WSB-TV (Television station : Atlanta, Ga.)

Description

In this WSB newsfilm clip from 1956 (presumably February 6, 1956), Georgia governor Marvin Griffin recommends a resolution of interposition to the Georgia General Assembly, in response to pressure from the Supreme Court following the decision Brown v. Board of Education.Addressing a joint session of the Georgia General Assembly, Governor Marvin Griffin speaks into a series of microphones, and professes that the Supreme Court did not have the authority to declare segregated public schools unconstitutional; therefore Georgia may not be held accountable for violating federal law in continuing to operate segregated schools. Furthermore, he establishes, the state should be able to legally assert that the Supreme Court "overstepped its authority," declare the court's decisions null and void, and "justify before the nation the interposition of her sovereign power between the court and her public schools."The clip jumps to another point in Griffin's address where he asks the General Assembly to adopt a resolution "declaring the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the cases relating to the public schools of Virginia, South Carolina, Delaware and Kansas to be null, void, and of no effect." The audience applauds. After another jump in the clip, Griffin emphatically states that "there is no provision in the federal constitution dealing with education, or with schools. Not one word, not one syllable," and that "education is one of the subjects reserved to the states." He refers to the act of interposition as "our first, last, and only absolute remedy. Interposition is the...

Record Contributed By

Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection

Record Harvested From

Digital Library of Georgia