern Regional Council, May 1960

In the weeks leading up to the Republican National Convention, Rockefeller advocated for a strong civil rights plank, but he did not exist within a vacuum. A student movement injected a new sense of urgency and interest in the modern Black freedom struggle and subsequently pressured the Republican Party to commit itself to a comprehensive civil rights program.⁶ On the afternoon of Monday, February 1, 1960, four college students enrolled at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, a historically Black college in Greensboro, sat down and requested service at the lunch counter of the local F. W. Woolworth. By custom, such spaces were reserved for white patrons only in the South. Their brief, and somewhat impromptu, protest lasted an hour until the store closed without any major confrontations.⁷ The four students returned to their campus, recruited thirty students, and returned to the establishment to demand service the next morning. That day, a national news service reported that a group of “well-dressed Negro college students” had conducted a two-hour-long sit-in, which they ended with a prayer, at the restaurant. The first mass arrests as a result of what became a movement took place the following week in Raleigh, North Carolina, when forty-one students were arrested and charged with trespassing. By the end of the month, thirty communities in seven states had experienced sit-ins, and by mid-April, the cumulative number of protesters totaled fifty thousand. Historian Clayborne Carson notes that “never again during the decade would the proportion of students active in protest equal the level reached at southern Black colleges during the period from February to June 1960.” During this period, the students framed their activism as an anti-communist effort to achieve full citizenship rights—ideas that were well within the mainstream of American political thought in the Cold War era. With the encouragement of Ella Baker, who was the executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, students from across the South who had participated in the sit-in movement attended a conference to share experiences and potentially start an autonomous “youth centered” organization that would sustain and expand the movement in April. Out of that conference emerged the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Two of the early leaders of SNCC were Marion Barry and Diane Nash, who had organized demonstrations in Nashville, Tennessee.⁸ By July, the two young people would call for a strong civil rights plank while testifying before the platform committees of the nation’s two major political parties.

As the sit-in movement highlighted the inequities of the Jim Crow South and inspired “sympathy demonstrations” in other regions, major political leaders from the Republican and Democratic Parties struggled to contend with the issue. The first time that President Eisenhower addressed the issue publicly was during a March 16 press conference when he refused to say whether all of the sit-in demonstrations were well intentioned. He did, however, say that he was “deeply sympathetic with the efforts of any group to enjoy the rights … of equality that they are guaranteed by the Constitution.” With that said, Eisenhower called the demonstrations “local matters for local authorities” and rejected the idea of holding a White House conference to help mediate the situation.⁹ Neither Eisenhower nor Nixon were enthusiastic about weighing in on the matter. The White House had also failed to respond to telegrams from Martin Luther King Jr., Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP, Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, and George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO, who requested federal intervention.¹⁰ When asked to comment on the effort to desegregate privately owned businesses, Harry Truman said that if he were a businessman and Blacks protested in his store, he would throw them out. He also said, “The Negro should behave himself and show he’s a good citizen” and later speculated that the demonstrations were engineered by communists.¹¹ Meanwhile, Lyndon Johnson called the demonstrations “regrettable” but refused to say whether he thought the protests were moral. John F. Kennedy said the sit-ins were morally sound and helped improve the nation’s international standing, but some commentators noted his hesitancy to discuss the matter.”¹² By the end of June, Johnny Otis of the African American newspaper the Los Angeles Sentinel described a split view on sit-ins among the nation’s most prominent political figures: “At this point, the major political figures who favor and are in sympathy with the Negro students movement are, Adlai Stevenson, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt and Nelson Rockefeller. The fence straddlers and double talkers are Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy, Nixon, and Eisenhower. I guess by now everyone is familiar with Harry Truman’s ill-conceived blasts.”¹³

Unlike Eisenhower and Nixon, Rockefeller expressed full-throated support and justification for the sit-ins and suggested the Republican Party endorse the demonstrations in the party’s civil rights plank. Initially, Rockefeller offered support for the movement when he told a group of students from Skidmore College and Spelman College that the sit-ins represented the nation’s “concept of freedom” and that he admired the students’ restraint as they demonstrated.¹⁴ He praised sit-ins more formally during his second major civil rights statement during the spring of 1960. While addressing a convention of an African American Baptist denomination in Buffalo, New York on June 17, Rockefeller explained that the nation’s inequality must be addressed in a range of ways including legal and government solutions, support from public officials but also activism from private citizens. Solutions to civil rights issues, he explained, “are to be found in the inspiring example, the moral force and the appeal to human conscience personified in the quiet dignity and courage of the young men and women who sit at the segregated lunch counters asking nothing more than the treatment accorded all other Americans.”¹⁵ The evening that Rockefeller arrived in Chicago for the Republican National Convention, he told the press that the Republican Party should write a civil rights plank that included an endorsement of the recent sit-in movement.¹⁶ Although in the minority, Rockefeller was not alone; Senator Javits also called for an endorsement of sit-in demonstrations in the platform.¹⁷ By the time that Rockefeller and Javits suggested a Republican endorsement of sit-ins, the Democratic Party, which debated the same issue earlier in the month, approved a civil rights plank that praised “the peaceful demonstrations for first-class citizenship which have recently taken place in many parts of this country.”¹⁸

Although the 1960 Republican platform committee was a conservative body, moderate party leaders believed they could persuade its members to write a more liberal platform. The platform committee, consisting of 103 members chosen by party regulars and state committee chairs, tended to represent the more conservative wing of the party in the tradition of Senator Taft. To counter the conservatism of the committee members, Charles H. Percy, the president of Bell & Howell Corporation and future senator of Illinois, was appointed chair of the platform committee. In another effort to introduce more liberal ideas into the hearings and convention, Nixon sent each delegate a copy of the report produced by Percy’s Program and Progress Committee. The report, which had the blessing of Eisenhower, argued for a moderate Republican future for the GOP.¹⁹ After attending private meetings with Percy and Nixon associates, Rockefeller adviser Roswell Perkins reported to Rockefeller that Percy admired Rockefeller and his recent statements, while Nixon’s people were less receptive but still largely accepting of his positions on defense and civil rights, provided they were watered down.²⁰ After these meetings, Percy told the New York Times that he predicted “absolute harmony” on the civil rights plank. Representative Melvin Laird of Wisconsin, the vice chairman of the platform group, said that the Democratic Party took the “mild route” on civil rights. According to Laird, the Republican civil rights plank would be stronger because it would recite the party’s traditional commitment to civil rights.²¹ This consensus faltered, however, when the full platform committee convened for public hearings.

Party moderates were mistaken. The day before the hearings began, conservatives argued for a civil rights plank that would appeal to southern whites who disliked the Democratic Party’s strong civil rights position. Jack L. Middleton of Virginia, a member of the platform committee, who would serve as the chairman of the Goldwater presidential drive in 1964, told the Washington Post that the party would assume a more moderate civil rights position than the Democrats. Another Virginia committeeman and vice chairman of the state’s delegates, A. Linwood Holton, said that although he knew that Nixon had “dropped the word” that he wanted a liberal civil rights plank, he believed the national party wanted a civil rights plank that was more moderate than the Democrats and equal to the Republican plank from 1956. The previous plank concurred with the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education but empathized with—and subsequently legitimized—attempts to slow the court’s order to desegregate schools with “all deliberate speed.”²² Arthur Massolo of the New York Post reported that five of the fifteen-member civil rights subcommittee were from the South and they argued for the adoption of moderation in the civil rights plank to attract southerners disaffected by the Democratic Party’s “militant” platform. Massolo reported that southerners’ calls for a moderate plank were gaining traction among northerners, including Percy, who described the Democratic plank as “unrealistic.”²³ Despite initial promises of an uncontentious civil rights plank, conflict brewed between moderates and conservatives who sought to use the plank to define the GOP in opposition to the Democratic Party.

