Factual 'OUTHERN CHOOL

~O l. II, NO. 7 NASHVILLE, TENN. $2 PER YEAR JANUARY, 1956 • Ill Four States poL~ICAL nc~s in at least four southern states-Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina-are consid­ . en.ng r~lutions of "interposition" as a means of evading the U. S. Supreme Court's decisions against segregation m t?e public schools, a year-end survey by SotrrHER.N SC:UOOL NEWs indicates. Legislatures of all four states meet durmg 1956. "Interposition" is popularly equated with the doctrine of nullification. . Meanwhile, three more counties in West Virginia ordered desegregation of their schools and a federal court decision m Kentucky resulted in a two-step plan to integrate the schools of Adair County. Discussion of "interposition" first arose in Virginia when the General UIIIUDID II IDDII ~UDUIIUIUDI courses to Negro players. At the Assembly was called into special ses­ month's end the state was still rever­ sion to approve a referendum (set for What Is It? berating from the controversy over Jan. 9) on a constitutional convention INTERPOSITION - The Vir­ the Sugar Bowl football game in which would amend the organic law ginia Resolution of 1798 declared which Georgia Tech contracted to in order to permit expenditure of that the pOW'ers of the fedeTal play the non-segregated University ( public funds for private schooling. government result from the com­ of Pittsburgh. According to its first proponent, the pact to which the states are par­ Richmond News Lea.der, "this plan ties, and "that, in case of a de­ Kentucky contemplates an assertion of funda­ liberate, palpable and dangercms In the state's first school desegre­ mental principles, coupled with an exercise of otheT poweTs not gation suit a federal judge held that appeal to our sister states to decide, granted by the social compact, Adair County should open its high by ratifying or rejecting a proposed the states, which are parties school to Negroes Feb. 1, 1956 and constitutional amendment, whether theTeto, have the right and are in that integration in elementary schools the power to operate racially sep­ duty bound to interpose for ar­ should be effected by August or Sep­ arate public school facilities should resting the progress of the evil" tember of this year. In another action be prohibited to the states ..." for maintaining t h e i r rights. the State Court of Appeals banned What was meant by inteTpOsi­ racial segregation in all public rec­ In Mississippi the plan is being reation facilities. sponsored by two members of the tion? It h4$ sometimes been as­ state's congressional delegation, a serted that it meant nothing mOTe Louisiana judge and a former governor, but is nor less than nullification by a A three-judge federal court took opposed by incoming Gov. James P. single state. Madison declared, in under advisement a to open all suit I Coleman. It is under study in Louisi­ later years, that such wa~r not public schools in Orleans Parish 1 the 1neaning. It is not unlikely I ana by state Sen. W. M. Rainach, ( county)-the state's largest--to all ) legislative chairman of the state that notlting more was intended races. State attorneys asked the fed­ school program. In South Carolina than to secure, by coopeTation eral court to step out of a local sit­ state Rep. Joseph 0. Rogers Jr., of among the states, It geneTal ex­ uation which they said was covered Clarendon County, announced he is pression of opinion. But it is pos­ by state laws. drafting a resolution which calls on sible that t1te frameTs had in mind the legislature to assert the state's a convention of the states to pass Maryland sovereignty in the field of public upon the Constitution or that Two sets of white parents were education. they planned authoritative inteT­ haled into Juvenile Court in Balti­ • pretation by amendment. more County for keeping their chil­ STUDY GROUPS -Cyclopedia of American dren out of racially mixed schools. As the year ended, nearly 150 study Government. Rather than comply, one family tudy Groups At Work groups and commissions had reported moved to Florida. I or had been authorized to report on NULLIFICATION-An alleged ':Ill APPIIOXIMATELY 150 "study" com­ the plan for a referendum to permit state or local plans dealing with right of a state in the American Mississippi missions-some made up of lay state support of private schools s c h o o 1 segregation-desegregation. Union, acting in a sovereign ca­ The state's political leaders debated lt.:::.''advisors" and others of "experts"- which this group considers essential Among the states which have not de­ pacit1( through a convention of interposition, or nullification, as new • at work throughout the South to forestall "compulsory integration." segregated any of their schools, North its people. to declare an act of pro-segregation legislation was pre­ a nsidering the effects of the Su­ In South Carolina, the bulk of pro­ Carolina and Florida reported the Co'ltqress "null, void. and no law. pared for the January session of the IJS'Jreme Court's school segregation segregation legislation adopted in largest number of community study not binding upon the state, its of­ legislature. rC;.. ~ons, according to a SOUTHERN May was formulated by the South committees. ficers or citizens." Missouri booL Ntws survey. Carolina School Committee, a legis­ In a re-survey of so-called "oppo­ -New Dictionary of lative group. In Mississippi, seven Racial integration became an ac­ 'vities o£ the bodies, some offi­ sition" groups, Sotmn:RN SCHOOL American Politics complished fact at the University of Y proposals of the official Legal Edu­ NEws found 44 private organizations, appointed and others seli- llll l l liiiiiiiiii iiii iiiJIIIIIJ I IIIIID Missouri and state colleges. Accord­ ",, cational Advisory Committee will be large and small, more or less active lh 'tuted, vary largely with the ing to a special SoUTHERN SCHOOL 6ial policy or public sentiment in presented to the legislature which in 15 states. Increasing activity also injunction against alleged interfer­ ol convenes this month. NEWs survey, none of the institutions c 11 the states where they are located. was reported from several states and ence by pro-segregationists in the was flooded by Negro applicants. Ia #J In Virginia, South Carolina, Missis­ On the other hand, the recom­ communities where pro-Integration operation of the integrated school. .oul , · Iippi and Louisiana, for example, mendations for replacing the public Human Relations Councils are in The decision, expected momentarily, North Caro'lina :Is cs mnnissions on the state level, usu- schools of Alabama with a private operation. may decide constitutionality of A special session of the General ally composed largely of legislators school system, proposed by the Other December developments: Arkansas' school segregation laws. Assembly (perhaps in June or July) lo ar state officials, have been, or are Boutwell Committee, have Jailed lo In the public recreation area was talked following a report from ,,_Ar Delaware • aow, at work on plans for circum- win legislative approval. (which is allied with the school issue an advisory commission on forth­ U• l'tnting the court's decrees. In such Meanwhile, local-level groups through court interpretation), At­ Although the month generally was coming plans entailing legislation to ':l quiet on the school front, the segre­ Jd s:11 border states as Maryland, Kentucky have met with some success in such lanta opened its seven public golf "strengthen assurances of the pres­ \ 0 ,_. llld Arkansas, the colll11Uttees, rnost­ proposals as have been advanced for courses to Negroes after a court rul­ gation-desegregation issue was a ris­ ervation of our public schools, and \p ing question as the state looked to­ f lr appointed at the local school school desegregation in Macon, Mo. ing and Green.sboro, N. C., ordered yet not require any child of any race "'ol sale of one publicly-owned but pri­ ward the 1956 elections. !II J board level, are studying methods In Baltimore, a Community Study to be forced to attend a mixed school \p ~ of Implementing the decisions. Program begun shortly after World vately-leased course and conversion District of Columbia against his will." In a significant de­ re War n was credited with helping of a publicly-owned Negro course cision by a three-judge federal court rd c States such as Texas and Florida, into an addition to the city dump. In Notice was served on Congress by cy ~ •here state policy seems to be to smooth the way for desegregation. in Richmond, Va. Negro litigants en Kentucky a state court struck down Rep. Adam C. Powell Jr. (D., N.Y.) asking entry in McDowell County •sl ~'¢ :n~ segregation but where pub­ Eighteen months after the original segregation laws affecting public that an effort would be made to it ,_ Opllllon, at least in some sections, school segregation decision, local schools were instructed to seek relief ch parks and other recreation facilities. amend any federal school aid legis­ in the state courts and through '"nl ~<~Vors desegregation, have colll11Ut­ school boards still are appointing In Nashville, Tenn., parents of two lation so as to deny funds to schools North Carolina's school placement lees looking toward eventual school study committees. The Davidson practicing racial segregation. This Av white children filed suit in federal machinery. Yl d~~egation. In fact, Florida lists County, Tenn., board, for example, was expected to bog down federal ft• 8 court seeking admission of the chil­ Jft wut 25, the second largest num- announced last month it would ap- dren to a Negro school and in Balti­ aid measures. Oklahoma /. ber of such committees of any of (Scc STUDY GROUPS, Page 15) more County. Md., two sets of white Florida A three-judge panel dismissed a 'd•"s / the states in the region, exceeded parents were brought into court when suit to force the all-Negro Red Bird 1·5 The regional advisory board of the 1 ~y by Kentucky which has 51. they refused to send their children to district to permit 14 Negro children orth Carolina has 24 such groups, National Association for the Ad­ Index racially mixed schools. vancement of Colored People, meet­ to attend schools closer to home, say­ ~ llld Maryland has or has had study A state-by-state summary of prin­ ing authorities had evidenced the ll'Oups at work in each of her 22 State Page ing in Tampa, said progress in car­ cipal events follows: "highest degree of good faith" com­ COUnties. Alabama ...... 13 rying out desegregation was com­ pliance. Meanwhile, desegregation ;j pletely unsatisfactory in a "core u a relative lack of uniformity Arkansas ...... - ...... 9 Alabama was completed at the college level In area" of the South. Meanwhile a !' lllar~ the purposes and intent of the Delaware ...... 12 In a referendum the state's voters Oklahoma. ./ even greater variety is District of Columbia ...... 16 North Carolina sociologist, speaking ~ttees, decisively rejected a constitutional at Miami Beach, reported that 2,000 noticeable in their composition and Florida ...... - ...... 15 amendment to provide more funds South Carolina 111 Georgia ...... 10 Negroes were now attending former­ The legislature, meeting Jan. 10, ~e of organization. Some are bi­ for schools-a decision having bear­ ly segregated colleges and univer­ Kentucky ...... 8 was expected to consider interposi­ fitial, some consist of only three to ing on equalization attempts. Gov. sities. ve r;nembers, some are actively Louisiana ...... 12 James E. Folsom summoned the leg­ tion and legislation spelling out racial PUI'suing their subject, others have ~taryl and ...... - ...... 3 islature for Jan. 3 in a special session Georgia separation in connection with the ex­ :n appointed and are totally inac- Mississippi ...... 6 on reapportionment and constitution­ New legislation for preserving seg­ penditure of all funds earmarked for e. Missouri ...... -...... 7 al revision, at which time it may also regation in schools and parks was operation of schools and parks.. Concrete recommendations have North Carolina ...... 4 consider pro-segregation legislation expected to come before the General co Tennessee by come from most of the state-level Oklahoma ...... 11 including a "private school" plan. Assembly, meeting early in January. SouU\ Carolina ...... · . · · · · 5 Meantime a federal district court rul­ The parents of two white children :mmi~ion s, and much of the lcgisla­ Arkansas Tennessee ...... · · . · · 2 ing which implemented the u_ s. in what was reportedly the first ac­ (I ~ auned at circumvention has The state was awaiting a ruling Supreme Court decision in the At­ tion of its kind went into court in Ill Vi . In Texas . - ...... · · · · · · · · .11 01 ~e product of these groups. on the Hoxie school case in which the lanta public recreation case led to Nashville seeking admission of the ~· for example, the popularly Virginia ...... · . . · - · · · .14 ch local board is seeking a permanent opening of seven municipal golf (See INTERPOSITION, Page 2) 311 wn Gray Commission formulated West Virginia . .. - ...... · · · · · · · · .16 l-5... 1:5" ~ '-'• oys avs ool IY\ )li• wee: runs oltnv oen off Je ~ :5 PAGE 2~ANUARY 1956-SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS Tennessee Ends Year With Flurry of Action in School segregation in public schools,• NASHVILLE, Tenn. the number of Negro students who would want to enter white schools declared. "It is a problem that YEAR 1955, which started off at THE when all the barriers are removed. be worked out with time and a snail's pace as far as develop­ tience. It is important that the ments in the segregation-desegrega­ The spokesman said that sho':tly after the first Supreme Court rulmg get together and make plans to tion field go, ended in a flurry of legal, out the situation." school and community activity, indi­ he thought integration probably cating a busy year ahead. would come relatively quickly and High points of the last month: easily in counties which have a small In Nashville, parents of two white percentage o£ Negroes. children filed an amendment to a de­ "But this hasn't been the case. Some segregation suit in federal court, ask­ of the counties with small Negro pop­ ing that their children be admitted ulations are more resistant to integra­ to a Negro public school. (See "Legal tion than some of the counties with Action.") a high percentage of Negroes," he N as h v i ll e ' s superin tendent of said. schools, W. A. Bass, told Tennessee's He said he does not anticipate any public school superintendents at a appreciable integration in any of the meeting in Gatlinburg that they were four big metropolitan areas next fall. dodging the issue after they voted to NEG RO CAGERS PLAY study the desegregation problem for In Oak Ridge intel'!l'ation has not another year. (See "School Boards been discussed publicly for more and Schoolmen.") than a month. The last discussion A state official said racial integra­ came in early November and that tion "apparently is a long way off in concerned the basketball team. Tennessee's public schools." (See Since that time Negro players "School Boards and Schoolmen.") (three on the varsity at Oak Ridge The administrative staff of the Da­ high) have plaved two home games vidson County Board of Education recommended that the board appoint Principals in an amendment to an integration lawsuit in federal court at (a~ainst Powell Valley and Farra­ a bi-racial committee of 52 members Nashville, believed to be the first of its kind, are, from left, Richard Fleming gut). They did not play in a third game to study means of ending segregation Rempfer, Robert W. Rempfer and Jean Trudy Rempfer. Rempfer, a mathe­ al(ainst Norris because Anderson in the county public schools. matics professor at Fisk University, seeks court authority to enter his two An organization known as the Pro­ children in Negro public schools. County Board of Education has ~iven Southerners claimed a membership of a ruling that there will be no inte­ pated classrooms or athletic events 3,000 in Memphis and Shelby County. on the federal court docket at its It is anticipated that he will n ot (See "Community Action.") this school year. Norris is in Ander­ March term, unless other amend­ give his rulings at least until after the son County. ments are filed. first of the