Click HERE to read the June 17-19, 1958 Orlando Sentinel articles for yourself. These articles can be verified with a subscription to www.newspapers.com.

 

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Thursday, July 19, 1958 front page headline reads - Federal Judge's Ruling Affects Graduate Schools Only - Negroes Awarded Admittance To UofF

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June 19, 1958 - 

School Gets Full Power To Bar Riots

"Judge DeVane denied Hawkins admission because he said Hawkins had failed to prove he was scholastically qualified to enter law school." and

"Assistant Attorney General Ralph Odum, who actually handled the state's representation in court, had this to say: " ... It is also fortunate that Hawkins himself, through his attorneys, abandoned his contention that he should be admitted under his 1949 application. ..."

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June 19, 1958 - 

Appeal Unlikely - Collins Says FSU's Race Bar To Fall

"[Governor Leroy Collins] also noted that the Florida Supreme Court held in 1955 that there is no legal basis for racial segregation at the University of Florida." and

"The governor commented that Atty. Gen. Richard Ervin had exhausted every legal means to prevent the admission of Virgil Hawkins based upon his lack of qualifications regardless of race and that the fight was successful because Hawkins withdrew as a party in the integration suit."

 

The first quote can be easily substantiated by Florida Supreme Court Justice B.K. Roberts' 1955 opinion which is reported at  State ex rel. Hawkins v. Board of Control, 83 So.2d 20 (1955), 23, 

"The theory of ‘separate but equal’ facilities under which this state has developed its educational system since Plessy v. Ferguson, supra, was decided in 1896, has been abolished by the decision of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, supra, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686; and we deem it to be our inescapable duty to abide by this decision of the United States Supreme Court interpreting the federal constitution. It therefore follows that the respondents may not lawfully refuse to admit the relator to the University of Florida Law School merely because he is a member of the Negro race and ‘separate but equal’ facilities have been provided for him at a separate law school. 

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Wednesday, June 18, 1958

State College Race Barriers May Fall Soon

 "Tallahassee - Complete removal of racial barriers at Florida's state universities appeared yesterday to be only days away. Federal District Judge Dozier DeVane said he would rule before the week is out whether Negroes must be admitted to the state colleges on the same grounds as whites and he left the clear impression that immediate desegregation would be his decision.", 

"Judge DeVane's ruling will be on a petition by the NAACP that Negroes will not be refused admission to colleges on the grounds of their race. They dropped Virgil Hawkins as the test plaintiff when it became reasonably apparent that his scholastic record would not permit him to be admitted to the University of Florida law school even if he had been a white man.", 

"Hawkins yesterday told reporters he had stepped out of the suit rather than be a "bottleneck" to the overall cause." and

"Gov. LeRoy Collins and and university officials have said they don't anticipate Hawkins ever being admitted because of his scholastic and personal record."

 

This article completely refutes the widely believed Hawkins narrative claim that Hawkins sacrificed his opportunity to go to UF's law school in exchange for other Blacks, like George H. Starke, Jr., to be able to immediately apply and be admitted without regard to their race.

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(This is the 8:06 article from the PBS video documentary about Hawkins that Harley Herman posted on YouTube.)

Tuesday, June 17, 1958 

Hawkins Drops UofF Bid After Nine Years - DeVane Rules Today On Ban Of All Negroes

 

"Tallahassee [UPI] Negro Virgil Hawkins gave up any hope of being accepted in the University of Florida law school on his old application and test scores yesterday and asked federal district court to prohibit any policy of racial segregation on state universities for all Negroes.",

"Argument today will concern whether Judge DeVane should issue the order enjoining the Board of Control and the registrar of the University of Florida "from enforcing any policy, customs or usage" of racial segregation or limiting the university to white persons only.", 

"In his testimony earlier yesterday, Hawkins said he only made application to the law school once, in 1949, but since that time he had been continuing his efforts to be accepted." and

 

"The board contended that Hawkins did not have the qualifications to be admitted to the school because he made application in 1949, three years before he got a degree in education from Bethune-Cookman College.

Mrs. Constance Baker Motley, New York attorney for Hawkins, said the case was not actually a case to force Hawkins' admission to the school, but was a class action to force the Board of Control to consider all applicants on an equal basis."

 

This is the article that appears at 8:06-8:14 on the YouTube video titled, "Virgil Darnell Hawkins: A Lawyer Made In Heaven" , that was posted by Harley Herman and it clearly and unequivocally refutes the widely held belief that Virgil D. Hawkins had sacrificed his opportunity to attend UF's law school so that other Black could immediately apply and be admitted without regard to their race. Furthermore the voice-over in the video and Harley Herman's and George Allen's analysis, 8:06-9:45, clearly contradict what the viewer was led to believe was in the 8:06-8:14 Orlando Sentinel article.

 

Whoever put that piece of video and audio together was clearly and deliberately deceiving the audience as was also being done at 6:37-6:57 which has,

"As this case involve[s] the admission of a Negro to a graduate professional school there is no reason for delay. He is entitled to prompt admission"

without a grammatical period at the end whereas the complete version has,

"As this case involve[s] the admission of a Negro to a graduate professional school there is no reason for delay. He is entitled to prompt admission under the rules and regulations applicable to other qualified candidates.",

and Hawkins without a college degree was not at all qualified; see  State of Fla. ex rel. Hawkins v. Board of Control, 350 U.S. 413 (1956), 414, for the grammatical period text verification.

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