On July 20, 1960, six months of demonstrations, disappointment over the Civil Rights Act of 1960 passed in May, and concern that the Republican Party would appeal to alienated white southerners culminated in a standing room–only crowd assembled to hear testimony before the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Immigration. The group, tasked with writing the civil rights plank, heard from a range of civil rights leaders the first day who were determined to translate the activism of recent months into tangible progress evidenced by a strong Republican civil rights plank.²⁴ About a month before the Republican convention, Martin Luther King Jr., Roy Wilkins, and A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, announced that they would hold demonstrations at the Democratic and Republican conventions to demand a strong civil rights plank in both platforms and hold the parties responsible for what they considered an inadequate civil rights bill. Inspired by the recent activism and resolve expressed by young people, the leaders sought to persuade the parties to advocate for the rights of African Americans, while critiquing their attenuated commitment up to that point. During his testimony before the subcommittee, Wilkins, who called the Democrats’ civil rights plank the minimum, warned that the Republican Party could not afford to write a civil rights plank that was less substantial than the Democratic Party’s or filled with generalizations like planks of the past.²⁵ Barry of SNCC told the committee it should write a “strong, clear-cut civil rights pledge to end racial segregation and discrimination in America.” He continued, “We urge that this convention take steps to assure equal access to [lunch counters], thus recognizing the validity of our protest against second-class citizenship and our affirmation of human dignity.”²⁶ An impromptu debate occurred during the hearing after Percy asked Barry if the ability to vote led to the most progress for African Americans. When Barry responded in the affirmative, Percy told the audience that African Americans at his company had ascended to the top ranks with the aid of persuasion. Charles Mitchell of the Washington, D.C., NAACP told Percy he rejected the idea that African Americans could gain equal status in America via persuasion. “We are asking for a civil rights plank that will translate the dreams of our young people into reality and have the support of the Democrats and Republicans alike. We have lost in the past because a coalition of southern Democrats and northern Republicans crippled all civil rights legislation.” Percy told Mitchell he wanted a “responsible” civil rights plank with attainable objectives that “the Republican Party can unite on,” unlike the Democratic Party’s civil rights plank which ten or eleven states refused to support.²⁷

Republicans who opposed a strong civil rights plank made their objections clear, but Nixon continued to encourage a plank in line with the demands of civil rights activists. The following day, the subcommittee heard testimony from southern delegates such as James T. Adams of Louisiana, who said the Eisenhower administration’s record had already provided “sufficient actions” in the field of civil rights and warned that the proposals offered by Black witnesses and advocates of the civil rights movement would lead to violence and an end to the progress already achieved. The same day that a group of representatives from ten southern and southwestern states asked for a civil rights plank that would provide “a breathing spell,” Deputy Attorney General Lawrence E. Walsh delivered a civil rights plank proposal to the platform committee drafted by him, Nixon, and Attorney General William P. Rogers. The New York Times reported that the platform plank written by members of the Eisenhower administration was “strong and temperate” and “heartened Negro leaders” with its recommended “actions beyond the steps taken by President Eisenhower’s Administration to guarantee equal rights for Negroes and other minority groups in schools, jobs, housing and in other fields.” The Nixon-Rogers civil rights plank advocated for empowering the attorney general to be able to issue injunctions in all fields related to African American rights rather than just voting. Congress had twice rejected such provisions in previous civil rights bills. The Baltimore Sun reported that the subcommittee was likely to reject the plank because all but the chairman, New York assemblyman Joseph F. Carlino, preferred a more moderate plank. Nixon’s proposal did not reflect the “moderation” requested by conservative Republicans.²⁸ It appeared that civil rights activists might get strong civil rights planks from both major political parties.

As the final version of the Republican platform took shape, Rockefeller was unhappy because he said it did not express the sense of urgency required because of the Cold War. Percy hoped to placate the governor by allowing him and his staff to write the preamble and conclusion of the platform. Rockefeller declined this offer and rumor spread that there could be a floor fight during the convention. While Rockefeller considered the possibilities of a fight on the convention floor, the ninety-six delegates from New York threatened to revolt and endorse Nixon. Despite the general lack of support for Rockefeller from within his party, Nixon remained concerned about the appearance of disunity during the convention. Without the knowledge of his staff, Nixon decided to meet with Rockefeller in New York to come to an agreement to avoid a floor fight and guarantee Rockefeller’s support after the convention.²⁹ The result of the subsequent eight-hour meeting between Nixon and Rockefeller was a fourteen-point compact, divided between foreign and domestic policy. The compact of Fifth Avenue, as it became known, was immediately controversial but as much because Nixon had reached out to Rockefeller as its content. Nixon was able to find middle ground between Rockefeller’s desire to add aggressively to the nation’s missile power and Eisenhower’s assurances that there was no missile gap. For example, the key on this issue was to state that the party was willing to increase national defense spending “as necessary.” In most cases, the compact and platform plank drafts were largely the same except for the addition of an occasional adverb or modifier. The major difference between the compact and the previous draft of the platform lay within the civil rights plank. Nixon agreed to Rockefeller’s demand for a more assertive statement on civil rights and the protests that supported it.

Although Nixon approved it, the civil rights plank in the compact of Fifth Avenue provoked anger within the party because of the process in which it was written and its express support for sit-in demonstrations. The compact’s civil rights position stated, “Our program for civil rights must assure aggressive action to remove the remaining vestiges of segregation or discrimination in all areas of national life—voting and housing, schools and jobs. It will express support for the objectives of the sit-in demonstrators and will commend the action of those businessmen who have abandoned the practice of refusing to serve food at their lunch counters to their Negro customers and will urge all others to follow their example.”³⁰ Southern members of the civil rights subcommittee had refused to endorse sit-ins or a federal Fair Employment Practices Committee. The summit resulted in a firestorm within the Republican Party. Whereas some Republicans and pundits alike believed that Nixon made a smart decision to avoid a possible floor fight, others interpreted his decision as surrender. Goldwater was one of the most vocal critics, arguing that Nixon had betrayed the party by conceding to liberals and ultimately “[selling out] on nearly every point that once separated the Vice President and the Governor.” Goldwater pledged to wage a floor fight if Nixon decided to ignore the previous work of the platform committee in favor of the platform changes offered by Rockefeller, whom he referred to as “a spokesman for the ultra-liberals.” With the convention set to begin in a couple of days, a great deal of negotiations would need to occur for the party to present itself as a unified front at the convention.³¹

A Pyrrhic Victory

Rockefeller and Nixon may have come to an agreement, but the party was far from united on civil rights. While Rockefeller arrived in Chicago on Saturday seeming to revel in his victory, he left the work of mending fences to Nixon and Percy. The angry civil rights subcommittee rejected the Rockefeller-Nixon plank in favor of one supported by southern delegates. The southerners had allies from other regions, however, the Austin American Statesman reported that nonsouthern conservatives also raised “strong opposition” to possible additions to the plank such as support for a ban of job discrimination in federally regulated industries.³² When Nixon arrived in Chicago later Monday morning, he told the press that the revised plank was “unsatisfactory.” Furthermore, he said the Republican Party must “adopt a strong civil rights plank—an honest one which will deal with the specific problems we desire to reach.” He also asserted that the plank must “commend” the right to peaceful assembly and demonstrations like that year’s sit-ins.³³ Nixon was under an intense amount of pressure as he sought to demonstrate his independence without alienating Eisenhower or his supporters. The day before, Nixon found himself on the phone with the president who was in Newport, Rhode Island trying to assure him that although he had attempted to compromise with Rockefeller to obtain his support, he planned to ensure that “the platform was a ringing endorsement of everything the Administration has done.” Nixon proceeded to clear his schedule in Chicago to convince the platform committee to reconsider the stronger civil rights plank they had rejected the night before and convince conservatives that he had not capitulated to Rockefeller. After much effort on Nixon’s part, the platform committee passed a strengthened civil rights plank in a 56 to 28 vote the day before Nixon planned to accept his party’s nomination. As a concession, Nixon allowed abstentions from conservatives who did not want to go on the record as supporting the plank.³⁴

In Chicago, Rockefeller met acclaim from civil rights supporters and contempt from Republicans in the convention hall. The day before the convention, Rockefeller attended the civil rights rally cosponsored by the NAACP at Liberty Baptist Church in Chicago’s South Side. After an introduction from Wilkins, who called Rockefeller “the man who has made a backbone plank out of a spaghetti plank,” the governor assured the audience that he would fight for them on the convention floor. According to the Los Angeles Sentinel, Rockefeller was “by far the most popular speaker of the day” and received applause after every other line of his speech from the crowd of 8,500 people. Rockefeller praised the sit-in demonstrations and challenged the Democratic-led Congress to pass legislation that matched the Democrats’ civil rights plank when it reconvened in August. C. B. Powell, the editor of the New York Amsterdam News, described Rockefeller’s speech as “the strongest, most forthright statement ever made by a major political candidate on the rights and equality of the Negro.” He went on to enumerate Rockefeller’s calls for enhanced federal intervention in fields such as voting, education, and job opportunities. Powell noted that one of the audience’s most enthusiastic cheers was in response to Rockefeller’s call for the end of housing discrimination. Rockefeller told the audience, “Every American should be able to live where his heart desires and his means permit.”³⁵ Unfortunately for Rockefeller, the reception that he received the following evening on the floor of the Republican convention was far cooler than that at Liberty Baptist. Mary McGrory wrote that as soon as Rockefeller entered the floor to join the New York delegates, “there was a stir, followed by a chill” and a “curt” call to order for the convention floor. “The convention police immediately moved into the area [where Rockefeller sat],” she wrote, “sealing it off as if it were a source of contamination or rebellion or both.” Guards surrounded Rockefeller during a demonstration of Goldwater supporters who carried signs that read, “Goldwater for President.” McGrory found that Rockefeller, rather than Nixon, received all the blame for the civil rights plank and was said not to be a Republican by attendees. Alternatively, a Nixon supporter from New Hampshire assured the reporter that Nixon was “really not that liberal.” When McGrory reminded him that Nixon had declared that he would insist on a strong civil rights plank, another delegate replied, “Oh, he’s just saying that.”³⁶

