Attorney General Cook's response to Brown v. Board of Education:

"This decision has provoked a social, economic, political and legal revolution in at least 23 sovereign states. It presents a problem which cannot be resolved without prolonged litigation and courageous and intelligent studies.

"As president of the National Association of Attorneys General, I share with the great majority of attorneys general in the United States a prayerful hope that the frustration will not be as prolonged and as devastating as some of us feel it might.

"The fact that the court will delay the decision as to the time and method of enforcement aggravates this situation and places those of us who are bound by our constitutions to defend segregation in a more or less untenable position. In fact, we shall find it difficult to defend the prestige of the United States Supreme Court without stultifying our own conscience.

"While I have not read the decision, I am maintaining the position as attorney general of Georgia that it does not apply to this state, since we were not a party to any of the five suits and that legal segregation will continue in our public schools until we are forced to abandon it by legal action applied to every school unit in the state. I shall maintain this position with every legal resource at my command as long as I am attorney-general of Georgia.

"Since the court has outlawed segregation as such and offers no alternative but mixed schools as will be directed by either a special master in Washington, D. C., or federal district courts, the education commission created by the General Assembly is faced with the most difficult problem ever presented to responsible public officials since the War Between the States. I have no answer to suggest, but one thing I do know, Georgians have always solved their problems and I am confident that we will solve this one to the best interests of both the Negro and white citizen.

"As I view it, the scope of this decision goes directly to our miscegenation laws. Carried to its ultimate effect it means these laws, too, could be struck down by proper legal attack. Once they are struck down I foresee an amalgamation stampede."

source: Atlanta Constitution, May 18, 1954