year. Oak Ridge has played only one ASKED ADI\-DSSION BEFORE MDfPIDS CASE APPEALED J!ame away from home so far and Mr. and Mrs. Rempfer asked the A verdict supporting the state of that aJ!ainst Elizabethton in which the Negro players were not used. city board of education three times Tennessee's "stairstep" plan for de­ ACCOUNTS FOR FUNDS last spring to permit their children to segregation of state colleges, rendered COMMISSION MAKEUP In accounting for about $4,fj0 attend Negro schools. They were by the federal district court in Mem­ In Au~ st, 1954, the Davidson dues collected in the Memphis turned down each time, and last J une Tennessee became the South's first phis Oct. 18, will be appealed. Countv (Nashville) Board of Educa­ Pyle said $513 has been deposl~ state in which white parents asked 10 the board deferred action on the Notice of appeal was filed with the tion adooted a resolution calline; for the Nntional Bank of Commem a federal court ruling in favor of their request until the board's instruction court, presided over by J udge Marion a bi-racial committee of school pa­ behalf of the countv heiadqtUBJrtm children attending Negro p u b 1 i c committee submits a report on end­ S. Boyd, on Dec. 5, by Ave Negro stu­ trons and educators to study means his name; approximately ing segregation in city schools. schools. dents seeking admission to Memphis to end sem-e~ation in the county pub­ been spent for car exoenses The Negro principals in their an­ State College. An amendment to an integration lic schools. Similar resolutions were May; between $600 and $700 has swer said that pending the formula­ suit already before Federal J udge El­ The case will be appealed to the passed bv the board in June and spent for printing leaflets and tion of a plan for implementing the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals at mer D. Davies, the petition was Au~st. 1955. cat ion blanks. signed by Robert W. Rempfer, 41, as­ high co u rt desegregation ruling Cincinnati, 0. On Dec. 1. the administrative staff Rempfer and his wife "should not be The balance, he said, "has sociate professor of mathematics at submitted a report of "Recommenda­ qoing for expenses such as Fisk University, and his wife, ~r­ permitted through experimental use tions Concerninct the Organization of of children of tender years and im­ halls for meetings, buying trude. Personnel for a Study of Desegree;a­ etc.... " They sought admission for their mature judgment, to impose their in­ tion" which the board has taken dividual and unrealistic sociological Pyle told reporters: "I can son, Richard Fleming Rempfer, to Nashville's city school superinten­ under advisement. The report su~­ opinions and prejudices upon those anvthinl:{ I need for expenses." Washington junior high school and dent told a meeting of Tennessee pub­ gesb a committee made up of 52 having the responsibility and duty of added that his expenses are their daughter, Jean Trudy Rempfer lic school superintendents they were members. including one Negro and and filed at national ...,. ... ,...... to Pearl elementary school. school administration. dodging the issue after they voted to two white staff members; five Negro "Defendants reaffirm their avowed Increasing travel demands, ht Rempfer, a native of South Da­ study the problem of "desegregation" and five white orincipals (each race policy to establish and operate a pub­ dared, have made it necessary kota, explained to SoUTKERN ScHooL for another year. orovidinct one from a hil(h school); him to buy a new car. The new NEWs that the above schools are no lic school system within constitutional Ave Nem-o and four white teachers; best "My board is in federal court on is a "~reen and white Buick farther than three blocks from their boundaries for the interests of 1!' Negro and 15 white parents. all the students, white and colored this question now," W. A. Bass told Money for the ourchase, Pylt home while the white schools the the city and county superintendents The staff reoort included a list of came from "a small personal bank children now attend are from one and alike, rather than for the indulgence of personal prejudices and sociologi­ in Gatlinburg at the final session of white and Negro principals and count" and he is tradin~ in his a quarter to one and a half miles their four-day annual work confer­ teachers to aid the board in selecting car, a 1946 Ford, on the deal. away. cal experimentation which would de­ lay or prevent the formulation of an ence. members o£ the committee. It includ­ The Rempfer family lives across the "We're entitled to your thinking. ed also a list of citizens-considered MEMBERSHIP SAID UP street from the Fisk campus. orderly plan," the answer said. Sherrill declared there has In Anderson County's four-year­ We need the benefit of your judgment "outstanding people" in the commu­ ... I might as well have stayed home nities of various schools. This list was incrE'I'ISe in membership in AT'l'ENDED MIXED SCHOOL old integration lawsuit both the and Shelby County, but Rempfer pointed out that last year plaintiffs and defendants are wait­ ... What are the possible courses? compiled from 276 names submitted "We're like ducks sitting on a pond. by principals in the system. dues for the national he:ldQii11111!1:1 Jean, then a fifth grade student. at­ ing for Judge Robert L. Taylor of from the Memphis area have tended an integrated private school Knoxville to rule on motions filed by No one is giving us any advice and Said J . E. Moss, county school su­ counsel in this matter. What is my perintendent: "These are people who ccived. operated by Fisk University for chil­ both sides Dec. 5. Pyle forecasts a membenhlo dren of its staff and others. However, The Negro plaintiffs filed a mo­ board going to say when I get back have been recommended to us by the Memnhis and Shelbv Countvof,v.•· • ~""­ tion for a final decree in the case home and report that the council just principals of our schools. No one has this year the Fisk school goes only (See TENNESSEE, Pap 1) to the third grade. which would contain provisions for voted to continue the study for an­ been placed on the list because of his other year?" Richard, he said, last year attended immediate integration. position. We asked for the names of Later Bass told newsmen he had people with children in school for an all-white private school. where he The defendants responded with a been giving considerable thought to was a sixth grade student. motion for dismissal of the entire law­ they are the ones who will be most Interposition the segregation problem, bu t that he vitally concerned." "Some of the children Jean went to suit on the grounds that the five stu­ was not ready to discuss any conclu­ (Continued £rom Page 1) school with are now at Pearl elemen­ dents on whose behalf the case was sions. Reaction o£ the board members to children to a Negro schooL In Ill tary school and one or two are at filed are no longer in the school sys­ the recommendation was generally terview an unnamed Washington junior high. So this is tem. INTEGRATION 'WAY OFF' favorable except for question on the school official said racial inbtllll.._ not an untried thing so far as we are (They have all either graduated or In Nashville Associated Press staff committee's size. "apparently is a long way concerned," Rempfer said.. left schooL) writer John A. Harris reported that Board member Ferris Bailey, a the state. The original suit was filed Sept. 23 a state official, who asked his name Nashville attorney, suggested the MAY DJS~HSS BOTH Texas by relatives of Negro children seek­ be withheld, said racial integration possibility of having teachers and In an otherwise quiet month ing admission Cor them to Nashville's The judge's remarks seemed to in­ "apparently is a long way off" in Ten­ principals meet as one group. parents was filed in Wichita Falls by East Junior and Senior histh schools dicate he will reject both motions and nessee's public schools. in another. and then pool their re­ atlorneys seeking "nrnts:uuu and Glenn and Kirkpatrick elemen­ leave the case as it is-with a supple­ According to Harris the official said sults for final decision. ~roes to an elementary tary schools. mental order on the books calling for he thinks there will be "very little" Houston, which has the integration with no deadlines. Another board member proposed PRINCIPALS ANSWER integration in the school year begin­ that the committee be divided into est school district, it was uJd New facts which came out at the ning next fall. subcommittees, each of which would lhat school staff meetings wo Isaiah Suggs, principal of Washing­ hearing: ton junior high school. and W. E. Tur­ He believes there are two major be assigned to work on specific prob­ desegregated. ner J r., principal of P earl elementary 1) The county's citizen committee reasons for the slow reaction by local lems. Virginia school. both Negroes, said Dec. 15 in studying integration has set a "Feb­ authorities to the high court order: As Virginians discussed an answer to the amendment that in ruary or March" deadline for making 1) "County boards are reluctant to tion, the state looked toward refusing admittance to the Rempfer recommendations to the school board. act because they don't want to be the erendum J an. 9 on whether to children to the Negro schools they 2) Both sides now agree the case first in the state to approve integra­ the constitution to pennit were "actin~ pursuant to instruc­ d o e s not pertain to elementary tion, and some board officials have grants to children att,enolmg In an interview in Norfolk, V:t., tions" from W. A. Bass, city school schools. There is a difference of opin­ indicated they would resign rather schools. The grants would Tennessee's Sen. Estes Kefauver superintendent, and in accordance ion about the high schools. The plain­ than approve it. where parents preferred "'"'...eo"" ~"' with the policy of the city board of tiffs say integration should include 2) "Many Negroes were ... sur­ twice candidate for the Democrati~ nomination for President, stressed private schools to education for the current school year. all high schools while the defendants prised at the amount of opposition, schools. Bass and all members of the board, hold it applies only to Clinton high and apparently the average Negro tha~ the Supreme Court ruling West Virginia alonst with three princioals of the East school, since that was the only school family is not now pushing for any agrunst enforced segregation in the immediate change." public schools is the "law of the land." Mercer, Summers and Nashville white schools, are also de­ named in the original lawsuit, and county school authorities quit fendants in the original integration the five particular students. ~e added th~t it would be "tragic" IMPROVING FACILITIES if of a court battle and ajll'eed to suit. In the hearing Dec. 6, J udge Taylor the Souths public schools were The official added that some coun­ "destroyed or damaged" in efforts to segregate their schools. This left Filing of answers by Su~ and allowed 15 mor e days for attorneys ties are moving to improve Negro circumvent the ruling. six of the state's 55 counties Turner placed the suit "at full issue" to file additional briefs on both mo­ are not in the process of school facilities, apparently in the be­ "The Supreme Court was unani­ and paved the way for the case's call tions. lief that this would tend to reduce tion. The NAACP said court mous in its opinion against enforced were planned in the rerna.ininl t M I d p SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS-JANUARY 1956-PAGE 3 ; ary an arents Hold Children Out, Receive Court Summons BAI:TIMORE, Md. mg four plaintiffs are N . ~o SETS OF Baltunore County school students who liv .~o high In the second case Mr and Mrs "The Board of Education of Alle­ not want to be presented as an ex­ white parents have been haled miles of a white sch e .w1thin three 1 ~oland Howard had 'kept their tw~ gany County, Maryland, in accord­ ample of what can or should be done into Juvenile. Co~rt because they but go six miles to aN': ~n ~berdeen gnls, aged 7 and 8, out of the inte­ ance with the decision of the Su­ about integration. The counly met its have kept thetr ch1ldren out of ra- in Havre de Grace Thgr ~tghh school grated Cockeysville school since the preme Court on segregated schools own special situation in the way that · Jl · ed public sch 1s · · e SUJ as been CJa y tniX • oo · gJVen a docket number-8615 Civi.l opening day. Judge Gontrum on Dec. and the policy as announced by the seemed best for Allegany, he said.. Mr. and Mrs. Oliver T. Shock, who but no hearing tim h b - 15 heard their statement that they State Board of Education has gone refused to send a son and daughter S h . e as een set. did not intend to send the children on record as of July 12, 1955 to pro­ to the integrated Hereford Junior- h c ool offiCJals in Harford County to the school. The judge's only action ceed as quickly as possible with the SenJor High School (928 white stu- a~e bnot commented directly on the after the hearing was to instruct the su1t., ut Ernest Volkhart ch · program. dents, 28 N egroes) , were given 10 of the citi , •. atrman court's probation department to file "In many situations it will be pos­ days to comply with Maryland's corn- grou t ze~ ~segregation study ~tions ag~t the Howards, charg­ pulsory school attendance law and ed P Je up ·l he county board of mg_ them w1th creating a condition sible to accommodate all who wish to chose instead to move to Florida. Mr. ti uca on, sru. t at four desegrega­ which had brought their children into attend their neighborhood school, both elementary and high. In a few The superintendent of Anne Arun­ and Mrs. Roland Howard, whose two reon ~b~,omrruttees would be ready to Juvenile Court. Mrs. Howard has del County schools, Dr. Da' 1d S. Jen­ daughters have been absent from the wf:ch th b%oJe very long," after been reported as telling a visiting areas the schools are presently over­ crowded and to take In a large num­ kins, agreed in mid-December to Cockeysville elementary school (522 t .ts e group would hammer teacher that the family would move make an immediate study of a special white pupils, 20 Negro) are facing ~~ 1 proposed desegregation plan. to Vermont, if necessary to avoid ber of children now could only re­ sult in more overcrowding. There­ situation which has arisen at the a technical charge after a'preliminary d e .;~nt a workable plan that mixed classes. ' Meade Heights school which serves court hearing. The Howards have in- ~~sn.. ave to be changed," Volkart fore, if the board of education, for Howard works for the county high­ any reason, feels it wise to delay or families stationed near Fort Meade. dicated a desire to move to Vermont f ' ~d one which doesn't inter- The school, built for 390 white stu­ .. , (See "Legal Action") · ere With orderly operations of the way maintenance department, and limit admission to certain schools :-· • · schools." thus both cases involve county em­ during the transition period, it re­ dents but currenUy housing 600, for­ The influence of integrated military ployes. serves the right to do so. merly had the use of temporary mili­ \, installations on the Maryland school ST. MARY'S SUIT tary luildings for overfiow classroom "However, we are attempting to spac£-. The military facilities were :.1 scene is becoming more pronounced. give the parents of all Carver and The demands of Negro military per­ Another impending law sult in­ ~)ven up when the Defense Depal't­ volves an overcrowded Negro school Lincoln children the opportunity to ment ordered integration of all post sonnel to have their children admit­ express preference for the school they ted to nearby white schools rather in St. Mary's County that seeks the f"hools. use of a community building at the wish their children to attend in than transported to Negro schools led 1955-56 ... In November the PTA of the Meade to partial desegregation in Ceci.l Patuxent Naval Air Station. Under Heithts school wrote to the Anne County this fall and to the newly filed Defense Department orders t h e "A study of these preferences will Arundel Board of Education's deseg­ ~tl law suit in Harford County. In St. building would have to be used on an In response to an inquiry