FMU showcases McNair leadership influence over S.C.

Francis Marion University hosted a two-day seminar last week saluting the late Gov. Robert E. McNair and his role as a bridge to tolerance and civil rights in South Carolina.

Family, friends, scholars and students learned the governor from 1965 to 1971 was deeply rooted in faith and determined to position South Carolina for a future built on desegregation.

In the face of intense political pressure and at a time when Alabama Gov. George Wallace, Georgia Gov. Lester Maddox and Arkansas Gov. Orville Faubus were standing in the way of racial progress, McNair quietly paved the way for justice and equality in the Palmetto State.

Without McNair’s leadership, we wonder where South Carolina would be today.

The Williamsburg County native understood education and jobs were the key to success for everyone in South Carolina and was the driving force behind establishing FMU in 1970. The Pee Dee, with a black population of 45 percent, was a battleground for desegregation in the 1960s, with federal courts ordering the desegregation of Darlington County schools in January 1970.

McNair, a master of forging a consensus and creating compromise, explained to the citizens of South Carolina it was time to obey laws eliminating dual systems of education.

The Democrat’s decision was not easy at the time, requiring the courage of his convictions to enforce it instead of riding on the bandwagon of distrust created by Wallace, Maddox and Faubus only years earlier.

The symposium offered a no-holds-barred analysis of McNair’s career and contributions. After being elected lieutenant governor in 1962, McNair rose to the governor’s office in 1965, succeeding Gov. Donald S. Russell, who resigned to take the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the death of Olin D. Johnston

Russell laid some groundwork for tolerance as governor, but McNair was known as the progressive.

Perhaps unfairly, McNair’s ambitions of higher public office were dashed by his handling of racial tensions in Orangeburg.

Though praised widely for his ability to diffuse other explosive situations, his words immediately after two were killed and 27 injured at S.C. State University in spring 1967 were remembered more than any single incident of his tenure.

The shootings occurred after three nights of tensions, and McNair erroneously said the problems were caused by “black power influences.” Nine highway patrol officers had been issued deadly buckshot and given authority to fire their weapons if they thought their lives were in danger.

After Vice President Hubert Humphrey won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968, McNair was notified he was one of four finalists for the vice-presidential spot. McNair went to the Chicago convention in a position of power, serving as chairman of the Southern Governors Conference and the National Democratic Governors Conference.

Humphrey chose U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie, D-Maine, instead of McNair because the head of South Carolina’s state NAACP, Alonzo W. Holman, said he could not support McNair in lieu of Orangeburg.

The Democrats failed to win a single Southern state as Richard Nixon won the White House. Nixon split Southern states with third-party candidate Wallace, who won five states and nearly 10 million votes based on a segregationist platform.

McNair, who acknowledged responsibility for Orangeburg in a 2006 biography, died Nov. 17, 2007, at 83 from a cancerous brain tumor.

The former governor’s death was the first in a series of rapid-fire tragedies for the McNair family. Eight days after the governor’s passing, his beloved wife, Josephine Robinson McNair, died at 84.

On Dec. 19, 2007, one of McNair’s three daughters, Claudia Crawford McNair, died at 50. On Jan. 22, 2008, their only son, Robert E. McNair Jr., who battled cancer for seven years, died at 60.

At the FMU seminar, McNair’s surviving daughters, Corinne Godshall and Robin Howell, and daughter-in law, Judith Gibbons McNair, spoke about the former governor’s love for his family and resolve in leading the state.

“I think it was divine providence,” Gibbons said of McNair’s time in office. “He was the Lord’s choice to lead the state through a difficult time; the right man at the right time.”

What a fine tribute to a governor whose influence made the state a better place to live for everyone.

— Unsigned editorials represent the views of this newspaper. Editorial Board members are Mark Laskowski (regional publisher), James Bennett (regional editor), Sam Bundy (sports editor), Kimberly Ginfrida (news editor), David Johnson (regional circulation director), Charles Tomlinson (Lake City News & Post editor) and Jackie Torok (metro editor).