Although much of the party disapproved, the Republican Party platform adopted on the convention floor constituted the party’s strongest commitment to achieving racial equality in the United States. The introduction praised the efforts of the “party of Abraham Lincoln” since its inception to defend equality, and it hailed the efforts on behalf of the Eisenhower administration to achieve equality in the nation. Southerners obtained a small concession when explicit support of sit-in demonstrations was kept out of the platform, but the final draft stated that “we reaffirm the constitutional right to peaceable assembly to protest discrimination by private business establishments.” The party also praised businessmen who had ended discriminatory practices—by July, fourteen southern cities witnessed the integration of previously segregated lunch counters. The plank included language that echoed civil rights activists who called for equality of opportunity to extend beyond the vote to include housing, education, and employment. However, it concluded by stating that civil rights was a national issue and referred to the “complex problems of desegregation,” which could be interpreted as an effort to remove some of the pressure from southern states and their unique role in defending segregation.³⁷ When asked for his evaluation of the final civil rights plank, Rockefeller praised its “strong, and specific declaration in support of equal opportunity, human dignity and the supreme worth of the individual” but said he was personally disappointed that it did not include a strong “moral position” on sit-in demonstrations.³⁸ After the convention, Wilkins expressed his satisfaction. “There are striking differences,” he observed, “between the 1960 planks of both parties and the ones adopted by [the parties] in 1956. Both are far ahead of those chosen four years ago.” Although he concluded that the Democratic Party’s plank was “stronger and more comprehensive,” he praised both parties’ stated support for “affirmative legislative and executive action by the federal government.”³⁹

Once the platform was complete, the 1960 Republican National Convention concluded without any further controversies, but conservatives succeeded in showing that the approval of the party’s “most liberal platform” ever had not extinguished the party’s mounting conservative opposition. The convention nominated Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge for president and vice president, respectively, on the first ballot, but the drawn-out conflict over the platform left its mark. US senator John Marshall Butler of Maryland, who served on the platform committee, was not present to see Nixon accept the nomination, for example, because he left “sick and tired” the day before. He attributed his anger to the civil rights plank. The self-described “friend of the colored people” with “many good friends in the colored race” opposed giving the attorney general injunctive power in civil rights matters and rejected the party’s support for “peaceful assembly” in the civil rights plank. He reasoned that sit-ins were not peaceful if the establishment’s owner objected. Butler took offense to much more than the civil rights plank, however; he also disapproved of the platform positions on foreign policy, immigration, federal aid for school construction, and limiting senate filibusters. He opposed the liberal immigration plank because he said it would result in an influx of migrants from eastern and southern Europe, which he believed would weaken the “population stock.”⁴⁰ The party’s right wing made its presence known at the convention when Goldwater supporters nominated the senator for president. As Goldwater released the delegates pledged to him, he called for conservatives to take back the party. In the final nomination roll call, Goldwater received 10 delegate votes from Louisiana, leaving Nixon with the remaining 1,331. Rockefeller also took to the podium but only to introduce Nixon.⁴¹ During his speech seconding the nomination of Nixon, Javits praised Rockefeller’s efforts on behalf of civil rights, but Rockefeller’s time in the spotlight had ended before the convention began.

Signs abounded at the 1960 Republican convention that the Republican Party’s southern strategy required breaking with traditional support for the advancement of African American rights and the inclusion of Black Republicans in the South.⁴² The same day that the press focused on the outraged reactions to the Rockefeller-Nixon meeting, a less covered yet highly significant story about the Mississippi delegation appeared in newspapers as well. For the first time in history, the Republican delegation from Mississippi would be all white. Every year except one between 1930 and 1960, the integrated Mississippi delegation had been led by African American lawyer Perry W. Howard. In 1960, however, the Atlanta Constitution reported that the “lily white” delegation—led by Wirt Yerger Jr., a Jackson insurance executive—had earned the approval of the Republican National Party, in addition to Nixon and Goldwater, by convincing party leadership that Yerger and his supporters could “build a stronger Republican organization in this states [sic] rights Democratic stronghold.” Yerger told the press that he would advocate for a moderate civil rights plank “in an effort to capture votes of Democrats who are enraged over the platform adopted by their party.”⁴³ In addition to the new representation on the convention floor, Mississippians sent telegrams to Republican leadership in Chicago requesting Eisenhower support nominating Goldwater.⁴⁴ Party leadership may have discussed increasing Republican influence in the South as nothing more than a strategy to make the GOP a national party, but conservative southern whites who joined the Republican Party expected to help define the future of the party.

Prominent African American delegates, when asked by the press, refrained from mentioning the fight over the civil rights plank in favor of praising the historic tenor of the plank. Valoris Washington, the director of minorities for the Republican National Committee, for example, said he never doubted that Nixon would “embrace a strong” civil rights plank, which he called “the greatest document on human rights in [the] history of the Republican Party since the Emancipation Proclamation.”⁴⁵ George W. Lee, a prominent African American delegate who had attended six Republican conventions and seconded Taft’s nomination in 1952, also praised the GOP civil rights plank, which he said would be more beneficial for African Americans because it was more implementable. Lee did not mention, however, that his own twenty-eight-person delegation from Tennessee had advocated for a weaker civil rights plank that would appeal to southern white voters. Publicly, Black delegates gave glowing reviews of the Republican civil rights plank—Lee said he expected it to garner enthusiastic support for Nixon among Black Tennesseans—but Nixon’s campaign revealed that Republican opposition to civil rights had permeated the party.⁴⁶

Nixon’s campaign demonstrated a consequential mismatch between the Republican Party’s stated commitment to advancing civil rights and its effort to appeal to white voters who opposed the movement and federal intervention to end racial discrimination. During an appearance in Greensboro, North Carolina, the site of the first sit-in of the year, Nixon warned that the movement’s proposals could deteriorate race relations. After his Greensboro appearance, Nixon’s aides sent a letter to some southern voters to assure them that he had no ties to the NAACP. Earlier in the year, Nixon instructed his staff to temper a congratulatory letter to the NAACP on its fiftieth anniversary because it acknowledged the organization’s success. Historian Laura Jane Gifford outlines Nixon’s systematic efforts—mostly behind the scenes—to disassociate his campaign from racial matters and the civil rights movement. Longtime African American Republicans such as Eisenhower staffer E. Frederic Morrow, the first African American appointed to the White House, and Valoris Washington, who had worked to build alliances between the GOP and Blacks since the 1940s, found their requests to increase campaign efforts in Black communities rebuffed. Nixon avoided Morrow, ignored Washington, and instructed his staff to delay meetings with civil rights activists, including Wilkins, until they could be canceled due to schedule conflicts.⁴⁷ Ultimately, the Republican civil rights plank was a Pyrrhic victory for anyone who hoped the GOP would become a leader in the advancement of civil rights. Rockefeller failed to reorient the Republican Party, a task likely beyond any one person’s capacity but especially a newcomer to politics who criticized party officials publicly. The Chicago convention highlighted the party’s divide over civil rights, but Rockefeller had experienced a version of this in New York before. Republican opposition to civil rights legislation was alive and well in the Empire State.

