Holmes v. Danner

Historical Context

Georgia became the first state to charter a state-supported university in 1785, and in 1801, the University of Georgia was established in Athens. Except for one incident soon after the Civil War, when African Americans tried to force themselves into the institution, the university remained solidly segregated.

Georgia maintained three public Black colleges offering undergraduate degrees: Fort Valley State College, Albany State College, and Savannah State College. From 1943 to 1967, if African American students wanted a graduate degree, the state paid the difference between out-of-state tuition and Georgia tuition, plus two annual round trips home.

In September 1950, Horace Ward became the first African American student to apply to the University of Georgia School of Law. After his application was denied in June 1951, he refused an out-of-state scholarship and sued in federal court in 1952. Ward was drafted into the Army in 1953, was discharged in 1955, and continued pursuing his case, but he also enrolled in Northwestern University's School of Law in September 1956. After a trial in December 1956, Ward's lawsuit was dismissed in February 1957 on procedural grounds. Ward's enrollment at Northwestern required that he apply to Georgia as a transfer student, making his case for admission as a first-year law student moot. After graduating from Northwestern, Ward joined the Atlanta law firm of Donald Hollowell, local counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

By the late 1950s, few public facilities in Georgia were desegregated except Atlanta's seven public golf courses, which integrated in 1955 after Alfred “Tup” Holmes, his brother Oliver, and their father Dr. Hamilton M. Holmes successfully sued the city. An informal group of African American businessmen in Atlanta pressed for greater equality. Jesse Hill, a member of the local NAACP's education committee, recruited applicants to integrate Georgia State College of Business Administration in Atlanta. In 1956, three African American women volunteered to apply to Georgia State and sued to be admitted. A federal court did not order the women to be admitted, but found the college's requirement that applicants be endorsed by two alumni to be unconstitutional because there were no African American alumni of the University System of Georgia's White institutions.

The legislature responded by adopting new laws to preserve segregation. In Georgia, students over the age of 21 could not start as undergraduates, and students over 25 could not start a graduate program. Hill refocused on recruiting outstanding seniors within Atlanta's African American high schools.

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