1955 Georgia newspaper NEGR0ES 1st PLAY on the previously racially segregated GOLF COURSE in Asheboro NORTH CAROLINA as many  Whites resign from the golf club in protest  - inv # 8T-406

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SEE PHOTO(s) - An ORIGINAL NEWSPAPER, the Macon News (GA) dated Nov 19, 1955. This original newspaper contains a front page heading: "NEGR0ES PLAY GOLF ON ASHEBORO COURSE" with news of the first implementation of the court-ordered ruling that public golf courses in the South could NOT be racially segregated.

This marks a milestone in the Civil Rights movement. Just 44 years later TIGER WOODS would win his first MASTERS GOLF TOURNAMENT -- can you imagine TIGER WOODS not being allowed to play golf on a public golf course !!!

Gillespie Golf Course is recognized as the site of one of the battles in the civil rights movement, a place where a group of black men sought to integrate a course they weren’t allowed to play. The resulting legal fight went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The case dates to 1955, when six men – Phillip Cook, Elijah Herring, Samuel Murray, George Simkins, Joseph Sturdivant and Leon Wolfe – entered the pro shop at Gillespie and asked to play.

When Simkins and his cohorts attempted to play at Gillespie, the pro shop attendant snatched the registration book from them. Gillespie, a course that belonged to the City of Greensboro and was built primarily through taxpayers’ money, was at the time operated as a private facility.

It was leased from the city by a group of white citizens, a lease-agreement common in Southern municipalities. It was a means that circumvented the Supreme Court ruling that made it unlawful for city-owned courses to discriminate.

Despite being refused the right to register, members of “The Greensboro Six” — the name by which the group would come to be known — placed their 75-cent greens fees on the pro shop counter and headed to the first tee. Ernie Edwards, Gillespie’s pro, caught up with them, ordered them off the course and threatened to have them arrested.

They ignored Edwards and played nine holes before leaving. That night, each was arrested for trespassing, then taken to jail where they posted bonds.

All were charged with trespassing on a private course despite the fact that Gillespie was owned by the city and white “non-members” were allowed to play with few questions asked. Blacks were turned away as non-members.

Those charged were found guilty of trespassing, fined and ordered to spend 30 days in jail. A second trial was ordered because arrest warrants had been altered to call Gillespie a “club” instead of a “course.” Again, the men were found guilty.

The case was appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court, but before being heard there, Middle District Court Judge Johnson J. Hayes of North Wilkesboro gave the men a strong declaratory judgment, calling the “so-called lease” as a private facility invalid.

Hayes ruled the plaintiffs were unlawfully denied access to the course because of their race and said he planned to open the course to all citizens.

“The golf club permits white people to play without being members, except it requires the prepayment of green fees,” Hayes wrote. “The plaintiffs here paid their fees, were forced off the course by being arrested for trespass.”

The statement and evidence from Hayes, however, were omitted from the record presented to the state Supreme Court, which denied the criminal appeal. Simkins would later say the omission essentially doomed the case when it was presented to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1958, which ruled 5-4 against the Greensboro Six.

A strong dissenting opinion by Chief Justice Earl Warren prompted North Carolina Gov. Luther Hodges to commute the jail sentences of the plaintiffs.

“There were some strange decisions up and down the line on that case,” said Greensboro’s Henry Frye, the first black chief justice of the N.C. Supreme Court.

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