“To Live Where [One’s] Heart Desires and [One’s] Means Permit”

On July 13, 1959, almost a year before the Republican National Convention, Rockefeller announced that he would recommend a bill to outlaw discrimination in private housing in New York during the next legislative session. Rockefeller introduced his plan while speaking before two thousand delegates in attendance at the fiftieth annual convention of the NAACP in New York City’s Coliseum. The bipartisan Metcalf-Baker bill intended to ban discrimination in housing failed to pass during that year’s legislative session despite endorsements from over thirty-five civic organizations. Rockefeller had supported the law in principle, but he did not make it a major legislative initiative. As New York failed to pass the law, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Oregon became the first states in the nation to pass laws banning discrimination in private housing in 1959.⁴⁸ Rockefeller said that the success of New York City’s Sharkey-Brown-Isaacs law, which outlawed discrimination in multiple-dwelling and private housing developments, had convinced him it was time to advocate for a similar bill in the upcoming legislative session. The bill, which applied to 70 percent of housing in the city, had been enacted in December 1957 and deemed a success in part because of enforced and voluntary compliance and in part because there had been a lack of criticism of its operation by its enforcement agency.⁴⁹ Rockefeller went on to praise New York’s bipartisan support for antidiscrimination laws, which he said had resulted in “sounder and more rapid” progress in New York. Delegates welcomed Rockefeller’s pronouncement with a standing ovation. Loud applause also rang through the coliseum as he assured the audience, “I want to be counted in the forefront of this crusade for full equality and civil rights for every citizen.” Months earlier, Herbert Hill, the national labor secretary for the NAACP, accused the governor of dragging his feet on NAACP-backed bills such as the Metcalf-Baker bill. Leaders of the New York NAACP distanced themselves from Hill’s statements, but Jackie Robinson offered his support.⁵⁰ Shortly after the convention, representatives from the NAACP’s Department of Housing, upon Rockefeller’s request, met with SCAD to assist in the drafting of a fair housing proposal that he would recommend to the legislature. Rockefeller ended the summer by joining the NAACP as a life member, becoming the fourth governor to make such a commitment.⁵¹ As the legislative session neared, Rockefeller and his staff also consulted with the New York State Committee on Discrimination in Housing (NYSCDH), which had advocated strongly for an extension of antidiscrimination laws to include private housing.⁵²

Although a risk for Rockefeller, he decided to recommend a fair housing bill despite opposition in his party. At the start of the 1960 legislative session, Rockefeller notified legislators that he would recommend an antidiscrimination housing bill to enable the state to achieve “equal, full and fair, opportunity for all.”⁵³ Upstate Republican legislators were disappointed by Rockefeller’s pronouncement. “Rockefeller touched some Republican nerve ends,” reported the New York Daily News, while the New York Post wrote that upstate Republicans, who had prioritized “tax cuts, school aid and welfare restrictions—in that order—” were displeased.⁵⁴ Before legislators knew if Rockefeller would present a bill identical to the Metcalf-Baker bill or a compromise of some sort as some speculated, the New York Herald Tribune predicted a bleak outcome for the governor’s efforts. “There is substantial opposition to such a measure among upstate Republican legislators. Some well-informed lawmakers have predicted without hesitation that a bill could not pass with Republican votes alone.” Journalist Charles N. Quinn explained that Republicans considered the bill to be a risk because Democrats were likely to vote for it unanimously and would then be able to take credit for it during that year’s elections.⁵⁵

Rockefeller filled in the blanks regarding his antibias housing bill, which was not as sweeping as the housing bill that had languished in the legislature for the previous three years, on February 23. Rockefeller’s proposal would ban discrimination in the rental, sale, or financing of privately owned buildings containing multiple dwelling units of three or more and developments of ten or more housing units. This bill was unique because it also applied to the sale or lease of commercial spaces and applied to real estate agents, landlords, brokers, builders, and financial institutions who lent money for the sale or repair of housing. The previous bill considered by the legislation applied to only landlords and agents and did not include commercial spaces, but the Metcalf-Baker bill applied to a larger percentage of housing, particularly outside of New York City, because it included all private housing except owner-occupied one- and two-family dwellings. Algernon Black, the chair of SCAD, praised Rockefeller but expressed disappointment because the bill would “exclude 80 per cent of the state’s private housing market even though [its] coverage of real estate brokers and financial institutions may open some new areas of housing.” By comparison, the previous bill would have applied to 40 percent of the housing outside of New York City.⁵⁶

Rockefeller praised the work of SCAD and reasoned that this new measure was a logical extension of its original charter to rid discrimination from employment (1945) followed by public housing (1950), public accommodations (1952), and private housing aided by public assistance of any form (1955). Perhaps most notably, Rockefeller argued that his proposal, which would encroach on the individual property rights of owners, was appropriate because discrimination had a systemic impact on the larger community. Therefore, concluded Rockefeller, “private activities, when so affected with a public interest, are properly required to be conducted with regard for a responsibility to the public.”⁵⁷ Rockefeller’s reasoning mirrored the NYSCDH, which found that discrimination in housing not only created new slums due to overcrowding as nonwhite populations continued to move into the state but also caused and/or spread school segregation, obstructed urban renewal projects, and made jobs in upstate New York inaccessible to African Americans who were not allowed access to housing in those communities. Despite the common ground shared by Rockefeller and the NYSCDH, the organization endorsed the Metcalf-Baker bill rather than the governor’s bill because of its stricter limits on the real estate industry, builders, and brokers.⁵⁸ During a press conference on March 8, Rockefeller conceded that the housing bill was “controversial,” but he also said that support of such a bill fit within “the traditional position of the Republican.”⁵⁹ The same day that Rockefeller defended his bill as a traditionally Republican position, a Republican state senator offered a counterpoint. Austin W. Erwin, chair of the finance committee, who hailed from Geneseo in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, after reviewing the antidiscrimination laws regarding employment, public accommodations, and publicly assisted housing, stated, “This bill would take away the last vestige of right from the private citizen to do what he wants with his own land. There are still a few people who feel that they have a right to do with their own property what they see fit.” Erwin, who had attempted to cut SCAD’s budget in 1956 when its jurisdiction expanded, called into question all of its enforcement duties. The New York Times reported that Erwin “voiced the views that appear to dominate the thinking among upstate [Republican] legislators.”⁶⁰

Republican opposition to the housing bill coalesced under the guidance of Senate Majority Leader Mahoney. When Rockefeller first announced the bill, the press concluded that if the bill was allowed to reach the floor—unlike the Metcalf-Baker bill, which was held in committee—it would likely pass but with more consistent support from Democrats.⁶¹ Soon after Rockefeller’s announcement, upstate Republicans indicated that they planned to leave the bill in committee, preventing it from going to a floor vote despite the advocacy of the executive office. While a number of upstate Republicans opposed the bill’s premise, there was also discussions in the press that some legislators were annoyed that Rockefeller had introduced so many of his own bills and they were using the housing bill as an opportunity to assert their autonomy.⁶² Mahoney did not say he opposed the bill, but he had not done or said anything publicly to support it either.⁶³ In the final days of the session, the majority of the thirty-three Republican senators decided to leave the bill in committee to prevent its passage. Initially, the assembly, under the leadership of Carlino, who supported the bill, said his body would not move the bill to the floor for a vote if the senate did not plan to do the same. Carlino, who gave an impassioned speech in favor of the bill before his Republican colleagues, then moved the bill from the rules committee to the floor, despite his previous promise, where it was then approved without debate in a 131 to 17 vote. Although all of the no votes came from upstate Republicans—the two exceptions were Republican John Brook of Manhattan and Harry Donnelly of Brooklyn—the Republicans were split 75 to 17 in favor of the bill.⁶⁴ Ultimately, Erwin’s reasoning seemed to win the day in the senate.

Republicans denied that prejudice influenced their opposition to the fair housing bill, but their blocking of the bill showed at the very least that housing segregation was not a priority. The New York Times observed, “Most of the Republican opponents of the discrimination bill maintain that every individual has an inherent right to choose to whom he wants to sell his private property. They uniformly deny that their opposition is based on any grounds of racial or religious prejudice.” Once the session closed, Mahoney released a formal statement asserting his approval of the bill, but he refused to offer any public support for the bill during the session. Mahoney claimed that he had been at the “forefront of the fight” against inequality since 1945, but his performance in 1960 belied that statement. He then pledged to work in support of the passage of an “acceptable” housing bill the next year. Republican senator George R. Metcalf did not attack his colleagues, but he did say that the bill’s failure reflected the will of his colleagues.⁶⁵ The cosponsor of the Metcalf-Baker bill, when assessing his fellow Republicans’ rejection of the bill, concluded, “I am confident that the attitude will change and in time the members will reverse themselves. But when it happens it will neither be a Rockefeller ‘victory’ nor a Mahoney ‘defeat’; it will be evidence of a gradual change in public mores reflected through elected representatives.”⁶⁶ Rockefeller pledged to continue his efforts the next year, but the opposition of upstate Republicans reflected a significant resistance addressing housing inequality in New York.⁶⁷

