James R. Echols. Typed document listing the results of his poll on the admission of African Americans to the graduate schools. 1948 April 22.

In 1948, James R. Echols, a graduate sociology student, polled 300 randomly selected graduate, medical, and law school students on their reaction to the admission of African Americans to their ranks. Results were tabulated by school, religion, region, and sex of the respondent. Of the 229 responses, 133 stated they were in favor of or indifferent to the admission of African Americans. A more detailed breakdown showed Jews, Roman Catholics, non-Southerners and women more ready to accept African Americans. The majority still felt t hat admission in large numbers would cause problems and few stated a willingness to go out of their way to welcome African-American students.

Ruth S. Taliaferro's response to the C. Lee Parker poll on the admission of African Americans to the University of Virginia. 1950.

Two years later, C. Lee Parker, another graduate sociology student, again polled fellow graduate students with nearly identical questions. This time 73% of the respondents had no objections or were indifferent and 30 of the 79 "No" voters qualified their negative responses to some extent. "No" voter comments included: "God segregated the races;" "Yankees [should] mind their own____business;" and "stirring up this hard feeling between races may be just what the Communist and Roman Catholic groups in the nation want in order...to seize political power." "Yes" voters responded with: "if Jefferson were living today he would approve;" "it [segregation] is the most hypocritical thing I have ever seen," "I consider racial segregation to be nonsense in theory, vicious in practice;" and "racial segregation is holding back the nation politically and the south economically."