The Legal Case

1951 Unequal Access

Atlanta’s Municipal Code prohibited African Americans from using public parks and recreational sites by law. Tup Holmes, Hamilton M. Holmes, Oliver Holmes, and Charles Bell were denied access to the Bobby Jones Golf Course by its manager Billy Wilson based on this municipal code. Wilson explained, “It would violate the city ordinance to allow Negroes to use the golf course because it is designated for whites.”

1951 Atlanta Golf Committee

The plaintiffs: Alfred Holmes, Dr. H.M. Holmes, Oliver W. Holmes

The Atlanta Golf Committee was formed to combat segregation of public golf courses after the foursome was denied play at Bobby Jones. The group grew to over 300 members, and was represented by attorneys R.E. Thomas, E.E. Moore, Jr., and S.S. Robinson. They wrote letters in an attempt to negotiate with the Municipal Parks and Airport Committee regarding the city’s code banning African Americans from public parks. Although a series of letters were sent, their requests were never considered.

1953 Taking Action

In the summer of 1953, attorneys R.E. Thomas, E.E. Moore, Jr., and S.S. Robinson filed suit in action against the City of Atlanta in the US District Court, Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division. The plaintiffs were listed as Alfred Holmes, Dr. H.M. Holmes, and Oliver W. Holmes and the defendants as City of Atlanta, Mayor Hartsfield, Manager of Parks George I. Simons, and Manager of Bobby Jones Golf Course, Billy Wilson. Judge William Boyd Sloan presided over the suit.

1954 McHale and the KKK’s Motion to Dismiss

Opposition to City of Atlanta golf course and park integration was regional as well as local. Francis McHale, attorney for the Ku Klux Klan and the white supremacist National Citizens Protective Association, joined the case as amicus curiae. Amicus curiae, literally friend of the court, is someone who offers information that bears on the case, but has not been asked to join by either party. McHale submitted a polemic, nine-page motion to dismiss. His motion was denied by US District Court Judge William Boyd Sloan.

1954 Separate but Equal

On July 8, 1954, the US District Court ruled that refusing African Americans the right to play on city owned golf courses constituted forbidden discrimination. However, the Court also upheld the “separate but equal” doctrine arguing that it was not in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment, as decided in Brown v. Board of Education just two months prior on May 17, 1954. The Court ruled that City of Atlanta must construct a municipal golf course that would allow African Americans to play on a “separate but equal” course.

1955 Appealing to the Supreme Court

Thurgood Marshall (right) with NAACP leaders.

After Judge Sloan ruled “separate but equal” was applicable to golf facilities, the NAACP became involved in the case. Mr. John H. Calhoun, president of the Atlanta NAACP and attorneys from the national office joined the case on appeal, including Jack Greenberg, Robert L. Carter and Thurgood Marshall, who would later serve on the US Supreme Court. The case was carried to the US Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, Louisiana. A decision was rendered on June 17, 1955, which asserted the lower court had offered the necessary restitution. The legal team decided to appeal to the Supreme Court.

The Law of the Land

On November 7, 1955, the US Supreme Court ruled against the city of Atlanta, asserting the lower Court of Appeals and the US District Court erred in upholding the Plessy v. Ferguson “separate but equal” doctrine. The Supreme Court entered a decree for the petitioners in line with its rulings on desegregation, including a case filed by African Americans in Baltimore seeking the integration of public beaches (Dawson v. Baltimore, 1955).

The ruling was also consistent with the precedent created in Brown v. Board of Education. However, in contrast to the vague mandate of Brown to desegregate schools “with all deliberate speed,” the Holmes brothers were able to play golf on Atlanta’s public courses less than seven weeks after their case’s ruling.

Furthermore, on December 1, 1955 – less than four weeks after the Holmes ruling – Rosa Parks, an African American woman, refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Her stance helping to fuel an important strategy of civil rights public accommodations action, the Montgomery Bus Boycott.