Although most Republican legislators did not openly reject new legislation to address discrimination in private housing, it is worth noting the extent of the problem the proposal intended to address. A week after Rockefeller introduced his proposal, Senator Metcalf released the results of a study on housing discrimination in New York conducted the previous summer by the Senate Committee on Public Health. The study of five communities across the state, including the village of Freeport in Long Island, concluded that there was “a vast amount” of discrimination in the private housing market. Metcalf said he commissioned the study in response to “skepticism expressed in upstate New York over the need for fair housing legislation.” The study found that across all five communities, African Americans and other minority groups were denied “equal status in the procurement of housing.” The Freeport study found that “for all practical purposes, non-whites were unable to buy or rent property in white sections.” As a result, African Americans were concentrated in a single public-housing complex where ninety-one of the hundred families were Black. Whereas the chair of the Freeport Housing Authority rejected the report’s findings entirely, Edward R. Yamin, who conducted the study, reported widespread yet subtle and decisive forms of discrimination. Despite a lack of “overt examples,” he concluded, “of course there is discrimination. Everyone is aware of it.”⁶⁸

The study’s findings fit within broader trends in the United States. In January 1960, Clarence C. Ferguson Jr., in a civil rights report circulated among the Rockefeller staff, observed that housing discrimination was most acute in northern cities. The African American law professor at Rutgers University–Newark, who would later serve as the US ambassador to Uganda among other diplomatic positions, concluded that housing discrimination like other inequalities continued in part because of a lack of enforcement by the federal government. The Federal Housing Administration and United States Department of Veterans Affairs, he wrote, argued that segregation was “beyond its jurisdiction” and only refused to insure the loans of discriminatory projects if the state where it was located banned such discrimination. As of early 1960, the only states he said had such laws were New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, and Massachusetts. “Federal neutrality,” concluded Ferguson, “encourages discrimination.” Ferguson’s observations and the findings of the New York housing study supported the need for enhanced legislation in the state to counteract a persistent area of inequality in the North that the federal government did little to address.⁶⁹ In 1961, the Urban League of Westchester County estimated that only 5 percent of new housing in Westchester County was open to African Americans. Ultimately, there was a great deal of evidence that corroborated the NYSCDH’s 1958 conclusion that not only did housing discrimination persist in New York, but “residential segregation is actually on the increase, and racial ghettoes are appearing in some of New York’s cities for the first time.”⁷⁰

In the spring of 1960, Rockefeller reemerged in the national headlines because of his critiques of the Eisenhower administration and Nixon as the presumptive nominee. During an appearance on Meet the Press where Rockefeller fielded questions about the inconsistencies between his views and the party establishment, a panelist noted that Rockefeller’s criticisms were identical to that of Democrats. Rockefeller then received the perennial question, “What distinguishes you from a Democrat?” Rockefeller listed four “fundamental issues”: his commitment to individual initiative, civil rights, fiscal integrity, and local government. Rockefeller saw his commitment to civil rights as a fundamentally Republican principle, but that year’s legislative session had demonstrated that even in New York, the Republican Party’s position was not united.⁷¹ Analysis of the 1960 legislative session revealed that it was the New York Democratic Party that was unified on the question of civil rights. The majority of Republican legislators did support antidiscrimination legislation, but the objections of conservative Republican legislators revealed an argument against such legislation that would appeal to white racial conservatives in the North and South.

Rockefeller resumed his public effort to persuade the legislature to pass his antidiscrimination bill during the opening of the legislative session on January 4, 1961, but he scaled back on the compromise bill he had introduced the year before. His strategy was the result of months of work by him and his staff to ensure passage. For example, they considered encouraging Republican legislators to prefile their own antidiscrimination housing bills to give the appearance of Republican consensus in what they referred to as a “controversial area.” Another benefit of letting legislators lead was that it would not draw attention to the divide between the governor and Mahoney.⁷² Rockefeller returned to his argument that preventing discrimination in private housing would adhere to the nation’s tradition of protecting individual rights by ensuring “justice and equality of opportunity” for all. Rockefeller also revisited the refrain he had repeated consistently in regard to this issue since 1959. “Every American should be able to live where his heart desires and his means permit. Every American must enjoy to the full the privileges, the opportunities and the protection that are accorded to every American.”⁷³ About a month after his address, Rockefeller announced that the senate majority was “prepared to support strong legislation” in the field of housing. Rockefeller downplayed the “only change” in the bill—owner-occupied three-family dwellings were now excluded—but the new legislation exempted a type of housing that concerned fair housing advocates.⁷⁴ The new Metcalf-Baker bill as it would come to be called—Metcalf and Baker, the original sponsors introduced the new compromise bill—forbade discrimination based on race, color, creed, or national origin in the sale of all multiple dwellings of three or more units except owner-occupied three-family homes. It also outlawed discrimination in the sale or rental of homes in developments of ten or more homes, but the law only applied to initial sales and the sale or rental of commercial spaces. The bill also forbade discriminatory practices by real estate brokers, salespeople, and lending institutions and earmarked an additional $100,000 to SCAD to aid in its enforcement efforts. Despite scaling back the bill, it garnered negative reactions like the year before. The State Home Builders Association, for example, sent letters to all members of the legislature calling on them to reject the bill based on the argument that New York did not need the bill and that it attempted “to legislate a state of mind,” which it said was a “communistic” practice.⁷⁵

The spirit of the bill remained the same, but the alterations meant the bill would not apply to a significant percentage of private housing in New York. Fitting with SCAD’s longtime emphasis on education rather than punitive measures, the 1961 bill did not outline any penalties for violations, although the agency could enforce compliance. When first announced, the New York Times reported that the bill would likely be “most effective in New York suburbs, where private housing is built in developments.” SCAD projected that it would apply to only 30 percent of private housing in upstate New York, but others estimated that it would affect less than 20 percent.⁷⁶ Democratic state senator James L. Watson of Harlem said the bill eliminated 90 percent of all housing outside of New York City.⁷⁷ While some press outlets reported speculation that the new bill would be watered down in significant ways to ensure passage, the New York Post reported that the same Republicans who opposed the housing bill the year before were considering a repeat performance if Rockefeller did not agree to sign a residency requirement welfare bill that would prevent recent migrants—who were thought to be overwhelmingly Black and Puerto Rican—to New York from receiving assistance. Rockefeller vetoed a similar bill the year before and the New York Post insinuated that Republicans may have blocked the 1960 housing bill because the governor would not support the residency requirement.⁷⁸

Despite complaints from the Democratic minority and other supporters of antidiscrimination policies in private housing that the bill was weak, the revised Metcalf-Baker bill passed in both houses of the legislature with a 48 to 9 vote in the senate and a 140 to 7 vote in the assembly on March 20. Senators who supported the bill called it a “step forward,” while opponents called it an invasion of rights. All of the bill’s opponents were Republicans who represented upstate communities, with the exception of Democratic senator Julian B. Erway of Albany. The New York Times reported that the majority of the one hundred thousand units of housing excluded because of the exemption of owner-occupied three-family homes were located in Mahoney’s hometown of Buffalo, New York.⁷⁹ A month after the new antidiscrimination bill passed, SCAD reported success in relation to the previous housing bills, but its case-by-case approach produced limited results. Between 1955 and 1960, SCAD received 415 complaints of discrimination. Fifty-eight of the cases were settled via conciliation or public hearings, while 261 cases were dismissed for “lack of jurisdiction” and the remaining cases were yet to be settled. Since 1955, SCAD reported that fifty-five housing developments outside of New York City, which housed thirty-three thousand families, were integrated due to the agency’s intervention. Six of the developments were integrated in response to complaints, while the rest were integrated in response to SCAD’s persuasion.⁸⁰ Rockefeller may have gotten his bill, but upstate Republicans were also successful. The limitations of the new bill and the agency that enforced it guaranteed that desegregating New York’s housing would be a slow process.

