Harding University

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During segregation in the United States, the school remained racially segregated for most of the tenure of president George S. Benson, who defended Harding's delay in integrating. Benson believed Black people were inferior because they fell under the Curse of Ham. In 1957, student body president Bill Floyd circulated a "statement of attitude" that Harding was ready to integrate, and it was signed by over 75% of the students, faculty, and staff of the college. In response Benson made an address entitled titled "Harding College and the Colored Problem", in which he put down the idea of integration as youthful idealism, and insisted that students should defer to the judgment of older people with more experience, such as the Harding board of trustees.
He went further, stating that Black people were far better off in the US than in other countries, and that integration would result in destruction of property, the spread of venereal diseases, and increased pregnancies. He also stated that mixed marriages would …