on be­ determine whether all requests can be regation study group urging the use Mary's County Negro parents are ~teg;rate d basis. NAACP lawyers said half of SotrrHERN ScHooL NEWs, the granted this year. Likewise, it will of military facilities on an integrated preparing to bring sult to force the m mid-December that they might be superintendent of schools in Alle­ give the school principals an opportu­ basis to relieve overcrowding. It was use of a building at the Patuxent Na- ready to file suit on behalf of about gany County has given a special re­ nity to make whatever plans are nec­ understood at the time that the Anne ( val Air Station on an integrated basis 30 pupils in a "couple of weeks." port on integration procedures which essary for the changing enroll­ Arundel Board of Education was not •· to relieve the overcrowding at a Ne- The cases in Baltimore County of is of interest because Allegany has ments ..." likely to make any move toward in­ 1 gro county school. In Anne Arundel white parents who have kept their moved closer to completely non-seg­ The county newspapers carried the tegration until after it had heard from children out of school because of in­ regated schooling than any other announcement that the question­ its desegregation study group. But in 1 County the reverse situation has de- veloped: White military personnel tegration have been heard by Judge place in Maryland. In one of the coun­ naires were being sent to Negro par­ December the Fort Meade post com­ I-. have urged that buildings at Fort John B. Gontrum in the county's Ju­ ty's major towns, all of the Negro ents, and also the subsequent news mander, Col. Julian B. Lindsey, in­ Meade be used on an integrated basis venile Court. Judge Gontrum gave pupils have been admitted to for­ that the majority expressed a pref­ vited county school officials to meet to relieve overcrowding at a white Mr. and Mrs. Oliver T. Shock 10 merly all-white schools and the Ne­ erence for schools nearest their with him and offered them classroom county school. (See "School Boards days to fallow one of three courses: gro school has been shut down. homes. The only somewhat surpris­ facilities on the post, with the under­ and Schoolmen.") send their children to the integrated However, the Allegany situation is ing development was in Frostburg. standing that they could not be Hereford school, enter them in a pri­ not typical of conditions in the state opened solely to white children. The BF.SISTANCE STIFFENING vate school or move to a location as a whole. Allegany, in western INTEGRATION COMPLETE fact that Supt. J enkins agreed to Resistance to integration appears to where the children could attend an Maryland, has the smallest number study the proposition is an indication Webster wrote: "When the oppor­ that the request of the Meade Heights be stiffening in Montgomery County, all-white school. If they failed to com­ of Negro school children in the state, tunity was presented to the Negro where desegregation was begun this ply, they would face a charge, similar with the exception of neighboring PTA may be considered apart from parents of Frostburg, I anticipated the countywide study of desegrega­ faR In the "down-county" Washing- to a neglect charge, of causing a child Garrett County which has none at all. that the [27) junior-senior high tion. ton suburban half of the county but to be brought into Juveni.le Court. Negro pupils in Allegany number school students would want to attend w ' is yet to come 'to the more rural and On Dec. 3, after the 10 days were only 254, which is less than two per Beall high school [the white facility While the Maryland Congress of more heavily Negro "up-county" up, the Shocks left by car for Flor­ cent of the total county school popu­ in Frostburg), thereby avoiding the PTAs is on record as favoring com­ ~ area. A board of education hearing of ida, with Shock telling the press that lation. Last year under segregation 11-mile bus trip both morning and pliance With the Supreme Court de­ the pro-segregation side of an argu­ "southerners will stick together on there were two Negro schools in the afternoon to Cumberland's Carver cision and as standing ready to help ment over the assignment of teach­ this thing" and that "the southern county; one was the small (35 pu­ high school. I was not sure that all carry out the policies of the State ers brought out about 300 persons, colored man knows his place." A na­ pils) Lincoln elementary school only of the elementary children would Board of Education, the Meade including representatives of two quite tive of Maryland and a carpenter for two years old in Frostburg, and the want to leave their new Lincoln Heights PTA is the first white school recently organized groups: the Mont­ the county government, Shock had other was Carver high school in school since it is almost within group to seek an integrated policy gomery County Chapter of the pro­ been a frequent attendant at meet­ Cumberland, which accommodated shadow of the Beall [white] elemen­ for its own school. The children at segregationist Mary 1 and Petition ings of the anti-integration Maryland elementary and secondary pupils. tary school. However, they did desire the Meade Heights school are mainly Committee and a smaller group Petition Committee and was repre­ Ralph R. Webster, Allegany school to make the move and integration is sons and daughters of Army person­ known as We, The People. (See sented by the committee's legal coun­ superintendent, reported: "At the complete in Frostburg." nel. "Community Action.") sel. He had offered to provide trans­ present time, we have 151 [Negro] With all of Frostburg's 62 Negro In view of the rural orientation of portation for his children to attend a students enrolled in 13 formerly all­ pupils enrolled in formerly white iy :S the "up-country" area, the most sig­ county school which has no Negroes white schools. In 18 other school dis­ schools, the Negro facility has been i• nlflcant statement was probably that or to board his children in some all­ tricts there are no colored r esidents, closed and its one Negro teacher ab­ .. sl of the Montgomery County Fann Bu­ white section of the county, but coun­ leaving only one school where Negro sorbed by the Carver high school in th •• reau, which repeated its call, made ty school officials were firm in their children were not admitted, and that Cumberland. ol earlier this year, for a desegregation unwiUingness to have a precedent set was due to an existing overcrowded c , "It is difficult to appraise accurately The Montgomery County Board of 0 program that would start in the kin­ which would circumvent the present condition." all of the facts that may have entered ol dergartens and be spread over a 13- school district and transportation Education has endorsed plans to study u I into the apparent smooth process of ~~ year period. Speaking for the Farm policies. PUBLIC KEPT INFORMED the functions and scope of its junior integration in Allegany County," college program. The study is only '" Bureau, 0. W. Anderson was quoted The county board of education set lo ~ SOCIAL SIDE BIT Webster reported. Among the factors partly related to race relations, since in the county press as saying, "If in­ the pattern in the situation which which he said had "some ameliorat­ Ar tegration comes suddenly, it will be Both Mr. and Mrs. Shock expressed n special commission on higher edu­ •I· "developed naturally," Webster said, ing influence" were the small per­ U· resisted wlth every force at our com­ particular opposition to the social side and the public was kept informed at cation, appointed by Gov. McKeldin, :3 rentage of Negro children involved has urged immediate expansion of mand, unless Negro children and of school integration, citing the fact each stage of the proceedings. The iu the change, the county's previous •d junior college facilities in Maryland 10 teachers are spread uniformly over that children ate at the same table, method followed was that of having experience with joint meetings of •P used the same lavatories and "even to meet the coming increased demand •s :91 the entire school system, or at least the school superintendent write to all white and Negro teachers, the racially ol ·· to a point where there will be no took showers together." By the middle parents of Negro school children ask­ for college educations. Montgomery .. , mixed public recreation program in is one of the few counties in Maryland more than 10 per cent of either in of December Shock was back at his ing whether they preferred in the fall the principal city of Cumberland and ,.\P any up-county white school." county carpentry job, but Mrs. Shock to have their children enrolled at Lin­ now offering a junior college curricu­ 1hc good reputation which the local lum, and until this fall had both a rd and the two children, 12-year-old coln, Carver or a "neighborhood or Negro population has among many ev white and Negro junior college. !ft Flora and 15-year-old Oliver Jr., district school." The covering letter se,ID'D ents of the white community. JSI were still away. over Webster's signature read: As part of its "down-county" moved til Webster added that Allegany does : h toward integration this fall, the nf Montgomery County Board of Edu­ Av cation merged the Carver Junior Col­ Vl Regional Teachers' Salaries lege with the Montgomery Junior "" and Qualifications College. Carver last year had only a ,Je., The suit filed by NAACP lawyers Teachers• QuailllcaUoM Average Salary Teachers Teachers half dozen evening students taught ds tl' !\"umber of Pereentages wlth De&T«S Dill- l nte- s In federal district court late in No­ Teachers of Teachers placed ,rnted by teachers regularly employed in vember is on behalf of Stephen WhJic Nel{ro day schools. School officials had ex­ 1:5 ·ta Moore Jr. and 20 other Negro pupils Stale White Negro While Negro Ph.D. M.A. B.A. None Ph.D. M.A. B.A. None Wh Ng Wh N~r pected these six Negro students and "' versus the members of the Harford perhaps six or nine more to enroll ,.,iCharlotte, N.C. ture we can submit a report which not undertaking to discharge any else in education in North Carolina for Research in Social Science. Charles Moss, Executive Editor, will strengthen the assurance of the duties for the state, outside of Mont­ at this particular moment in our his­ University of N.C. Nashville Benner, Nashville, Tenn. preservation of our public schools, gomery. tory is to close ranks, and to pre­ Harvie Branscomb, Chancellor. Van- Don Shoemaker, Exec. Director Sou. Education Reporting Serviee and yet not require any child of any sent a united front on the preserva­ derbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. race to be forced to attend a mixed SUIT Al'tiENDED tion of our public schools. We owe Thomas R. Waring, Editor, Chtrlts- Virginius Dabney, Editor, Richmond ton News & Courier, Charleston, school against his will" But on Dec. 16, Judge Hayes per­ this to our children ... We owe it Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Va. S. C. mitted the Negroes, suing to enter to our tradition, and we owe it to our STATES STUDIED white schools, to amend the suit by future." Coleman A. Harwell, Editor, Nash· Henry I. Willett, Superintendent of This part of the report followed a adding a new section. The addendum ville Tennessean, Nashville. Tenn. Schools, Richmond, Va. statement that the committee's staff, alleges that the county school board Henry H. Hill, President, George P. B. Young Sr., Publisher, Nonoll State Rep. W. W. Taylor Jr. and and county school superintendent Peabody College. Nashville, Tenn. Journal & Guide. Norfolk, Ve. Thomas Ellis, had made "detailed are officers of the state of North Car­ ~ reports" on studies they conducted olina. Patrick McCauley, Assistant to the Executive Director ~" of conditions in Georgia, Mississippi, The Negroes seek an in,junction to CORRESPONDENTS lit~ MISSOURI Louisiana and Virginia. prevent segregation in the county ALABAMA ~~ Pearsall said the report will not be schools and also a ruling that the William H. McDonald, Editorial Robert Lesch, Editorial Writer, St. James P. Sifford, school superin­ f.ll:=ll!ll ready until after the first of the year. state's school segregation law is un­ Writer, Montgomery Advertiser louis Post-Dispatch tendent of Stanly County, received ;e.L~ Top officials say the report almost constitutional. The latter charge has ARKANSAS (~ certainly will require some type of focused unusual attention on the a petition bearing the names of 24 NORTH CAROLINA Negro parents asking that their chil­ Thomas D. Davis, Asst. City Editor, ~S'::l legislation. case, considered a key one in North Jay Jenkins, Raleigh Bureau dren be allowed to attend a white Arlcensas Ga1ette a:t:~i Atty. Gen. William B. Rodman was Carolina. Judge Hayes gave the at­ Chief, Charlotte Observer school. Sifford said the board will DELAWARE cl(tl: among those who speculated that a torney for the schools until Jan. 20 !IliaCI special session will be held. "I think consider the petition at its next reg­ William P. Frank, Staff Writer, OKLAHOMA to file an answer to the amended ~-ia will suit. ular meeting. Negro signers live in Wilmington News Leonard Jackson, Staff Writer, it probably be held before the L'Uit next school term," he said. the New London and Richfield sec­ DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Olclehome City O~ahomtn·Timts tion. They seek to have children ad­ Jeanne Roger5, Education Writer. SOUTH CAROLINA mitted to the all-white New London Washington Post & Times Herald school W. D. Workman Jr., Spedal Cor· LEGISLATIVE ACTION · FLORIDA The Halifax C~unty Chapter of respondent, Columbia, S. C. ' f " .,.)•' ;.p~· Bert Collier, Staff Writer, Miami the NAACP asked the county board Herald TENNESSEE It is expected special of education to integrate the races in that the ses­ GEORGIA James Elliott, Staff Writer, Nesl>. sion, if one is held, will be in June the public schools and set September Gov. Hodges, in a statewide tele­ Joseph B. Pa rham, Editor, The ville Banner or July, 1956. State Democratic pri­ vision and radio "Report to the Peo­ of next year as the target date. Hali­ ~!rill fax's population is 56.51 per cent Ne­ Macon News maries, the winners of which are as­ ple," said "prominent colored lead­ Wallace Westfeldt, Steff Writer, ~Q KENTUCKY sured of office, will be held in May er]' are among the many North Car­ gro. The board referred the request Nashville Tenneuean D!l£1 and among the candidates is ex­ olinians who are supporting what he to the county advisory committee. Weldon James, Editorial Writer, iiqll pected to be Gov. Hodges seeking re­ called his "voluntary separate school Afterwards, the Rev. F . L Bullock, louisville Courier-Journal TEXAS Cl::jtl election. Thus a session before May attendance plan." He is convinced, Negro member of the advisory com­ LOUISIANA Richard M. Morehead, Autiin Bu­ is counted unlikely. he said, the plan "is the best ap­ mittee, told the board he thought leo Adde, Editorial Writer, New reau, Dallas News "10 to 15 years" will be required to Orleans Item proach" because it is based on the VIRGINIA - belief that "in the interest of keep­ put desegregation into effect in Hal­ MARYLAND ing our public schools" the different ifax. Edgar L Jones, Editorial Writer, Overton Jones, Editorial Writer, races "of their own free choice, will Negro representatives of the Ra­ Baltimore Evening Sun Richmond Times.Dispatch leigh Citizens Association asked the attend their own schools." MISSISSIPPI WEST VIRGINIA Later at a press conference he had Raleigh school board to name a com­ mittee made up of a cross-section of Kenneth Toler, Mississippi Bureau. Frank A. Knight, Editor, Charles­ a comment on the Patriots of North ton Gazette Carolina, Inc., an organization claim­ the city's population for the purpose Memphis Commerciei·Appeal A three-judge federal court in ing upwards of 20,000 members of proposin~ "immediate" steps MAIL ADDRESS Richmond sent back to North Caro­ toward compllance "vith the deseg­ lina a suit by Negroes seeking to which has as its objective "to main'­ P.O. Box biSb. Adlan Station. Nashville 6, Tenn. tain the purity and culture of the regation decree. The board took the Return Postage Guaranteed gain admission to the schools in request under