The NAACP’s Fight for Fair Housing

By the late 1950s, the NAACP had a well-established record of fighting housing segregation throughout the North of which New York, the home of the national organization, was an essential part. With their own strategies and goals in place, delegates at the NAACP’s fiftieth annual convention welcomed Rockefeller’s announcement that he would introduce his own private housing antidiscrimination bill. Although the organization had spent more than two years working for the passage of the Metcalf-Baker bill, members welcomed a Republican ally in the governor’s mansion as they continued a multifaceted effort to achieve equal access to housing. In 1958, for example, the group had organized countywide committees dedicated to promoting a fair housing bill for private housing, lobbied the New York State Democratic Party to include a platform plank supporting a private housing bill in its party platform, and conducted a campaign to encourage voters to support a range of housing bills in November.⁸¹ In 1959, the NAACP’s New York State branches, in coordination with the national office, focused on the passage of the Metcalf-Baker bill during that year’s legislative session. After the Metcalf-Baker bill failed to pass, the NAACP focused on educating people about New York City’s private housing bill to ensure that African Americans in the housing market were aware of their rights. As New York’s NAACP Legislative Committee strategized the best ways to lobby for bills in Albany, it acknowledged that the current antidiscrimination bills were either too weak or improperly enforced. The organization was increasingly focused on housing and intended to keep pressure on Rockefeller.⁸²

The leaders of the NAACP considered Rockefeller, who was now a life member, an ally, but that did not deter them from disagreeing with him as necessary. Months after Rockefeller promised action at the annual convention, Brooklyn lawyer George Fleary, who led the legislative committee, not only quoted Rockefeller’s words about living where one’s heart desired verbatim, but he also called for intensified lobbying during the 1960 legislative session when attending a housing workshop organized by New York’s state branches. He explained, “Upstate communities must join with New York City to make the Governor and both Houses live up to the commitments he made at our national convention last July. Representatives must come from every section of our state and press for the passage of this new housing bill.”⁸³ Even though Rockefeller did recommend an administration bill outlawing discrimination in private housing, the NAACP did not endorse it. Instead, the organization endorsed the Metcalf-Baker bill because it was bipartisan and, in its view, “much broader in scope.” Ultimately, the NAACP criticized the governor because its leaders thought he did not apply enough pressure on senate majority leaders to overcome opposition in the upper house.⁸⁴ The NAACP did not limit its pressure to the governor. During the final day of the 1960 session, as word spread that Mahoney would not allow the senate to vote on the administration’s compromise bill, Roy Wilkins sent a firm telegram to the Republican. Mahoney’s actions reflected, according to Wilkins, a “flagrant disregard of housing segregation and discrimination being suffered by Negroes in New York State.” The NAACP leader also called the finance committee’s decision to hold the bill “arbitrary and undemocratic control by upstate legislators.” He made it clear that he blamed Mahoney and upstate Republicans for the bill’s failure and promised to continue the fight.⁸⁵

Under the leadership of a new president in 1960, the New York NAACP renewed its effort to increase membership and branch engagement in the state and intensify its advocacy for a fair housing bill. Eugene Reed, a thirty-seven-year-old Howard University–educated dentist who resided in Long Island, planned to apply additional pressure on the legislature. The organization incorporated new techniques to advance its case, including paying closer attention to Mahoney and Buffalo, the city he represented, and engaging with state legislators more generally. The 1961 legislative appeal included a September 1960 press release reporting NAACP leadership’s visit to the Buffalo branch to discuss ways to secure Mahoney’s support of antidiscrimination housing legislation and “encourag[ing] Negro residents of Buffalo to work toward improving housing conditions.” Reed thought that increasing membership and engagement in Buffalo was particularly important because Mahoney had been quoted, to his amazement, as saying his constituents had expressed no interest in the private housing bill. For Reed, “building up the strength of the Buffalo Branch [would] go a long ways toward bringing about passage of the bill.”⁸⁶ The release also mentioned “a very lively exchange” between state leaders, including Reed, and the Buffalo executive board regarding the urgent need to eliminate housing discrimination and a plan to meet with Mahoney to discuss passing fair housing legislation during the 1961 legislative session.⁸⁷ What the press release omitted was the intense frustration expressed by Buffalo delegates, who had to be convinced not to take a public stand against Mahoney who was seeking reelection. The NAACP had a policy against publicly opposing or endorsing candidates. Meanwhile, the Buffalo executive board informed the state leadership about “the very ugly housing situation in Buffalo.” Ultimately, the state leadership encouraged the branch to meet with Mahoney in an attempt to persuade him to support the legislation.⁸⁸ In addition to planning to confer with the legislator, the executive committee decided to “conduct an extensive registration voting campaign.”⁸⁹

To advocate for a “strong” housing bill in 1961, the NAACP conducted a survey of members of the senate and assembly on October 14, 1960. The plan was to not only determine the possibility of passing a fair housing bill but one that was more stringent than Rockefeller’s bill from the previous session. After speaking to twenty-five members of the senate, which had fifty-eight senators in total, the NAACP found that twenty-four senators supported a bill that went further than Rockefeller’s compromise bill. Of the twenty-four senators in support of a strong bill, there were twice as many Democrats as Republicans. Republican senator and finance committee chair Erwin was the only senator who said he opposed the stronger legislation proposed by the NAACP. The group also interviewed 44 members of the 170-member assembly; of those forty-four members, the five who opposed a strong bill were Republicans. The results convinced the NAACP that a more comprehensive bill was possible because legislation needed only thirty votes to pass. If six senators could be persuaded to support a strong bill, the state could see the enactment of a law that banned discrimination in all private housing except sales in “owner occupied one family homes” sold by the owner and rentals in two-family homes where the owner occupied one of the units. The twenty-four senators also expressed approval for banning discrimination in all activities conducted within the real estate and lending industries.⁹⁰ Members of the NAACP were encouraged by the results of the survey, but their commitment to passing a more comprehensive housing bill demonstrated the central conflict between the NAACP and the governor. Rockefeller sought a compromise to ensure more Republican support, but the NAACP sought the strongest bill possible regardless of how many Republicans supported it.

As an ally of the movement and a life member of the NAACP, Rockefeller’s 1961 antidiscrimination housing bill—like the bill the year before—posed a dilemma for the organization. Rockefeller supported the fair housing cause, but his partisan concerns and willingness to endorse weakened bills to ensure passage put him at odds with the most prominent civil rights organization in New York. Upon hearing Rockefeller’s second call for legislative action, Reed and Fleary registered the organization’s disappointment in an open letter to Rockefeller in which they called for a bill that outlawed discrimination in the sale or lease of one- and two-family homes and to ban discrimination by state-licensed brokers and financial institutions regardless of housing type. They were careful to praise Rockefeller who they said had shown a commitment to “upholding dignity and civil rights, on both the National and State levels” but said the proposed bill did not “meet the problem” because the vast majority of housing transactions in New York involved one- and two-family homes. Reed and Fleary also noted that the need for stronger legislation had intensified in recent years because of urban renewal programs. “The time is long overdue,” they observed, “for the State of New York to adopt legislation which will completely eliminate housing discrimination wherever and however it exists.”⁹¹

The NAACP’s state leadership met a month later and voted to reject the governor’s fair housing bill calling it “inadequate to meet the needs of minority families.” They also called for a “March on Albany” at the end of the month to protest the compromise bill and call for more comprehensive legislation. When Wilkins learned of the decision to reject rather than critique the bill, he privately called the decision a “kindergarten act in politics.” Publicly, however, Wilkins told the press “the bill is not worth the paper it is written on as far as the problems most Negroes are concerned with.”⁹² The state leaders explained to the rank-and-file members that although there were “some positive advances” in the legislation, it was inadequate because it did not apply to the sale or lease of one- and two-family homes. To illustrate that point, they noted, “The restrictive scope of [the bill] is indicated by the fact that in Buffalo less than 17 percent of the entire housing supply, both publicly assisted and private, would come under the new law.” The leadership also noted that thousands of minority families had been displaced by urban renewal projects in fifty communities and that the lack of alternative housing was creating new ghettoes and intensifying the problem of school segregation.⁹³ Rockefeller may have increased the likelihood that a Republican-majority legislature would pass a private housing bill, but the NAACP would not endorse a bill that they believed was merely a symbolic victory.

The NAACP did not want to alienate Rockefeller, but it would not sublimate the demands it had honed in response to years of Black New Yorkers’ experiences with discrimination in New York’s housing market. Jack E. Wood Jr., the NAACP’s special assistant for housing, articulated the organization’s position and approach clearly: “We cannot allow an inadequate bill to pass with quiet acceptance and later be hailed as ‘a forward step.’ ”⁹⁴ Equipped with directives such as “Do not converse with any strangers” and “Do not argue or show annoyance if heckled,” hundreds of NAACP delegates congregated in Albany for a peaceful protest against Rockefeller’s compromise housing bill.⁹⁵ Well over three hundred protesters picketed on the steps of the capitol in an all-day peaceful demonstration—a smaller group stayed for an additional all-night vigil—on February 28, under the watch of “scores of state troopers and local police.” An exact tally of the participants is unavailable, but leaders noted that thirty-one of the state’s fifty-five branches had members present.⁹⁶ The effort also included fifty NAACP leaders meeting with Rockefeller and legislative leaders. According to the press, Rockefeller told the leaders that if they did not “go along” with the bill, they would risk the passage of any housing legislation that year. Rockefeller did say, however, that he saw the bill as an initial step and that he hoped to amend it the next year.⁹⁷ Despite the NAACP’s best efforts, the legislature passed a bill that did not equal the original Metcalf-Baker bill, New York City’s private housing law, or even the original compromise administrative bill of 1960.

After 100 years of patience and gradualism, Negro residents of this State will not be content to see their struggle for freedom continued at the same slow pace.

