legislators like Richard Russell of Georgia, Harry Byrd of Virginia, Russell Long of Louisiana, William Fulbright of Arkansas, and even the 1952 Democratic vice-presidential nominee John Sparkman of Alabama, all signed. The manifesto accused the Supreme Court of substituting “naked power for established law,” declared the Brown decision an “abuse of judicial power,” and insisted that the South be allowed to protect its “habits, traditions, and way of life.” The Supreme Court’s action had triggered racial tumult in the South that was “destroying the amicable relations between white and Negro
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