advisement. McDowell County. The court held white race and Anglo-Saxon insti­ tutions." that the Negroes had not exhausted their remedies in the state courts The governor was asked to com­ STUDENTS FAVOR 'EQUALITY' ment by W. E. Homer, publisher of and another portion of the decision Without a dissenting vote, the Stu­ was interpreted here as meaning the Sanford Herald, who said the dent Legislature at Woman's College Patriots-in his county, normally a "class action" is not involved. In adopted a resolution "favoring other words, each suit will have to Democratic stronghold-are headed The first Negro student to apply equality in admission policies and The Rev. W. Wilbur ButcbiDI. by a Republican. be tried separately for each pupil. !or admission to a Baptist college use of facilities to all students, re­ pastor of the First Baptist Cb~~ The state remedy set up by the "I think, if properly directed [the m the state, after the Baptist State gardless of race." Twenty-four stu­ Sanford, resigned {rom the ;)iiiii'"" 1955 General Assembly provides that Patriots] can be quite a force for Convention left the question to the dents favored the resolution, none Board of Education's advisory c«ll~ local boards have complete authority good in this problem-and I have no individual college boards of trustees opposed it, but five abstained from mittee on segregation becaust.. over the assignment and enrollment evidence it is not properly directed. (SoUTHERN ScHooL NEws, December, voting. said, "It is my personal convidial After all, they do have a very strong 1955) was John W. Logan of Route that there is IitUe I could do, ol• of pupils. Pupils who appeal from the Presented by the campus Political 10 decisions of such boards have the organization [the NAACP] with a 2, Forest City, who applied for ad­ Affairs Committee, the resolution in constructive nature, in contiouinl opportunity to go directly into Su­ well organized campaign on the oth­ mission to Gardner-Webb Junior its preamble said, "It is believed that seT\•e as a member of the ~ perior Court. er side. U moderately handled, it College. Logan said he would not at­ desegregation will and should be ac­ tee." His resignation came one can render valuable service." The tempt "forcible admission" and that complished, and because it is also after newspapers reported the j GOLF INCIDENT governor added he was not in favor he was applying because the college believed that the aim of equal op­ ganization of a county chapter. In Greensboro, after six Negro men of extremes on either side of the was so much nearer than the nearest portunity for all cannot be achieved Patriots, Inc., ardent pro-~tidl were arrested and charged with tres­ question. Negro college. A committee of trus­ under the existing educational sys­ group. The chairman of the advis01'1 passing when they played golf on Dec. tees will recommend what action to tem." committee, Ralph Monger Jr. and J)To!. 7 at the Gillespie Park Golf Course 'PROCEED WITH PROBLEMS' take in February. Meanwhile the Subsequently, the faculty mem­ J. H. Byerly, a member, accepted · City Council voted Dec. 19 to cancei In a speech to school superintend­ Trinity Baptist Church, located' near flees in the new chapter. ents in Durham, Hodges said they bers of Woman's College by a 95-25 the lease on the course and sell it to the college, announced it will with­ Besides organizing Patriot ~P" private interests. About half of the should not let the race question de­ hold financial suppo1·t from Gardner­ vote adopted a resolution sayin~ ter them from proceeding with other they beHeve qualified students "o£ ters in Lee and Alamance coun eJ. 75-acre tract is city land and the re­ Webb if Logan is admitted. Logan supporters of the organization at· mainder is owned by the school school problems, such as building told college officials he would be a any race" may be incorporated sat­ and teacher needs. isfactorily into classrooms of the nounccd plans for a statewide melD· board. Council voted also to close the day student if admitted. bership drive. city-owned Nocho Park (Negro) Golf At the same meeting, U. S. Sen. consolidated University of NorUt Trustees of Chowan College in Carolina. One part of the resolution The N. C. Council of Human::; Course and convert the land into an Sam J. Ervin said he favored federal ~urfreesboro, a 100-year-old Bap­ extension of the city dump. aid to schools. He said the present said: "We are confident that the uni­ lions sponsored a meeting "to . t. l ~t-supported junior college, unan­ 1--'ll'' ""' Ernest Edwards, professional at national shortage of 182,000 teachers versity will continue in its tradition together representatives of 1)1;61 j ~ unously passed a resolution saying of giving educational leadership to Gillespie, said the six were denied ad­ and 250.000 classrooms cannot be Negroes will not be admitted. The terracial groups for an ex~m; f~. mission when they attempted to pay met "unless the federal government action came in a resolution which the state by showing that the prob­ ideas and experiences" in ~e £0(11 ' greens fees. He told them club mem­ will release some of its tax sources said, in part, "Chowan College unites lems associated with desegregation Point YMCA Dec. 10. SixtY· bership is required. The six left their for the use of state and local govern­ social training and academic devel­ can be met intelligently and with persons heard Thomas A. v~ sa: money at the clubhouse and went out ments." o?ment and these two cannot be good feeling; and to this end, we director of adult education JJl ,_ and played nine holes. Person County Rep. B. I. Satter­ divorced. . . . We believe in and pledge our efforts to meeting our Baltimore public schools, spe~ The course now up for sale was field told an audience of 60 persons teach the principles of the Christian professional responsibilities in order that city's experiences in d leased from the city by a private in Durham, "The only difference be­ home. Chowan students therefore that the university may better serve gating itS schools. Communities rfl"' corporation for $1 a year and was tween the NAACP and the governor must be of the social range to be ac­ all people of the state." Philosophy resented included Charlotte, G~ started by the WPA in 1940. It was and the Advisory Committee is the boro, High Point, Raleigh and cepted in the homes of our com­ Professor Warren Ashby presented Bill. completed with a $2,000 city appro- NAACP would like to see the schools munity." the resolution. Hill in North Carolina and Rock S.C. SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS-JANUARY 1956-PAGE 5 ~~ s. c. Legislator Plans Resolution to ReaffiriD Sovereignty COLUMBIA, S. C. scrib_ed in the Constitution itself." His CJIOOL SEGREGATION developments in survey of the organization of the equally strong statements from other pu':>hc statement of his proposed reso­ school system of the district, and of students who considered the dean's S South Carolina during the month luhon quoted from the "Farewell of December focused attention on the the community served by its schools, talk to have been improper and ill­ Address" in whi~ George Washing­ by competent technical consultants advised, especially by virtue of its forthcoming annual session of the ton '~a~ed agamst changing the state legislature, which convenes Jan. in the fields of education and sociol­ delivery in the course of a train.ing Consbtulion by usurpation. Such program in which he participated 10 and which will be faced with sev- ogy and such other fields as may be change, Washington said, "is the cus­ found appropriate.... " officially as dean of the school of ~ era! important decisions growing out tomary weapon by which free gov­ of the racial problem (see "Legisla­ It is such a survey that the Sum­ education. ernments are destroyed." merton board now plans to have tive Action"). Faculty sentiment likewise was One legislator already has an­ 'HALT ENCROACHMENT' arranged through the Gressette divided over the matter, but there Committee. Earlier plans have been nounced his intention of seeking a "II we are to preserve our form of were no public statements on the government," Rogers said "we must retarded by the confusion stemming subject. The daily press of the state positive reaffirmation of state sov­ from Rogers' resignation. erl'ignty by the General Assembly, halt this federal encroac~ent upon did not devote much editorial com­ • along with a declaration that the thE:_ rights of states. I hope my fellow ment to the affair, but most editorial state's citizens and officials owe their legislators and fellow citizens will expressions generally endorsed the responsibility to South Carolina rath­ support this effort to have South Car­ action of the Board of Trustees in its er than to the United States in mat­ olina call a halt to such encroach­ decision not to renew Dr. Travel­ stead's contract. ters of public education. ment. Furthermore, we must reassure Gov. George Bell Timmerman Jr., The legislature also will have be­ our public school officials and trustees in response to a National Security fore it recommendations that state that their responsibility in the field Committee appeal for help in stim­ ~ appropriations spell out racial separa­ of public education is to the state ulating enlistments: tion in connection with all sums ear­ rather than to the federal sover­ "There are no responsible parents eignty." ,~ marked for the operation o( public who would encourage their sons to Federal Judge Ashton H. Williams The Ways and Means Committee of schools and of state parks. Meanwhile, choose a bad environment, and there has set Feb. 6 for hearing the suit ~ the state's Special School Committee the House of Representatives which DEAN TRAVELSTEAD are few young men of ability who brought by Charleston Negroes seek­ is drafting its version of the 'general !Q bas issUed its third interim report Fired would voluntarily choose racial mix­ ing admission to Edisto Beach State appropriations bill for the fiscal year ing in our armed forces as a career ( ~ on its continuing surveillance of the their lawful authority to regulate Park (Etta Clark, et al., v. S. C. Fo-r­ segregation question, and conceivably 1956-57, gives every indication of fol­ (or even a short time. So long as our and administer the schools." estry Commission). The date was set may have specific recommendations lowing a recommendation that re­ basic training installations are used during a conference of Judge Wil­ for legislative steps. The report does quirements for racially separate 3 MAIN OBJECTIVES as sociological camps for compulsory liams with attorneys for both sides. not embrace any such recommenda- schools and state parks be further Elsewhere, in describing the three racial mixing, it is reasonable to ex­ This latest development does away litil tlons, but it does emphasize the strengthened. The recommendation main objectives of the state with re­ pect a continued lack of voluntary with an earlier recommendation by 1 l, state's determination to interpose its for such action came from the State spect to school problems, the com­ enlistments and a continued lessen­ Judge Williams that the matter be sovereignty between local school of­ Budget and Control Board, an agen­ mittee said that a major purpose ing of morale and esprit de corps in heard by the State Supreme Court ficials and the federal judiciary. cy headed by the governor and in­ was "to throw about these [school] our armed forces. The officials of no before coming into the federal courts. The Special School Committee, cluding several top state officials. officials the cloak of the sovereignty other country in the world are so Since that time, the U. S. Supreme generally known as the "Gressette The board's report, which serves of the state to protect them from in­ naive as to employ racial integration Court has upheld a Maryland case Committee" (after its chainnan, State as the framework for the state ap­ terference in the performance of among military personnel." decision holding park segregation Sen. L. Marion Gressette of Calhoun propriations bill, suggests that appro­ their duties and to shield them from Former Rep. Hugo S. Sims Jr., of unconstitutional. County), is being called on to assist priations of state aid for teachers' sal­ ill-advised court action as they work the Second Congressional District: the Summerton school trustees in ar- aries, superviSIOn and overhead to further the cause of better edu­ "The solution to the [segregation] ranging for a survey of both school maintenance and operation, schooi cation." problem will not come !rom the reac­ v r and community factors in the Clar­ lunch operation, and for school build­ The other two objectives listed in tionary or radical, but from those ~ people who like to live in a spirit of s endon County district where South ing embody the restriction "for ra­ the committee report were the ~ Carolina's school segregation case cially segregated schools only." A strengthening of authority vested in good will with members of another I similar restriction would be placed race and are willing to sit down to­ ) ••a arose. local school boards and officials, and ! about the appropriation for South the improvement of education op­ gether and talk about the problem Citizens Councils continued to :· Carolina's state parks. (A lawsuit, portunities for all children. regard­ . . . if Negro leaders keep trying grow in South Carolina during De­ ) Etta Clark et al v. S.C. Forestry Com­ less of race. to push integration, the public school cember, with several new organiza­ e system will be abolished." It mission, is now pending in an effort The interim report concludes with tions being formed and a number of D to compel admission of Negroes to Atty. Gen. T. C. Callison: "If our existing councils securing state d this statement: •· the Edisto Beach State Park in own people were agitating the strife charters. Among new Citizens Coun­ II Charleston County). "We will not recommend any course of action or legislative enact­ which is now going on, we could be cils are those at St. Andrew's Parish c more patient, but when it comes in Charleston County, Hi-Delpha in n Rep. Joseph 0. Rogers Jr., a Man­ ment which will force white children .. to attend schools established for Ne­ from without by meddlers who are Darlington County, St. George in J. ning attorney now beginning his sec­ playing directly into the hands of Dorchester County, and Allendale in w ond year as a member of the House gro children or require Negro chil­ dren to attend schools established communism, I am afraid that our Allendale County. I· of Representatives !rom Clarendon patience may become exhausted and At a meeting of the statewide di­ County, is drafting a resolution which South Carolina's Special School for white children." Committee, established four years when that happens, God knows what rectors of the Association of Cit­ the results will be." I~IIIIIIIIIJIIJIIIII!I III I I III II I I I ago to deal with segregation prob­ 1\IAY SUGGEST ACTION izens Councils of South Carolina, S. lems posed by federal court de­ No legislative pl"Oposals are incor­ U. S. Sen. Strom Thurmond: "So E. Rogers of Summerton was named A Solid Front for the cisions, has disagreed that the Su­ porated in the third interim report, long as we have unity and strong temporary treasurer. Micah Jenkins South preme Court's anti-segregation de­ but the committee may yet decide leadership there will be no integra­ of Charleston is chairman of the upon some such suggestions when it tion in South Carolina. We, however, state organization. If the Soothern states wilt stand. cree is the final law of the land. In its third interim report, dated meets in Columbia on Jan. 5 and 6, must have men and women within :y together on the Doctrine of Inter­ during the week preceding the open­ the Citizens Councils of the state :S Dec. 14, 1955 and addressed to the 1• pofition, they wut find strength governo1· and the presiding officers ing of the 1956 legislative session. who have the intestinal fortitude to MISCELLANEOUS ,, in unity. Successful defense of Since its last interim report, issued fight for the rights that are guaran­ st of House and Senate, the committee lh nates rights, though presently has this to say concerning the Su­ Jan. 11, 1955, the committee has teed them under the Constitution of ol forming around the explosive is­ preme Court's "improper'' decision: added a six-man legal staff and an the United States." At Manning, in Clarendon County, c law enforcement officers are inves­ Ia rue of race, would go far beyo-nd. "It does not compel us to surren­ educational consultant to its organ­ S. Emory Rogers: "Our people, ol tegregation ization. especially our school officials, are tigating evidence which shows that u below the Mason­ der our right to seek proper inter­ :fs Di:tcm Line. It would help to re­ pretations of the Constitution or to The committee's resources and as­ entitled to the protection afforded a Negro funeral home was peppered atore the sagging sinews of the Re­ sistance are to be sought by the by the interposition by the state of with buckshot about the end of No­ '" - forego efforts to seek to avoid by vember. The home serves as the resi­ Ia ~ public itself. Summerton school trustees in carry­ its sovereignty between them and Ar due process of law the disastrous ing out a survey of the school prob­ dence of Billie Fleming, county lead­ Now is the time. we believe, for effects that would ensue from an at­ the wrongful acts of the federal gov­ ,,. lems and community attitudes in er of the National Association for the U• the rtrong voices of the So-uth to be tempt to force the races into an asso­ ernment. Nullification is one of the ":l that district. Board Chairman .J. D. Advancement of Colored People and 1"CUed. There are many 114mes in ciation unwelcome to both. We pro­ historic and heretofore successful ld Carson said the school district would a nephew of the Rev. J. A. DeLaine, 10 the South that command respect pose to employ every legal means methods of such interposition and I IP tum for aid to the Gressette Com­ am in favor of its use if necessary. Negro minister who fled to New throughout the co-untry. Thougl~ of maintaining a school system we in · ~ the propaganda mills for years mittee on advice of the two attorneys Nullification is not to be confused York after admittedly firing upon an ol good conscience believe to be in the who have served as lawyers for the automobile passing his Lake City >SI have ground o-ut anti-So-uthern best interests of all our children." with secession. It is the assertion by lp school board and who carried the one of the parties of its rights under home in adjoining Florence County. re J)Oilon, citize71.3 of otheT regions Clarendon County case to the U. S. rd through peTsKu Klux Klan demonstration --rhe time has come," he says, "for deliberately mix the races m public SURVEY NEED TOLD favoring school integration contin­ and cross-burning took place on the ued as a talking point in educational South Carolina and its people to re­ schools." The matter of a school survey was night of Dec. 2. A group of some 15 llffinn our belief in those constitu­ brought up July 15 when a three­ and editorial circles in December. cars, including some from North The report, which is essentially a The dean of the school of education t!~nal_Principles which guarantee cer­ review of the committee's actions judge federal court met in Columbia Carolina and Georgia, drove through tain nghts to the states of the Union to consider the Clarendon County made his talk last August and was the streets of the small town and dis­ and a re-affirmation of its stand dismissed shortly thereafter, but the · · · Now that state sovereignty has against integration, points up the case in the light of the Supreme charged about 25 robed but un­ ~ invaded by the Supreme Court Court's remander of the case to the developments were not made public masked Klansmen at a rallying point clash between state and federal sov­ until late November. ol the United States in the case of ereignty with respect to the school district court At that time, Figg just outside the city limits. Briggs v. Elliott, and in other school made this statement to the court in The University student newspaper, segregation problem. In a reference The Gamecock, took a strong stand KLAN REPORTS VARY segregation cases, we are legally and to a 1955 act barring the use o~ pub­ behalf of the Summerton trustees: morally justified in holding firm to "The petitioners themselves do not editorially in support of Dean Trav­ Reports vary as to the exact con­ lic funds on schools whose pupils are elstead's right to speak as he did. tent of talks made by the several our rights under the Tenth Amend­ transferred by court order, the re- have the knowledge, training and ment to the Constitution ..." The newspaper did not openly come KKK speakers, but there was crit­ ce port states: experience needed to discharge by Rogers contends that the federal their responsibility for elucidating, out in favor of integration, but icism of the NAACP and of a local "The power and prestige of the official of that association, a Negro government has no authority to in­ assessing and overcomin~ot the obsta­ based its complaint over the dis­ General Assembly and of the state carpenter-contractor named L A. re :ade the field of public education cles presented in their district, and missal on grounds that it infringed us unless and until the Constitution is are thus interposed between the lo­ they have therefore directed and upon academic freedom. In the fol­ Blackmon. One set of reports quoted 91 cal boards of trustees and the fo~ce (See SOUTH CAROLINA, Page 13) ' ch amended in that respect through the made provision for a comprehensive lowing week's edition, there were 1:>II orderly processes of amendment pre- and effect of court interference Wlth 1-5 1·4 >St 1:5 :.Je

wee: runs ottny 90ft olf J• 4:5 oni:IWli ro clete9 A9 20 :1 PAGE 6-JANUARY 1956-SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS on Proposal for Nullificati Mississippi's Leaders 'Divided' . f use of At issue is a commission order 4) Prescribe penal ~e~ or t words solidating the 14 school JACKSON, Miss. Former Gov. Fielding L. Wright, insulting, ob~cene or;:: rec:~al com- a single county-unit SY'SteJn. A PROPOSAL for nullification of the Democratic national committeeman from Mississippi and 1948 vice presi­ by ~e~horung bor t le:raph, news- protesting favor two districts, Supreme Court's school segrega­ mwucation or Ythe written com- ing that the plan gives the dential candidate on the States' 0 tion decision bas brought about what pape:, l~tter or blier tion The fine Separate School District control bas been tenned a "division" in the Rights ticket, entered the dispute murucation or pu ca · the one district and in that Wa pro-segregation ranks in Mississippi. with a declaration supporting the proposed Virginia plan to petition the would be $1,000. . te nalizes those outside the city ~ (See "What They Say"). 5_) Pro?ibit acts of ~rso~ ~te~= county. They also ~ontend the The word battle among top state aiiiiiiiiiiiUUIIUIIIIIUIIIIDIIIII ferJDg wttb, or attem~ting f . hts unit system would mcrease officials flared as the first legal effort £ere with, th~ exer~t~e 0 ~:d t~ those outside the city and not to preserve segregation in the state A Stand for Moderation privileges and 1mmurutiesf~ issip in the municipalities. shaped up over the issue of integra­ Governor Coleman's com1mmtB citizens and inhabitants o s - tion in railroad stations, rather than on the viciom M1'18en.se about pi by its constitution and laws when in the public schools. (See "Legal "nullification," being peddled by done by any person acting under Action"). Jim Eastland, Tom Brady o.nd the color of any statute, ordinance, regu­ Meanwhile, December also brought Citizens Councils, cuts through. lation, custom or usage of any state seven recommendations from the Mississippi's political and moral fog or the United States. state's Legal Education Advisory like bright sunshine. G) Require all teachers p~id from Committee aimed at forestalling le­ His is the firtTt politically in~­ public funds to make affidaVlts as to The recent Mississippi Youth gal moves to force desegregation. portant voice raised in Missi.uippi all organizations they hold member­ gress, meeting in Jackson These measures will be presented to ship in now and for the past five years in opposition to the hysterical bra­ was in agreement on two _.,, .. u•rtr·• the state legislature which convenes as a condition to employment. Penal­ vado which is m4king our state a sies revolving around seR:~ltim. in regular session Jan. 3. (See "Leg­ la.ughing-6tock end wone in the ty for a false affidavit, or noncom­ They went on record islative Action"). pliance, would result in loss of the eyes of region, n4tion and world. violence in the current December also saw a legal attack In speaking out, he has fulfilled the Williams Coleman teacher's license and employment. launched on the 1954 public school tion, and also for re~IDDOrtilon•·-• e:rpectations of the m4;ority of 7) Create a permanent authority to of the legislature on a basis of equalization act (see "Legal Ac­ sane and sen.ribte Mississippians take proper steps fo~ t~e ~~tenance tion"); a dispute flare briefly over Congressman Williams in Natchez lation within the counties. lt is who elected him. before the Adams County Citizens of segregation in MlSSISSlPPI, and ~e based on an 1890 plan dividing participation by a Mississippi team Nullification means, in e:rtl"em­ Council, advocated making schools appropriation of necessary ~ublic state into three grand divislons, in a non-segregated sports event (see ity, that Mississippi should use funds for its support and operation. "In The Colleges"); a Youth Con­ anned fMce against the United "instruments of the state" as a means However, the House of ""l~•aa~- 1 gress adopt pro-segregation measures of defeating integration. He said the The LEAC also will recommend tatives, composed of high States in order to frustrate the 714- to the legislature that "at pre~ent i~ is (see "Under Survey"); and a Negro tlonal law. We would like to take state could operate the schools under dents, defeated a resolution leader sell his property because of its police powers and could not be unnecessary and would be madVl~­ Senate, made up of senior and time out here to snicker at the able" to implement the 1954 consti­ ''threats on his life" (see "Miscella­ spectacle of our local resisters de­ sued. college students, which would _,, • .,&; ... neous"). Meanwhile, Gov. H u g b White tutional amendment which gives the denied the legislature the power fending the Greenville bridge legislature authority to abolish the against a platoon of Marines O'T voiced concern that unsolved crimes abolish public schools. The even a lone FBI agent. But it is against Negroes in Mississippi might public schools. mously approved Senate prvpoa. I '-'C~' no humorous matter, the d4mage have adverse effects on the state's Assured by Gov.-elect Coleman was defeated in the House SS to done to Mississippi, economically, economy and sovereignty in the field that be will call a special session in That authority bas been vested the event integration threatens, the politically and mO'TalLy by the of law enforcement. the legislature under a voter~ reckless WO'Td.s and actions of men committee recommended that "no proved amendment to the constilu. who purpO'Tt to speak fO'T a.lt of us. legislation be introduce? or ~c:ted tion as a "last resort'' action •l!UI51'­ Controversy of considerable pro­ -Delta Democrat-Times at the 1956 biennial sess1on provu:ling integration. The Youth for the abolition of any public school portion has been stirred among Mis­ thor said he favored Se1i~~ti1GD sissippi officials and citizens as well A Good Suggestion in the state." that if the question of COtltiniWng by a suggestion that Mississippi along Judge Tom P. Brady, of Brook­ Coleman advised the LEAC that schools on an integrated basis Mno•II. • ~Er with other southern states "consid­ haven, one of the militant leaders he would be "constrained to veto" arise "it should be up to the ,~.. -·· -~ er" adopting a resolution of inter­ suggem that the legisl4ture at its The Mississippi legislature, which any such implementation proposal to detennine the future of puhli position, or nullification, declaring coming session exercise the st4te's convenes Jan. 3, will receive seven "pending the imminence of federal schools." The opposition pointed a¢ the school desegregation decisions of con.stitution4l right a.nd pass an act recommendations from the Legal court decrees against the state of that the question had been the U. S. Supreme Court of no force of interposition. Educational Ad visor y Committee Mississippi." by the parents in ratification of or effect. Specifically, that means nullifi­ created in 1954 to map procedure for amendment. Recommended by Sen. James 0. cation - chaLlenging the right of bypassing the Supreme Court's inte­ Eastland, Rep. John Bell Williams and the Supreme Court to issue 8UCh gration decisions. They were ap­ ·~ LEGAL . ACTION , · FAVOR KERSHAW TALK state Circuit Judge Tom P. Brady as a decree. proved at a Dec. 14 meeting with ~ ' The Mississippi Youth Congrs a means of preserving segregation OK. by us, Judge. Mississippi Gov. Hugh White, LEAC chairman, Senate also adopted a resolution fa. under state sovereignty, the proposal must fight with every weapon at after being drafted in bill fonn by Mississippi's first legal effort to voring participation of the Rev. Alo suggested that the actions of the court her command. Ou.r state has of­ Rep. Ney Gore J r. of Quitman Coun­ preserve segregation may come on vin Kershaw of Ohio in the be declared null and void by reason ficially declared that it wUl not ty, secretary of the committee em­ the issue of integration in railroad emphasis week program at the of their infringement upon the rights obey the order to mix white and ployed on a full-time basis for that stations rather than in its public versity of Mississippi. Kershaw reserved to the states and as inva­ colored children. in our public work. schools. been the center of a Nll>mtveJ:so~ sion by the court of the field of leg­ schools. If there are any ways of The committee also authorized ap­ The illinois Central Railroad has Mississippi following a islation. putting more emphasis on that pointment of a committee to draft declaration we should go ahead and announced that segregation will be announcement he planned to Gov.-elect J.P. Coleman, until Jan. a bill authorizing the state attorney­ part of his winnings on a nationwide do it. "out" in its waiting rooms, cafes and 17 the state's attorney-general, general to prepare a list of ''subver­ rest rooms J an. 10 when the federal television program to the NAACP fir quickly took issue with the proposal, We ~tre in a battle with the odds sive organizations" held in that cate­ against us. All the weapons we can Interstate Commerce Commission's its educational campaign. He 11M terming it "foolish" and "legal pop­ gory in Mississippi. It would be simi­ desegregation order goes into effect. been invited to the University pycook," use are not too many. lar to the list prepared by the attor­ Mississippi prior to the TV Pllllll""•l i.;. -Jackson Daily News ney-general of the United States, Railroad officials said they will try HISTORY CITED to maintain segregation on a "volun­ Protests against Kershaw's Jllf­ 11111111111UIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIJIIIII11 but adapted to the state level. In suggesting that the southern Sen. Carl Evans of Canton, former tary'' basis but that they have no ticipation have been filed by seven! states consider interposition or nulli­ other course than to abide by the members of the legislature, cerlain Coftgress for a federal constitutional FBI agent, who proposed the author­ fication resolutions, the proponents of ity, was named chairman of the group ICC order and remove signs denoting newspapers and citizens. They called the proposal said Virginia is planning amendment to be submitted to the "for whites" and "for colored" from on university officials and the P· states reserving the right to segre­ for its drafting. Serving with him will that course. They cited instances in be Joe T. Patterson, who takes office their stations in Mississippi and other eming Board of Trustees of. Stale history when interposition or nulli­ gate the races. He indicated the pro­ southern states. Institutions of Higher Learn.illg It posed "nullification" action would Jan. 16 as attorney-general, and John fication was exercised. withdraw the invitation. follow. Satterfield of Jackson, president of The announcement brought state­ Coleman, in opposition, told the ments from the Mississippi Public Coleman likewise endorsed Missis­ the state bar association. Evans said NO ACTION TAKEN Legal Education Advisory Commit­ it is aimed at the National Associa­ Service Commission, which regulates sippi's support of the Virginia plan, At its Dec. 15 meeting the eollear tee in Jackson Dec. 14 that "all ef­ tion for the Advancement of Colored intrastate operations of railroads, and forts at nullification have been abject pointing out "it is quite different'' from Gov.