ATLANTA (AP) – Former Gov. S. Ernest Vandiver, who won office vowing “no, not one” black child would integrate a Georgia classroom, but went on to preside over peaceful desegregation, has died at age 86.

He died Monday evening, the family said Tuesday through Gov. Sonny Perdue’s office.

Perdue ordered state flags lowered to half-staff. Vandiver’s body will lie in state Wednesday at the state Capitol.

Governor from 1959 to 1963, Vandiver had been elected on an anti-integration platform, but at a critical moment persuaded lawmakers to repeal a law requiring schools to be closed rather than desegregated.

The Democrat’s stand was credited with sparing Georgia the turbulence that swept much of the rest of the South in that period, but it cost him political support. He left office when his four-year term ended, and said later that keeping the schools open was “my political suicide.”

His “no, not one” phrase had been devised by Vandiver’s strategists to counter criticism from pro-segregation voters after he had said integration of Georgia’s schools should “evolve.”

Years later, he acknowledged the speech was probably unnecessary, since he was virtually assured of election as the front runner against a weak field.

Once elected, Vandiver quickly found himself facing a series of federal court rulings that forced the integration first of Atlanta public schools and then of the University of Georgia.

Complying with the integration orders, however, meant schools would be closed because of a 1955 law requiring state funds to be cut off to any college or school admitting a black student.

To cool charged emotions, Vandiver appointed a special commission that held hearings throughout the state.

Then, days after the courts ordered the desegregation of the University of Georgia in 1961, Vandiver called a special nighttime session of the Legislature and persuaded lawmakers to repeal the 1955 antidesegregation law.

“His decision in the early 1960s to keep the University of Georgia open – when overwhelming public sentiment was to close it because of integration – was an act of courage,” former Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes said Tuesday.

Vandiver, a courtly man with a distinctive drawl and wavy hair, put things in a slightly different light.

“I never thought the majority of the people fully supported our (open schools) position, but I figured I was through in politics anyway,” he said years later.

Vandiver ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1972, and he blamed his defeat on the “No, not one” statement. “I don’t think blacks ever got over the statement I made in the 1958 gubernatorial race,” he said.

In 2001, at a ceremony marking the 40th anniversary of the University of Georgia’s integration, Vandiver declared, “When I ran for governor, I made some intemperate remarks. They shouldn’t have been made.”

After leaving the governor’s office, Vandiver served as chairman of a Lavonia bank and farmed cattle.

Survivors include his widow, Betty; a son and two daughters, including state Rep. Jane Vandiver Kidd; and four grandchildren.

AP-ES-02-22-05 1734EST

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