Timmerman attacks, Fall 1957

Andre Toth enrolling at Allen University
Photo from Richland Library

(This continues an earlier posts about Spring 1957.)

At the start of September 1957, Allen University President Veal, under pressure from state officials, had spent the summer trying to dismiss Professors Hoffman, Rideout, and Wiggins without success.  State officials wanted these professor gone because they were involved in left-wing politics.

The conflict escalated in September because Allen University enrolled its first white student, Andre Toth.  Toth was a Hungarian refugee who had fought against the Soviets in the 1956 Hungarian revolution and then fled the country when it became clear that the revolution would be put down.  He was brought to the US by a refugee program.  The younger refugees were placed as students at universities, and Toth had been offered a place at Allen.  

Toth was almost certainly interested in challenging racial segregation.  In the 1950s, communist education on the United States emphasized the country's race problems, and Toth had been taught about segregation in the South during high school.  

Toth's enrollment at a private HBCU was not as big a challenge to segregation as the enrollment of an African American at a public whites-only school would have been.  At this time, Talladega College in Alabama, Fisk University in Tennessee, and Xavier University in Louisiana all had admitted whites.

For South Carolina state officials, even this was too much.  On September 9, shortly before classes started, the State Board of Education, headed by Governor Timmerman, adopted a resolution which read:

The approval of Allen University for teacher training is withheld until such time as the Board may determine that it is in the public interest to grant approval, and the State Department of Education is directed to withhold certification of its graduates until approval is granted.

The board gave no explanation for its actions, although the newspapers immediately speculated that it was an attempt to force President Veal to dismiss faculty and expell Toth.

Withholding board certification would have devastated Allen University over the long-term.  A large number of Allen students were studying to be public school teachers.  Without state certification, many Allen graduates would be unemployable, current students would transfer to other schools, and few high school students would apply for admissions.  

The Chappelle Administration building at Allen
Photo from Richland Library 

Over the course of Fall semester, the gears of academic administration turned slowly in response to the crisis. President Veal spent the semester pressuring the professors to resign, arguing with Board of Trustee members over whether the professors could be dismissed, and responding to investigations by the AAUP.  After all this, the semester ended as it began: Toth remained a student and Hoffman, Rideout, and Wiggins all remained faculty.

This situation would change almost as soon as 1958 began.  I will explain what happened in the next post.

This series continues with:

1. "Timmerman attacks, Spring 1958"
2. "Timmerman attacks: Allen University and Benedict College"
3. "Timmerman attacks: the Benedict professors"
4. "Timmerman attacks: the Allen University professors"
5. "Timmerman Attacks: Hoffman Update"