-elect Coleman, who takes board took no action on the ~ from the nullification maneuver. People, which he claims is "subver­ failures," and "the only way to make sive" insofar as Mississippi's position office Jan. 17. Legislators protesting the E-p~ it work is through secession which At the same time, the governor­ on segregation is concerned. minister's appearance plan f:O ofter is prohibited under our state consti­ elect restated his position in favor of TO RESIST LC.C. ORDER resolutions in the legislature m JrD­ segregation saying, "Let there be no ~C. RECO~D~ATIONS tution." Members of the MPSC said they uary. misunderstanding, I am for segrega­ "All it would do would invite the The other proposals would: will resist integration under author­ The Senate of the Youth~ tion. Mississippi will never inte­ 1 President to send federal troops into 1) Abolish common-law marriages ity vested in them to require rail­ also adopted a resolution op~ grate." Mississippi-and some of them would in Mississippi. It would make children roads to provide separate accommo­ legislative resolution calling ~ be Negroes-and certainly Mississip­ In criticizing the Eastland-Wil­ born under such relationships "ille­ dations for the races in Mississippi. college board to "screen" all ~~-'"-· pi can't whip the whole United liams-Brady proposal, Coleman, in a gitimate," and is designed to mini­ Their authority applies to waiting ers on campuses of state-owned ed· States," he added. "The legislature letter to the legislators asked them mize integration suits in behalf of rooms and rest rooms. ucational institutions and bar ~ can't close the United States courts to defer any action until he takes those in that category. Coleman said the legislature will with pronouncements contrarY or stop federal government processes office, Jan. 17. He wrote, ''The re­ 2) Repeal the compulsory school Mississippi's way of life. that way. sponssibllity for preserving segrega­ be in session when the ICC order attendance law. It has never been tion is ours. goes into effect, and he will urge "We have said we will have segre­ enforced and accounts for the large action to prevent integration in the gation, but it can't be by defying the "If we fail, we will be held respon­ number of Negro children not in intrastate operations of railroads. He courts. It must come by legal means, sible, not Messrs. Eastland, Williams school. plans statutes covering restaurants, and Brady." and we will try to use the courts to 3) Prevent champerty and mainte­ not now covered in any state law, but Despite numerous our advantage," he asserted. ON THE ROSTRUM nance, the agitation of litigation by observed by custom. Jones County Junior Brady, with the concurrence of lawyers and the unauthorized prac­ ville permitted its all-whlte Sen. Eastland and Congressman EQUALIZATION CHALLENGE Eastland and Williams, on Dec. 12 re­ Williams also were active on the ros­ tice of law in Mississippi by out-of­ team to play in the Little Rose leased a statement listing "some fun­ trum during December. state lawyers. The bill would require First suit challenging Mississippi's in California against Compton, team bad several Negro players. damental reasons why, in our opin­ Addressing the statewide meeting the "screening" of out-of-state law­ 1954 Negro-white public s c h o o 1 of Mississippi Association of Citizens equalization act, authorizi.n,g a new The Covington County. ion, the southern states should seri­ yers by the State Board of Bar Ad­ Board 1 Councils Dec. 1, Eastland proposed state educational commission to con­ Supervisors (Collins) wtthdreW of ously consider taking steps to nulli­ missions. It is designed to prohibit solidate school districts in a county fy these decisions." They ranged that the southern states organize a the solicitation of integration suits by $250 donation to defray exered~r• "southern regional commission," sup­ to assure equal facilities and oppor­ the team, but it was "cov from assertions that the ''Fourteenth ported by public funds, "for a just outside lawyers. The penalty for its tunities to the races, has been filed California chamber of commerce· Amendment under which the tyran­ violation would be one year's im­ at Natchez. and legal fight" to preserve segrega­ A suggestion to the Legal Edutca; nous decisions were rendered was prisonment in the state penitentiary. tion and to conduct a campaign to It is styled Adams County Schl>ol tional Advisory and Committ~,~dp­ fraudulently procured is illegal" acquaint other sections of the nation The proposed act would make the Board v. State Educational Fin4nce recommend against white .IY~WII to historical citations of cases when with the South's position on segre­ practice of law in Mississippi a Commis8ion, and is in the chancery pi teams playing against Negroe5 nullification was employed. gation. ''privilege" and not a "right." court. (Continued on Next page) SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS-JANUARY 1956-PAGE 7 ~~ Racial Integration Is Completed at State Colleges in Missouri 1 ST. LOUIS Mo. have found such situatio th h bo . -:-~1 dis INTEGRATION is an ac~om- not rted th ns ey ave gro ys was on the football squad, The Moberly school system, the "Now there 1S not a :>Uqs>e - RA~ fact at the Universit of repo em. and played in some of the games. petition charges, has adopted a pol- criminatory act based .o? race, creed ~ •'pUsh~and the state colleg~ Ybul :·Integ_ra~on at the University of ~~ students parti~ipate in the ac- icy or practice of "refusing to em- or color in our mw;uCJ~ govern- ·~ MJ,ssoun m has been flooded b ' Ne- MISSOuri 1S an accomplished fact. tivlties of college life the same as ploy plaintiffs and other qualified ment. Outdoor ~ ~Is, r none of the f So Y There are still segregation practices other students. I have detected no Negro applicants as teachers, solely parks and all recreational facilities gro students, a survey or UTHERN in the city of Columbia. There is spirit of discrimination or unfavor- because of their race and color." are shared impartially by all persons. 5c1IOOL NEWS th~ws. tat d . reason to believe that these are able altitude toward them at any Each plaintiff, it is claimed, has met No one is denied the seat that he or ~ D?ne 0 e s e e ucationa1 wearing away and in a few years time. They appear to be happy and all requirements of state law and she desires to purchase in the Amer- '111 jnSti~ti.ons: ~e ;:cords a~·~longd may be gone. Many of us believe content along with the other colored the Moberly school regulations. Each ican Theater (stage plays), the Fox, - er ~ ts ~ "7~ V: 1 ?"~ that the marvelous progress we have students from various parts of the had been employed to teach in the the St. Louis, and Loew's State (first Negro ~ en : . 1 IS lmpossl 1e made is possible because things world. Moberly schools for at least three run movie houses), or Busch Sta- to compile statistically accurate fig- have been handled carefully and "It has now been nearly a decade years including the 1954-55 term. dium (National League baseball). ures on th~ Negroes enrolled. . there have been no inflammatory in- since the first Negro was enrolled in During that year the school board "There are three Negro aldermen, A:n o~~ai:off ~e hUnlili·rsJ~ of cidents. Not a little of the credit here this college. Colored students have decided to discontinue separate three state representatives, and MJssoun a urn ta as 15 re- goes to newspapers which have never created any problems. They schools for Negroes beginning ln the members with rank in the Fire De- l port: . handled the news carefully and in- have become an integral part of our 1955-56 school year. On last April 15, partment and on the Police Force; J~ "We now have J~t short of 9,000 telligenUy." student Uie. 1 see no grounds for an- the Negro teachers were notified that there are many clerical employes in " students at Columbta a.nd over 1,900 Lincoln University at Jefferson ticipating any difficulty in the fore- they would not be rehired. Each has our municipal agencies; there are , at Rolla [School of Mmes. and En- City, long the state's undergraduate seeable future." since applied for teaching vacancies 500 Negro employes in the St. Louis , . gineering]. We have no tdea ho,v college for Negroes, continues to op- At Southeast Missouri State Col- and is ready to comply with any rea- Post Office, about 25 of whom are - many are Negroes. I see a number of erate with an increased enrollment, lege in Springfield, capital of the sonable regulation, but all have been supervisors. Negroes on the Columbia and it now has some white students, western Ozarks, Negroes are ad- denied jobs solely, the suit contends, Survey of campus, and we have a estimated to number between 10 and mitted on the same basis as whites. because of color. FEDERAL AGENCIES Colleges number in our residence 20. Total enrollment this year is 51·x An o fficial of the college says: "I The petition seeks damages of $4,- "There are several hundred in ~ hallsh b ut I wouI d not at- per cent greater than in 1953 and could not say how many we have 000 for each teacher, a declaratory other federal agencies serving as ' tempt to guess ow many-50, 100 or nine per cent greater than in 1954. any more than I could tell how many judgment, and an injunction re- typists and clerical workers. Me- lli 200, I have no accurate idea. There bl straining the Moberly school board Donnell Aircraft Co., Union Electric t! are also several at the School of ALL RACES ue-eyed or black-eyed students we from denying employment on racial Co. and other industries are employ- 1 1 IIIJUes.,,_ Northeast Missouri State College guesshave. Justwe have from 10seeing or 12. them, They would share grounds " and from m aking any dis - ing Negro engineers. Public Service "There are quite a few who live at Kirksville admits Negro students all tinction whatsoever beeause of race · Co. began employing street car and out of town. Our residence halls are on the same basis as others. Says an aspects of college life and college or color in the employing of public bua drivers in April. 1954, the Stat- open to all students, the r~trictions official of the college: :m~~l~."We have experienced no school teachers." ler and the Jefferson hotels and oth- •t being only those of general policy, "We have on our campus repre- The Moberly Board of Education ers now serve Negro patrons; Jim l:li such as that all freshmen women sentatives of all races. We have only CAPE GIRARDEAU filed its answer to the suit in mid- Crow has fled from the downtown " must live in residence halls, and four Negro students, three boys and Southeast Missouri State College December. Attorneys Arthur M. department stores, cafeterias, the l~ Missouri residents who apply before one girl. There are 1,577 white stu- at Cape Girardeau, on the Missis- O'Keefe and Austin Walden of Mo- drug store fountains and the ten- " , July 1 are .nven priority. dents and 40 colored students of va- . . U rth f th Obi lik berly based the answer on a flat de- cent stores. Our public schools were .c., .,. s1pp1, 30 m es no o e o, e- ch d h ) rious races. Our colored students, in- wise admits any qualified student nial that the eight Negro tea ers integrated peaceably an armo- 1'/!4 FOOTBALL SQUAD eluding the Negroes, are all housed regardless of race, and now has were dismissed, or their applications niously." n "We had two Negroes on the in the college residence halls with about 10 Negro students in a total of for re-employment rejected, solely Most St. Louisans agree with s freshman football squad last year, the exception of one Negro girl who 1,700. There are no restrictions on because of race or color. No reason Wheeler that these are "remark­ lilt, but we have had none on a team stays with an aunt in Kirksville. U participation in sports or other ac- as to why they were disthmissed w~ able advances in human relations" l yel There have been Negroes on the she had wanted a room in a resi- tivities. given in the answer, but is point 1S for what has always been !mown as ca• basketball squad at Rolla but not dence hall, one would have been as- expected to be elicited by testi- a border city. Hotels and downtown on the team. They participate in in- s1gn· ed to h er. "The presence of Negroes on this mony. restaurants, however, are still di.ffi - '!Q tramural sports, of course. "The Negro students participate campus has been accepted as a mat- The school board admits that the cult fo- Ne-oes to get into. The rule ~ "We have no record of any aca- in sports. Last spring one of the best ter of course," says a de<>n--, "with- eight Negro teachers were di·sm· issed seems 'to be... that Negro visitors from • demic problem having been raised members of the track team was a out fanfare or other demonstration. and have not been rehi re d · It a lso other cities, bere to attend conven- lit concerning Negroes. If teachers Negro boy. This fall one of the Ne- They are just students." admits that if this had been done tions, will be served in hotels and i At Central Missouri State College sOlely because of their race and col- some restaurants, but that local Ne- c:z Howard is also a national official in Warrensburg, all racial restrictions or "such action would have been groes are not encouraged. to patro.n- !t Mississippi in the Elks, and said he plans to spend were abolished in June, 1954, within ill~gal, arbitrary, wrongful and vio- ize these establishments m consplc- :s• considerable time outside Mississip- a few weeks of the Supreme Court lative of plaintiffs' personal and in- uous numbers. A mixed local organ- (Continued from Page 6) th decision on desegregation. Few Ne- dividual rights, as secured to them tz'ation . ...:~1.:-~ to bold a banquet sidestepped. Gov. Hugh White sug- pi in that capacity. He owns e groes, however, b ave enro!led so f ar, by the laws and constitution of the usually wuou.u"'6finds "everything booked Friendship Clinic at Mound Bayou n1 · d t. 1 gested "that is a legislative matter and also has extensive insurance and o y one being regLStebre at presenth United States." It denies that any up" at the principal hotels, and often and should be done without singling College officials attri ute this to e policy or practice of racial discrim- has to meet at a Negro hotel or res- ::;: out a particular school." real estate interests. fact that Lincoln University is 90 ination in the hiring of teachers has taurant. He said he has sold his home and miles away and Kansas City, where been adopted by the board. the 38 acres adjoining it, as well as college facilities are also open to No date has been set for hearing his 753-acre plantation. They were Negroes, is only 50 miles away. of the case. 