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Though the Glynn School Board members were against the idea of desegregation, they believed it would be better to handle the process at the local level than to have it dictated to them from the state or federal government. In a statement issued in The Brunswick News, President of the Glynn County Board of Education, W. A. Whittle, claimed that the board moved forward with the program to avoid lawsuits. He claims integration was "in the best interest of the People of Glynn County."
Despite the Board's attempts to control the desegregation process, a number of local White families immediately objected to the idea of African Americans attending Glynn Academy. With the 1963 school year scheduled to begin at the end of August, Glynn Academy students and parents, including Linda Gibson and her family, along with representatives acting on behalf of Glynn Academy, filed a lawsuit to prevent Black students from entering the school. The Glynn Society, an anonymous group of segregationists, was believed to be involved.
Over the next nineteen days, the Brunswick community waited for the court's decision.
District Court Judge, Frank Scarlett (pictured), a known segregationist, immediately ruled to prevent integration.
The local NAACP, along with Carolyn Harris and her family, then filed an appeal of Scarlett's decision. On September 12, 1963, Appeals Court ordered the Board of Education to proceed with integration.
Linda Gibson's family, and other White families, tried to appeal this decision, along with two other similar cases in Savannah and Charleston, to the Supreme Court of the United States in October of 1963, but the case was denied.
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