—Eugene T. Reed, President, NAACP New York State Conference, April 19, 1961

The NAACP experienced a setback in 1961, but it continued to work for advancements in the field of housing and search for additional levers it could pull to initiate progress.⁹⁸ Reed rejected Rockefeller’s invitation to attend the bill signing in an open letter to the governor. He explained that even though he “deeply appreciated” the offer, he could not attend the ceremony because it would give the impression that the NAACP approved of the legislation. Reed reasoned that after years of “patience and gradualism,” an incremental change would do little to improve access to housing in the state and called for the bill to be amended. Reed’s message concluded on a careful and cordial note: “You should know that I have the highest personal regard for you and respect the sincerity of your purpose. I do not blame you for the failure of our State Legislature to grasp the need for bold action.”⁹⁹

In May 1962, the NAACP welcomed a victory in New York housing policy when James Gaynor, the commissioner of the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal, announced that its agency would institute a policy of funding only urban renewal projects that were intended to “improve integration” and ensured that families were not relocated to communities that would “perpetuate existing patterns of residential segregation.” The NAACP had argued that the state agency had a “moral and legal responsibility to insure that the housing programs which it assists serve to promote democracy in housing and not to perpetuate existing patterns of residential segregation.”¹⁰⁰ Upon learning of the policy change and the language Gaynor used to describe it, Jack Wood told Wilkins, “The new policy seems to have been drawn from the complaints and recommendations that have been submitted by the NAACP for the past two years.”¹⁰¹ While the private housing bill wound its way through the legislature, the NAACP conducted a campaign requesting that Rockefeller and the Division of Housing institute a policy to end discriminatory practices related to urban renewal projects and to “withhold State funds from all communities whose urban renewal and public housing programs had a discriminatory effect on Negro families and were resulting either in the creation or extension of racial ghettos.” The campaign, which reached its peak in 1961, included the NAACP submitting complaints identifying discriminatory plans and practices in cities across the state, organizing a series of protests to challenge urban renewal projects in Long Island and filing complaints with SCAD from individual families who experienced discrimination related to urban renewal.¹⁰² Implementation would remain a problem, but policies and legislation intended to decrease, if not end, housing segregation remained integral to the NAACP’s efforts to thwart inequality in New York. The success in 1962 also demonstrated the wisdom in maintaining a positive relationship with the governor who remained interested in addressing housing discrimination.

1962 Gubernatorial Election Results

Rockefeller’s 1962 gubernatorial win demonstrated that he had delivered enough of his ambitious campaign promises to gain reelection, but his active approach to government hurt him in some Republican strongholds. Rockefeller defeated Robert M. Morgenthau, a wealthy and well-connected liberal Democrat who was relatively unknown in statewide politics, by 518,218 votes. The contest between Rockefeller and the awkward newcomer to politics was lopsided from the start. As a result, Rockefeller’s victory, which was narrower than his 573,000-vote victory over Harriman in 1958, appeared less impressive when many thought he would win by a larger margin. By comparison, Javits defeated another largely unknown challenger, James B. Donovan, by almost a million votes. The New York Times observed that Javits’s victory may have been padded in the final days of the campaign when his opponent expressed unpopular views about medical care for the aged and support for additional civil rights legislation, which led to a defection among some Democratic and Liberal voters.¹⁰³ In 1958, Rockefeller won 62.1 percent of the vote outside of New York City and 42.2 percent of the city vote. By comparison, he won 59.6 percent of the upstate vote and 44.9 percent of the vote in New York City.¹⁰⁴ Although Rockefeller experienced more success in New York City—he lost the Democratic stronghold by 205,365 votes in comparison to 309,954 in the 1958—those gains were offset by low voter turnout and a conservative challenger in upstate New York who attracted protest votes from Republicans who thought Rockefeller was too liberal. In Erie County, home to Buffalo, Rockefeller lost by 37,764 votes compared to his victory by 65,049 votes in 1958. The New York Times speculated that Rockefeller experienced his greatest loss in comparison to four years before in Erie because of his conflicts with Mahoney and unusually high rates of unemployment in Erie and neighboring Niagara County.¹⁰⁵ Press outlets noted that Rockefeller did well in New York City for a Republican but did not have as strong a performance as expected in traditionally Republican upstate New York. He continued to perform well in Queens and Staten Island, two communities that he won in 1958, but losing votes in upstate New York was troubling for a Republican who traditionally relied on voters outside of New York City.¹⁰⁶

Growing opposition to Rockefeller’s liberalism and support for expensive government programs—and tax increases—inspired a group of disaffected conservative Republicans to found the Conservative Party of New York in 1962. According to historian Timothy J. Sullivan, Nixon’s loss, believed to be caused by a lack of support from Rockefeller and the New York GOP, was the final straw that drove some Republicans to do what they had threatened before: start a conservative party to challenge the New York Republican Party. Upon its founding, the Conservative Party of New York released a statement of principles that identified the liberalism of the state’s Republican leadership as the main cause for concern. “Both major parties in our state are now dominated by the liberals.… These elements have saddled the Republican party with the leadership of Nelson Rockefeller, the New Deal’s legacy to the G.O.P., and Jacob Javits, the only ‘Republican’ in the Senate with a 100 per cent A.D.A. [Americans for Democratic Action] voting record.”¹⁰⁷ After collecting 44,101 signatures—considerably more than the 12,000 required—the Conservative Party was able to get on the ballot.¹⁰⁸ The party’s gubernatorial nominee, a forty-four-year-old businessman from Syracuse, David H. Jaquith, was not a serious threat to Rockefeller, but the 118,768 votes he received, constituting 2 percent of the vote, prevented Rockefeller from winning by the same margin as in 1958. Jaquith won 49,914 votes in New York City and 68,854 votes in the rest of the state. He received the most votes from a single community in Queens (19,314), while Nassau, Onondaga, and Westchester Counties produced the next largest totals.¹⁰⁹ Newspapers often cited the Conservative Party as playing a role in diminishing Rockefeller’s upstate totals, but Jaquith received support in New York City and its suburbs as well. The vote totals were also enough to guarantee the Conservative Party’s representation on the state’s ballots for the next four years.

The 1962 election returns demonstrated that Rockefeller maintained his cross-party appeal, particularly in the suburbs outside of New York City. Days before the election, the Long Island newspaper Newsday polled three hundred “representative” voters in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. The paper found that Rockefeller led with 70 percent of the vote. Newsday observed that Rockefeller was “heavily aided” by registered Democrats; of the ninety-nine Democrats interviewed, forty-four said they planned to vote for Rockefeller, while forty-six said they planned to vote for Morgenthau and nine said they were undecided. Rockefeller had overwhelming support among Republican respondents at 83 percent.¹¹⁰ Ultimately, Rockefeller won Nassau and Suffolk Counties with 66 percent of the vote. In the two counties alone, Rockefeller won over 709,000 votes. Rockefeller also bested Morgenthau in every Westchester County community for an overall vote of 209,145 compared to the challenger’s 103,664. Other than in Westchester, Rockefeller improved his totals in the majority of the suburban counties that flank New York City.¹¹¹ The Christian Science Monitor noted that Rockefeller’s ability to blur party lines had resulted in some labor unions and newspapers that supported Democrats in previous races endorsing Rockefeller, while other unions that typically backed Democratic candidates refrained from endorsing anyone. Notably, the police and fire unions that represented New York City endorsed Rockefeller outright.¹¹²

As intended, Rockefeller’s reelection illustrated to Republicans nationwide that he could increase the party’s support in the urban North, but his incremental success with Black voters, a key demographic of the region, was somewhat inconclusive. Although less than decisive, Rockefeller’s reelection does provide insight into Black voters’ response to the governor’s leadership and policy agenda. Before Election Day arrived, Rockefeller could boast endorsements from the two African American newspapers in Harlem, but endorsements did not result in victories. However, the New York Amsterdam News and the New York Courier both supported Rockefeller’s reelection with the former citing his civil rights record, pay-as-you-go financing, and support for increased funding for New York City in general but the city’s public schools at all levels in particular. Overall, Rockefeller won 35 percent of the Black vote in comparison to 33 percent four years before. Rockefeller tended to do better among African Americans described as middle class in communities such as Queens and the New York suburbs, as opposed to residents of Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Within those African American–heavy assembly districts in Harlem and Brooklyn, however, Rockefeller reduced what was typically a three- or four-to-one Democratic plurality in the five so-called Negro districts to two to one. In the Riverton Housing Development in Harlem, which the New York Amsterdam News identified as home to middle-income African Americans, Rockefeller eked out a minor plurality over Morgenthau by a vote of 278 to 262. In the eleventh assembly district in Harlem where Nixon won 21.5 percent of the vote, Rockefeller won 40.4 percent of the vote. In the thirteenth assembly district, Nixon won 24.9 percent to Rockefeller’s 50.2 percent of the vote. The Los Angeles Sentinel observed that despite what it called “perhaps the most determined bid for the Negro vote in terms of time and money,” Rockefeller failed to make any significant gains among Negro voters.¹¹³ While campaigning for Nixon in 1960, Rockefeller told his aides that the vice president was sabotaging his campaign by neglecting the urban and African American vote in the northern industrial states for the chance of electoral gains in the South. He also failed to convince Nixon to cancel some of his southern campaign stops in favor of focusing on the urban and Negro vote.¹¹⁴ Ultimately, Nixon garnered about the same level of support from African American voters that Eisenhower won in 1956. Northern Blacks voted for Kennedy by a significant majority—approximately 68 percent—and played a major role in his victories in states such as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Michigan.¹¹⁵ Rockefeller’s reelection indicated that a Republican could increase support among Black voters, but continuing to lose the demographic made his incremental victories easier to overlook.