'Better Schools' sold for $185,000. He said he is keep- "Any Negro who enrolls here will ing other real estat~ and properties have all the privileges of white stu­ Thousands of friends of edu­ Cooperation between white and cation, including readers of 'll!f Negro leaders, particularly in the valued at $100,000 in the Mound dents in dormitories, food services, Bayou area. student center, sports and so on," SotJTJIEBN ScnooL NEws, have 1t11' South, to work in a spirit of friend­ been receiving the paper "Bet­ !!.: ship and good will in finding a mu- WON'T LEAVE STATE says a Central Missouri official. "We ter Schools" for the past 11:111 tually satisfactory solution to the In a statement to the United Press, have perhaps as many foreign stu­ year. ''Better Schools" is pu.b­ ~ race question was suggested by John Howard said he has no intentions of dents as any state college in Missouri lishcd by the Citizens Cooums­ & Wesley Dobbs, grand master of the leaving Mississippi, but that he next to the unlversity. We have had One more Missouri school system sion for the Public Schools, 2 fSi Prince Hall Masons of Georgia, in "wouldn't be surprised if rumors to a number of students from Japan, which had continued segregation aft­ West 45th Street, New York 36, ~ addressing the grand lodge of the that effect haven't been sparked by Korea, Okinawa, Malaya, China and er the Supreme Court decision has N.Y. In January the Co~s ­ ;, '! Sbinger Negro Masonjc order in Mis­ the white Citizens Councils." other Far Eastern nations. Most of now announced that the practice sion's charter e.."qlires-and Wlth . ,.o; sissippL "They would like the colored peo- these people have been very cor­ will be ended. At Sedalia, site of the it, perhaps ''Better Schools." ~ Another speaker, the Rev. Paul pie to get the idea I'm scared and dially received by faculty and stu­ state fair in the central section That is, unless the paper can be :; Hayes of Hot Springs, Ark., said dis­ leaving the state," be told the UP. dents. We have no race problems and known as "Little Dixie," Board converted to a subscription ba- lo "That's not true." I do not anticipate any regardless of President William F. Brown this Ar .. turbing incidents in Mississippi and sis. ,,. "I'll stay here and die as an Amer- the number of students of other races month was quoted by the Associated i~ other sections of the South are God's 'lbe editors of ''Better Schools'' U• ':3 ~ super signs of the coming of World ican in defending the rights of Ne- who might enroll on this campus." Press as telling an attorney for the NAACP that "we would like to bring a.re asking to hear from readers, Jd Brotherhood. He said upon the shoul­ groes before I leave," be was quoted Northwest Missouri State College who fonnerly received the pub­ 10 ders of Negroes must rest the ballot as saying. at Maryville will admit Negroes on about an orderly and peaceful tran­ IP 1 the same terms as other students, sition." Brown said the board hopes lication free, who would be will­ •rt and courage to break the pattern of ing now to pay a modest fee of ol Howard plans to head a de egation but to date has enrolled none. to work out an integration plan by 111 segregation in America. of Negroes to Washington in Janu­ $2.50 for 25 issues during 1956 next June. \p Meanwhile, a new Citizens Council ary or February to confer with the if "Better Schools" continues. re Justice Department about racial in­ Atty. Earl Crawford of Sedalia, Thus reassured, they hope to rd is being formed at Forest, while at who is a member of the board of cy Starkville, Charles A. Johnson, su­ cidents in Mississippi. continue publication. an regents at Central Missouri State 1$1 ~= llerintendent of schools, has been Mississippi's delegates to the recent Ill White House Conference on Educa­ College in nearby Warrensburg, said •h elected new chairman of the Oktib­ Negro teachers and others inter­ the NAACP was aware of the prob­ tion, which included three Negroes, ested in the effects of integration are beha County council. lems involved in integration, but that Tennessee said here Dec. 9 that they were awaiting a bearing in United States "'Av The Glendora, Miss., Lions Club in the Negro population is impatient (C~ntinued from Page 2) vs !allahatcbie County has branded as unanimous against federal aid for District Court at St. Louis of the test and eager for such action, according J,." an outrage" the slaying there of a "maintenance and operation" of pub- suit on teacher integration filed in by March, and if his plans succeed, November by eight plaintiffs against to the Associated Press. "we'll be in Nashville in 30 days." 1it Negro by a white man. In a rcsolu­ lic schools. d< the Moberly Board of Education and Sedalia last year had 263 Negro A group of about 400 men and wom­ s '1' tion the club said "We intend to see On the general proposition, how­ elem.entary pupils in a total of 2,392, 1:5 ~ ~ It that the fo;ces of justice and ever, they differed. Supt. Carl Henderson. en identifying themselves as mem­ and 129 Negro high school pupils in bers of the Pro-Southerners, ap­ ·'"'h ngbt prevail in the wake of this woe­ J . M. Tubb, Mississippi state su­ Associated with St. Louis and i•t Kansas City attorneys in arguing the a total of 843. The system employs peared at a meeting of the Memphis ,., ful evil." perintendent of education, released eight Negro elementary teachers and case will be Thurgood Marshall, Park Commission on Dec. 8 when the J~ Meanwhile, white citizens have the following statement from the 11 Negro high school teachers. At ,fi delegates in a meeting in . Jackson Robert L. Carter and Elwood H. commission received a request from Jo ~ted raising funds to care for the the high school, about one-third of the NAACP to end segregation in on their return from Washington: Chisholm of New York, represent­ the Negro pupils are non-residents Widow and her five children. ing the National Association for the Memphis parks, recreational and cul­ "Some said there should not be any from nearby communities. federal aid of any kind, ~d some Advancement of Colored People, tural facilities. said federal aid should be giVen for which helped prepare the suit alter The request was "marked for file" school construction without any fed­ some Negro teachers, principally in , WHAT THEY SAY and consideration of it was deferred. smaller Missouri towns, were dis­ . . , . , . . .. eral controls. missed following the end of school At the same meeting, decision on "It is the opinion of the state grou.p segregation. From a recent letter to the St. Louis the construction of a proposed swim­ that President Eisenhower and. bts Post Dispcltch. by Henry Winfield ming pool for Negroes in Memphis' White House conference corrumttee The plaintiffs, all former Negro Dr. T. R. M. Howard, wealthy Ne­ teachers at Moberly, invoke the Wheeler, Negro: L. E. Brown park, was postponed gro physician of the all-Negro town now have a recommen:Jed pr~gram "There have been many remark­ until January. which can be used as a baStS for Fourteenth Amendment and federal of Mound Bayou, has announced sale statutes in behalf of "the ri¢tt to able changes in race relations in St. After the meeting, a spokesman for solving most of our education~ P~?b­ Louis since World Warn. If, for the of most o{ his property there "be­ contract, to be employed and follow the NAACP, Rev. Alex Gladney, said caUSe of threats on his life." He has lems which confront our nabon. sake of comparison, one looks back one's profession and occupation, and the action by the park commission been active in the integration move­ Supt. Tubb said none of .those ~t­ he will realize with a start that be eligible for employment as public would probably be appealed to the ~en~ and is president of the Missis­ tending panel discussions m w~lch school teachers without discrimina­ there were slave sales here 95 years Stppt Regional Council of Negro Mississippians participated "r.used tion because of race or color." ago. City Commission. Leadership. the segregation issue."

IVS I ll'l 101 IYS -=-,....., _____.g....,... >I;.

wee: runs aliny 9en off Je ~ =5 PAGE 8-JANUARY 1956-SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS Kentucky County Drops Racial· Bars After First Test "We are not sure that integration LOUISVILLE, Ky. only one of which hitherto has been is the answer to our educational JNKENTuCKY's FIRST school desegre- lor Negroes. Mayor Andrew Broad­ problems in Henderson County. We gation suit, federal District Judge dus of Louisville said that "we will are a minority race and woul~ have Mac Swinford ruled that the Adair observe the spirit as well as the let­ little control over the education of County high school should be opened ter of decision," and city legal au­ to Negroes by Feb. 1, 1956, and that thorities said this would end a fed­ our own chHdren. integration of the county's element­ eral court suit filed last May by par­ "Therefore, we petition the H:n­ ary schools "should be effective with ents of Negro school cbildren who derson County Board of Educati~n the beginning of the school year in demanded in particular "full park to build and maintain one consoli­ August or September, 1956." (See privileges used in adjunct with pub­ dated school £or the colored students "Legal Action.") lic schools." of Henderson County with adequate The Louisville Board of Education classrooms, cafeteria, and gymna­ on Dec. 12 unanimously approved the NOT ENFORCED sium for the first nine grades. 12-point desegregation plan of Supt. Mayor Broaddus also disclosed "Give us a first-class school with that on his orders-but without pub­ Omer Carmichael (detailed in De­ adequate teachers of o~ own r~c~ cember's SoUTm:RN SCHOOL NEWS.) lic announcement-Louisville police and we will send our children to at. The free-choice plan will end com­ have not been enforcing parks or pulsory racial segregation next Sep­ playgrounds segregation for several AGAINST POLICY tember. One board member, bow­ months. He said there was no public State NAACP officials said such a ever, urged that assignment of more announcement because "we wanted petition was "completely co~trary" than one school to a district should this change to grow gradually . . to the national NAACP policy. In be avoided because "it would be a and we were afraid such a pro­ New York NAACP spokesmen said travesty if one school (in a district) nouncement would bring about fric­ that there have been a "few" such turned up all white and one turned tions which we wanted to avoid." cases in Soulhem states but that up all dark." Local NAACP officials, The mayor's step climaxed a long they are "rare exceptions,'' . and though critical of some provisions, series of desegregation moves in JUDGE SWINFORD added that despite such occasaonal Louisville and left only seven swim­ called the Carmichael plan "basically Downs Kentucky Bar group requests the NAACP would good." (See "School Boards and ming pools and 14 community recre­ support any individual in such com­ Scboolmen.") ation centers still segregated. munities who wanted to go to a non­ Kentucky's Court of Appeals on George Cordery, president of the trict to appoint a desegregation­ segregated school because "the rights Dec. 16, citing the Supreme Court's Louisville branch of the NAACP, study committee. The Paris School are individual rights, not group Nov. 7 decision in the Baltimore case, said that "we were not aware that Board named Grover Baldwin Jr., rights." banned racial segregation in all pub­ the police were no longer enforcing Paris attorney, chairman of the But a group of Westem Kentucky lic recreation facilities-parks, play­ segregation in the parks," and that group to recommend action to the school superintendents-at least 11, grounds, and swimming pools­ he was not ready to praise the city board. according to R. A. Belt, superin­ throughout the state. It held that a administration for its decision. In Henderson County the school tendent in Dawson Springs in Hop­ lower court's earlier finding uphold­ ''Mayor Broaddus," he said, "saw the board's Interracial Advisory Com­ kins County - concluded that Ne­ ing the "separate but equal" doctrine handwriting on the wall, and was mittee, after asking its Negro mem­ groes in that part of Kentucky "want had been overruled by the Supreme just going along because it was fu­ bers to get the reaction of Negroes their own schools rather than inte­ Court "insofar as public recreational tile to fight it further. He should to desegregation, got a petition "rep­ gration." This was a hand-showing facilities are concerned." (See "Le­ have deserved commendation for resenting 95 per cent of the county's revelation at a desegregation discus­ gal Action.") ending segregation if he had done Negro school patrons" asking for "a sion during the Dec. 16-17 meeting this before we filed suit to force him first-class school of our own." of the Kentucky Association of to." Henderson County has 3,664 white School Administrators in Louisville,

' .. ~ '!- - ~ pupils, only 272 Negro pupils-but attended by 200 school executives its Negro high school of some 200 (there were 30 in the desegrega­ UNDER SURVEY tion discussion group). Representa­ Text of the Adair County ruling­ draws pupils from the city of Hen­ derson (3,034 white pupils, 514 Ne­ tives of only two districts-Louis­ Willis v. Walker-is elsewhere on this Paris, Ky. (1,105 white pupils, 294 page. Detailed background was re­ gro). The petition presented to the ville and Maysville-indicated that Negroes) became the state's 51st dis- Henderson County board said: their districts were planning faculty PLAN PRAISED ported in earlier issues of SSN. "We believe that the tentall~·eai:.ll The suit was heard by a three­ IIIIIIIJI...... IIIIIIIIIIIIIJIJIIIIIIIIIIJIIIIIIIII~ JI 1•1 IIIJIIIJIIIIIIIIIII~IIIIIJIIIIIIIIIIIIII .....IIIJIIIIJilllll for desegregation in the judge court in Louisville in Septem­ schools is basically a very good ber. But two members-Circuit and that the superintendent Judge Shackleford Miller and Dis­ A Special ~exf serves a lot of commendation trict Judge Henry L. Brooks-upheld such a positive plan. defendants' contention that an issue "However, the NAACP feels of constitutionality was not involved, the provision which permits hence held that the opinion should How Court Held in Adair County Case of students of a school in which be delievered by one judge. District are in the minority to transftr Judge Mac Swinford dissented but FOLLOWING are the pertinent pass- decision of the United States Supreme certain witnesses that the conditions school where they will be in since the suit had been filed his ages from t1le ~pinion of Judge Court in Broum v. Board of Educa­ of the Negro children are in some in­ ~ because court (at Bowling Green), it was his Ma.c Swinford of the U. S. District tion ... majority, solely of stances better than those for the white contrary to the Supreme Court obligation to decide the case. Court for Western Kentucky in the In consequence ... the case now children. The Kentucky NAACP had filed case of Fred Willis, et al, v. Harbert stands submitted for decision by this cision. On July 15, 1955, the plaintiffs pe­ "We believe that a flexible the suit on behalf of 28 Negro pupils Walker, et al. The case invoLves seg­ court. tioned the Board of Education of fer plan based on ""'m•·nntm and their parents in the area of Co­ regation in the public schools of Adair County, Columbia District, In Brown v. Board of Education, to without regard to race is l~bia, ~da.ir'~ county seat. Judge Ada.ir County, Ky. ... segregation of white and Negro abolish segregation in the schools in Swinford s earlier deadline for high "While this is a tentative children in all public schools in the their district. On Aug. 29, 1955, the no plan for desegregation Is school integration took note of the United States was declared abolished. plaintiffs and other Negro children fact that the county now has no high The plaintiffs are Negro citizens of plete that does not include the the United States and of the Com­ In the opinion, the court well said: were received and registered in both ers. No school is completely school facilities for Negro pupils and "Because these are class actions, be­ the high and elementary schools of held that "education is a thing that monwealth of Kentucky.... Four­ regated if the faculty is still teen of the plaintiffs satisfy all re­ cause of the wide applicability of this Adair County, Columbia District. On gated.. We urge that the cannot wail" The delayed deadline decision, and because of the great va­ Aug. 30, 1955, the principals of both for elementary school integration quirements for admission to the high approved by the board will school of Adair County. Thirteen of riety of local conditions, the formu­ the elementary and high schools, act­ the teachers." was based on the judge's observation lation of decrees in these cases pre­ ing under the orders of the super­ that the situation of Negro elemen­ the plaintiffs satisfy all requirements Supt. Carmichael reported to for admission to the elementary sents problems of considerable com­ intendent and