Rockefeller’s continued effort to address the housing crisis for African Americans and Puerto Ricans experienced another setback during the 1962 election; this time, the voters, and not Republican senators, were to blame. In February 1962, Rockefeller proposed a series of bills intended to increase access to middle-income housing in New York. The most controversial idea was a pilot program titled the Low-Income Financing Experiment or LIFE program, which was developed by Housing and Community Renewal Commissioner James Gaynor, who would reallocate $3 million that were earmarked for public housing to subsidize the rents of low-income families who would move into middle-income housing developments. The developments were privately owned but financed with aid from the State Housing Finance Agency, which was created in 1960. If enacted, the program would allow five thousand families to relocate and subsidize their rent until their income reached the standard minimum. The cap for low-income families would be set at 20 percent for the middle-income developments, which were primarily located in New York City. Rockefeller argued that the current low-rent public housing program, which the state began in 1939, had not led to community betterment because it had “fostered the stratification and segregation of low-income families from the remainder of the community.” He also stated that the program had exacerbated social imbalances and created a “no man’s land” for renters who were forced to move out when their income reached the community’s income cap, which made them ineligible for public housing even though their income was not high enough to afford middle-income housing. LIFE stood out from the remaining four middle-income housing bills Rockefeller proposed because it was associated with Blacks and Puerto Ricans who constituted a large percentage of the tenants in low-income public housing and it required voters’ approval. Another program named HOPE, the Home Owners’ Purchase Endorsement, was also intended to address concerns expressed by the NAACP and other civic organizations, but it was not racialized in as overt a manner. The HOPE program would lower the required down payments for middle-income apartments from an average of $1,800 to $200, which the NAACP believed would make middle-income housing more accessible to African Americans, especially those who relocated due to urban renewal projects. During a meeting with representatives of the NAACP, Rockefeller said he intended for the HOPE program to address the concerns of minority applicants for co-op apartments who were good applicants except for an inability to raise enough funds for the down payment.¹¹⁶ The legislature passed all five of Rockefeller’s bills, but only the LIFE program was contingent on voter approval because it would rely on money that had been earmarked for use in the traditional low-income public housing program.¹¹⁷ When voters were asked to consider Rockefeller’s proposal to make a limited amount of housing in middle-income developments available to low-income families through rent subsidies, New Yorkers rejected Proposition No. 2 on the 1962 ballot in a lopsided vote of 1,584,118 to 900,662. Rockefeller’s argument that the program would provide cost savings while addressing economic and racial segregation failed resoundingly.¹¹⁸

The failure of a rent subsidy program that could potentially save the state money suggests a general aversion to the idea of the state helping to integrate majority-white spaces. In an editorial in support of Proposition No. 2, which was also endorsed by New York City mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. and the New York Times, Gaynor explained that the subsidies would cost $1.5 million less per year in comparison to housing the same number of families in low-rent public housing. It was also cheaper than building additional low-rent public housing and would increase tax revenues.¹¹⁹ Regardless, voters rejected the LIFE program by a 2-to-1 margin. When asked “Should the state subsidize low-income tenants to enable them to live in middle-income housing projects?” the majority of voters in every county outside of Manhattan, except Washington County, voted no. Some upstate counties voted down the measure, which primarily applied to New York City, by a margin of 5 to 1, while Manhattan voters passed it by a slim margin. Even though the program applied to the entire state, 80 percent of the state’s low-rent public housing was in New York City, while 90 percent of the middle-income housing was also in New York City. Proposition No. 1, however, which asked voters if the state should borrow $25 million to buy land for parks and conservation, was approved despite concerns that it broke with Rockefeller’s pay-as-you-go financing policy. The New York Times and New York Herald Tribune noted “strong opposition to the subsidy … from the State Chamber of Commerce, local real estate groups and other organizations traditionally opposed to increased spending that leads to higher taxes.” The chamber of commerce said the rent subsidies were unnecessary because it had found no evidence of people in that income bracket needing assistance. Instead, the subsidy would aid “a privileged few.” Such a statement required the organization to ignore the well-documented existence of racial and religious discrimination in New York. Similarly, the New York AFL-CIO opposed the measure “on the grounds that such subsidization of certain families would be discriminatory.”¹²⁰ Although the phrasing on the ballot did not clarify this, the press and state officials had noted that the rent subsidies would be funded with money that was already in the budget, rather than necessitating an extra expense for taxpayers.¹²¹

The 1960 Republican civil rights platform plank was a marked change from the past. Republican platform committees in 1948 and 1952, for example, removed direct reference to civil rights (1948) or relied on vague commitments against issues such as lynching and employment discrimination (1952) despite pressure from African American Republicans, racial liberals, and civil rights activists.¹²² It would not have happened without the activism of young African Americans, Rockefeller’s agitation before the convention, and Nixon’s role as a mediator. A strengthened civil rights plank, however, did not result in a Republican commitment to civil rights or a concerted effort to appeal to African American voters. There were numerous signs in 1960 that there was little interest in racial liberalism in the Republican Party. Beyond Nixon, moderate Republicans like Percy were willing to concede to conservative demands to weaken the civil rights plank. Rockefeller attempted to conserve the party’s connection to the African American political struggle, but his efforts garnered him little appreciation within the party and revealed the GOP’s threadbare support for civil rights. Nixon sought Rockefeller’s approval not only to avoid conflict but also because this was still an era when the voting power of the industrial North loomed large for the Republican Party. Nixon’s efforts to dissociate himself from a racially liberal position in line with the civil rights movement after the convention demonstrated the declining importance of African Americans and the urban North in favor of the South and racial conservatives more generally.

Rockefeller established himself as the national leader of the moderate wing of the Republican Party during his first term in office. His policy battles with fellow Republicans in New York, however, revealed that his approach to governing was moving further away from mainstream Republicanism. The New York Republican Party was accustomed to a figure like Rockefeller at the helm, but the policies he forwarded, particularly in the field of civil rights, showed him to be increasingly at odds with a prominent minority within his own party. His efforts to advance fair housing legislation that was more acceptable to conservative Republicans resulted in housing legislation too weak to make a significant difference for the racial minorities who often found themselves boxed out of the housing market. Partisan concerns hobbled one of the central tenets of Rockefeller’s civil rights advocacy. Rockefeller remained an ally of the civil rights movement, but in an era when civil rights activists increasingly rejected “patience and gradualism,” the governor and the movement were on a collision course. His insistence that support for civil rights was a traditional and obvious position of the Republican Party as conservatives actively rejected the idea meant that Rockefeller was also at odds with the party he endeavored to lead.

On February 12, 1962, Rockefeller announced a plan to change the name of SCAD to the Commission for Human Rights. He explained that the program should reflect a more affirmative approach to the fight against prejudice and discrimination. Rockefeller said the new name “more accurately represent[ed] the conscientious acceptance by the people of this State of the fundamental precept in our Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.” While Rockefeller had labored to further empower the state agency and presented its mission as one that was embraced by the state, opposition was never far from the surface. The next month, when discussing the LIFE and HOPE programs with members of the NAACP, Rockefeller remained optimistic but also spoke more candidly about the persistence of discrimination in New York. “It is no simple task,” observed Rockefeller, “to educate our communities, not so much as not to practice discrimination, but actually to practice and to accept integration. I assure you, however, that I accept this challenge.”¹²³ The rejection of Proposition No. 2 the following fall only confirmed what the NAACP had long known: housing discrimination was one of the most intractable forms of inequality in the North and it created interrelated and cascading forms of inequality. Rockefeller may have accepted the challenge, but the compromises he made in the name of progress had consequences felt deeply by African Americans.