the board of education, tary pupils is "not as acute as is the plexity." ejected the plaintiffs and all Negro board that he had replied: question of high school pupils." schools of Adair County, Columbia District. ... The plaintiffs bring this On May 31, 1955, . . . the court, children who had previously regis­ "It is my belief that this plaa 241 NEGRO PUPU..S action for themselves and on behalf recognizing the full import of its tered. The record discloses that since not inconsistent with the The ruling affects 241 Negro pu­ of all other Negroes similarly situ­ earlier decision and the fact that it that time white children have been Court decision and that it pils and 4,141 white pupils in Adair's ated whose numbers make it imprac­ was dealing with a longstanding tra­ admitted to the schools. It is cleat· appreciated by the community, countywide district. It may also ob­ ticable to bring them all before the dition and varied local problems from the record that the only reason Negro and white. viate other litigation. Atty. James A. court. ... which must be considered in making these plaintiffs and those for whom "Wit.h respect to the teacher Crumlin, Kentucky president of the In compliance with the prayer of this transition, sought to set out guid­ they plead were denied was because tion, I have, from the NAACP, said after the Adair ruling the complaint, a three-judge court ing principles of law and equity by they were Negroes. preme Court] decision on that his organization did not plan to was convened and ... heard the case which this change might be affected I am of the opinion that a distinc­ 1954, held that desegregation sue any districts proposing to begin on its merits. It was understood ... with the least possible difficulty.... tion may be made between the ele­ pils means, in time, desegregatiall desegregation by September, 1956. that the court had serious doubt of I will endeavor to determine the mentary and high school pupils. faculties as well. . . . The Adair County Board of Educa­ its jurisdiction as a three-judge issues presented by the record here With a new high school building the "It is my judgment that tion met the day after the ruling was court, that it would proceed to hear in the light of the principles stated integration of 34 Negro students recommendations can be more published and Board Atty. Earl Hud­ the case and detennine the issue of by our highest court. should not be delayed longer. It is ly made later when we have true that the county board has offered dleston reported that a majority had jurisdiction first; and that if it should It is disclosed by the record that mation in regard to the decided they would not appeal the be determined that the court was there are 34 high school pupils who to send them to the county seat of an mcnt of pupils." adjoining county for their high school nl:ling. "~d that they would comply without jurisdiction, the case would are eligible for admission. There is a work. This is a denial of their rights wtth 1t. The Courier-Joun\41 re­ then stand submitted to the judge of consolidated high school in Adair ported that the prospect of early de­ the Bowling Green court to pass County which was built and equipped under the Supreme Court decision. segregation found many residents of upon the issues of law and fact pre­ within the past three years at a cost It is an application of the doctrine Columbia in a "so-what" mood. sented by the record.. of $458,000. "separate but equal" as announced Adair County Supt. Harbert Walker by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. It was determined by the three­ There is a consolidated grade said, "We will do the best we can" judge court that it was without juris­ Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, back in 1896, and school in the City of Columbia with Columbia's two-term mayo~ This and which was apparently abolished Ralph Willis, observed: ' diction. decision was based upon an enrollment of 640 pupils. In addi­ the fact that the pleadings disclosed in Brown v. Board of Education .•. "It was bound to come. I think it tion to this consolidated grade school, While the court is entirely mindful that the defendants were not relying there are 50 one-room schools for will work out all right. Of ~. either upon the constitutional provi­ of the problems confronting the de­ there may be a littie hell-raising on white children, six one-room and one fendants, r must also recognize the sion of the Kentucky Constitution or two-room grade schools for Negro both sides, but the good people aren't upon the Day law. It was stated in directive imposed upon this court going to cause any trouble. We have children. There are 207 Negro chil­ when it said: "While giving weight open court by counsel for the defend­ dren who qualify for the elementary to educate them [the Negro stu­ ants that no reliance was placed upon to these public and private consid­ dents). In these days we need the school work. The record Is clear that erations, the courts will require that the Kentucky laws as a defense and the.se schools for the white children best citizens we can get." that in fact the defendants conceded the defendants make a prompt and are crowded and many of them have reasonable start toward full compli­ The Kentucky Court of Appeals the unconstitutionality, under the sub-standard conditions. It is also public-recreation ruling, though federal Constitution, of both Section anc with our May 17, 1954, ruling." clear from the record that the schools There are apparently no high based on a Louisville case, affects the 187 of the Kentucky Constitution and for the Negro cbildren are sub­ entire state-including 25 state parks, KRS 158,020 on the authority of the school facilities for Negro pupils in standard, although it is testified by (Continued on Next Page) • • p din SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS-JANUARY 1956-PAGE 9 0 -Dec~ ~:!ocK, A~~••Ark_?Co ~ Arkansas on Disturbance at Hoxie School I A RJW(SAS' HO'n'EST school segrega- be designed to ~ tion which will leaders in the White Citizens C cause of integration. He and other leader of the White Citizens Council \ tion issUe-the Hoxie case-will preme Court dec:~~vent ~e. Su- cil; Whit~ America, the Co~~ witnesses said there was no threat of Arkansas, announced at a press ~ be resolved early in January when gration in public sch : ;CI~ mte- Representing Segregation in Hoxie of danger in the situation. conference they bad asked Prosecu­ 00 tor W. J. Arnold of Batesville to take rederal Judge Albert L. Reeves of munity Action.") . ee Com- ~hools and the White Citizens Coun- lC.&nSSS City gives his decision on a c1l of Arkansas. action against Hoxie Supt. K. E. two-day hearing held at Jonesboro . A:ll but ~~hnso!' are under the pre- Vance. - early in December. (See "Legal Ac- limmary m]unction which prohibits BASED ON AUDIT \ lion.") the':' from boycotti.ng or picketing A study of promotion records in the Their charge was based on an audit The Hoxie case, unusual in that lhe the mtegrated schools, trespassing on first six grades of the Little Rock made two months earlier by E. G. ' school board is seeking federal court school property, or threatening school school district last year showed that Kizzia of the school audit division of sanction and protection for integra- officials with bodily harm. slightly more than 50 per cent of chil­ the state comptroller's office. tion which began in July, will be de- At the Jonesboro hearing, school dren who failed were Negroes al­ K.i.z.z.ia said he bad discussed the cided by Judge Reeves aftet· he stu- The Hoxie suit (Hoxie School Dis- boar~ attorneys asked that Johnson, though the Negro students total less $3,500 shortage Oct. 5 with the Hoxie dies briefs from opposing attorneys. trict No. 46 of Lawrence CO'tmty et who IS an attorney, be placed under than a third of the grammar school school board and Vance and that the When the Jonesboro hearing ended 0 ~· v. Herbert Brewer, et al, Civil Ac- the permanent injunction being enrollment. board had given credit to Vance for J)ee. 9, Judge Reeves gave 30 days for ttcm No. J-918, in the U. S. District sought. Of the 10,897 students, 7 865 were travel expenses and other bills for all the filing of briefs and said there Court, Eastern District of Arkansas The board contends that white white and 3,032 were Negr~s. There of it except $1,445.77. He said Vance would be no unnecessary delay in his ~ 01:esbor~ J?ivisi_on) asks that a pre: parents who oppose integration have were 378 failures among the white repaid the $1,445.77 on Oct. 11, and ru.Ung. lunm~ry InJunction against pro-seg- kept their children out of school· children and 387 among the Negro that bad ended the matter as far as regat10n groups and individuals that school officials have been threat~ pupils. his division was concerned. 1 !' DECEl\mER EVENTS granted Nov. by federal Judge encd and that the injunction is nee­ In the white schools, 5.6 per cent of in Thomas C. Trimble at Little Rock be essary to preserve the peace at Hoxie. Kiu.ia said the audit also showed Other Arkansas developments the students in the first through third that Vance had made loans of about J)ecember included: made permanent. CHARGES DENIED grades failed. The failing rate for Ne­ $1,800 to various school employes but ~ 1) Pro-segregation groups asked de~t = asked the federal court to Defense witnesses categorically de- groes in the same grades was 14.2 per that these bad been repaid. He said ProseCutor W. J. Arnold of Batesville 1 nied the charges. They admitted that cent. Of the 248 white pupils who he advised the school board not to failed, only 15 of the failures were lt to take action against Hoxie Supt. K . 1) That Arkansas' law requiring some parents had kept their children allow such loans in the future and not ~ &. Vance on lhe basis of an alleged separate schools for lhe races is un­ ?ut of school but said that an organ­ blamed on irregular attendance. to allow Vance to make use of the :~ $3,500 cash fund shortage in lhe 1954- constitutional. Ized boycott doesn't exist. Attorneys Eighty-six of the 252 failures among cash funds as be had been and that ~ 55 school year discovered two months for the defendants argue that the in­ Negroes were attributed to poor at­ 1 2) That the Hoxie school board has theboardagreed. :cil earlier in a routi.ne audit made by the junction deprives the defendants of tenda.nce. a duty to disregard state segregation In the fourth through the sixth On Dec. 18, Arnold impounded the :Ci school audit division of lhe state laws. their constitutional right of free records of the Hoxie school district. ~~ comptroller's office. (Sec "School speech and that it seeks to enjoin grades, the rate of failure among 3) That any school board which in­ white students was 3.8 per cent and On Dec. 19 he talked with Vance and ll:lt Boards and Schoolmen.") them from acts which haven't been K.izz.ia and said the charges made by ~egrates 10.8 1' 2) A Little Rock study of elemen- its schools and then reverses committed. among Negroes per cent. The fig­ tts decision is liable to both criminal ures showed that 17.3 per cent of the the pro-segregationists were "sub­ 1!• tary school promotion records showed 0~ Dec. 8, Clarence Braxton, 73, a stantially true" but that he wouldn't that more than 50 per cent of chi!­ and civil prosecution under "certain Hox1e Negro, testified he sent his son first grade Negro students failed. In federal civil rights acts." white schools, 6.5 per cent failed. Only file charges until he bad investigated ' dren who failed were Negroes al­ Joseph, 16, to P asco, Wash. to live further. because he had received a letter on 2.8 per cent of the white sixth graders G::• though Negroes make up less lhan a Arnold said his decision would de­ t' third of enrollment in the non-inte- ALREADY UPHELD Oct. 10 which contained a newspaper failed; for Negroes, the rate was 11.9 One attorney for the school board per cent. pend largely on whether Vance 11 grated system. (See "Under Sur­ ~lipp!n~ a~out the Emmet Till slaying "benefitted personally" from cash vey.") Edwin E. Dunaway of Little Rock' m MISSISSippi and a note which said w?o also is known as a personai "Your boy can get the same thing."' advances. "If he did benefit, it is seri­ 3) A Little Rock attorney repre­ fnend of and attorney for millionaire He said his son had been enrolled in ous," Arnold said. "If not, it doesn't senting the Pulaski County Bar As­ Winthrop Rockefeller, said that those amount to anything." sociation said several loopholes ex­ the Hoxie schools. points already have been upheld by Vance declined to comment on the isted in the Supreme Court school Two other Negroes testified they Judge Trimble. had been visited by half a dozen white issue. segregation decision but that they men who sought their cooperation in Bill Penix of J onesboro, Vance's probably would be plugged when But Amis Guthridge of Little Rock, keeping their children out of schooL Phillip Carroll, a Little Rock attor­ attorney, said he bad talked with Kiz­ tested in the courts. (See "What attorney for the Committee Repre­ Marshall Hill, 31, a mechanic, said ney representing the public education zia and that there was "no suggestion They Say.") senti.ng Segregation in the Hoxie panel of the Pulaski County Bar As­ Schools and for White America, Inc., Herbert Brewer was in the delega­ of dishonesty." 4) A committee representing the tion which called on him. He said sociation, told the North Little Rock ! a defendant in the case said: Kiwanis Club Dec. 12 there were "It is tragic to observe the con­ Negro ministerial alliance asked the "The only tSSues. that• were tried Brewer and another man asked him tinuing abuse one must take as his Ill Little Rock School Board to name to keep his two children from school several legal loopholes in the Su­ before Judge Trimble related to al­ preme Court decisions banning racial punishment for obeying the supreme !i:z an advisory committee which would leged picketi.ng, boycotting, and "unill they got the situation straight­ law of the land," Penix added. include Negroes to work in the di­ ened out." Hill said he told his callers segregation in the public schools but threats of violence. There was no tes­ that they probably would be plugged n!CI:ion of integration. (See "School timony offered about the legality of he would not comply unless he was Boards and Schoolmen.") asked to do so by school officials. by the courts as soon as they were segregation. In my opinion that part tested. 5) Two pro-segregation groups de­ of the board's complaint has not been Roy Kelly, 61, a fanner, said he bad received a similar call and was told Carroll outlined several "evasive :2 nounced the White House Conference decided." tactics" which have been or might be On Nov. 29, two Arkansas pro-seg­ : on Education and asked Gov. Faubus that withdrawing his five children regation groups, White America, Inc., 111 from the school might help the group used. He said he used the term in the rl ;l;. to recall the Arkansas delegation. DEFENDANTS LISTED sense of avoidance which is legal, and the White Citizens Council of Co: (See "Community Action.") Defendants in the suit are Herbert in getting "some consideration" from rather than evasion which is illegal. Arkansas, endorsed a resoluti.on de­ 6) A spokesman for lhe White Brewer, leader of the Hoxie group the school board. Kelly said he agreed manding that Gov. Faubus recall the •• to consider the request if commit­ "Some have spoken of the abolition lq !i Citizens Council of Arkansas said pe- opposing integration; Guthridge; of education as a state function, but Arkansas delegation to the White in t;a titions would be circulated in Feb- James D. Johnson of Crossett and ments were obtained from other Ne­ lv there are two reasons why this sys­ House Conference on Education be­ :S td! ruary for a proposed amendment to Curt C. Copeland of Hot Springs, gro parents. He testified that the tem would not work," he said. Pl'ivate cause, they said, the national meet­ ~. WUDUUIUIIIIIIIII IIII Ill ll I 1111111 I I IIIIIDIIIIDD"' -; •· callers did not return to report on ing was designed to force racial inte­ or theh· visits with others. school systems he said would require lt be effective with the beginning of the extensive financial help from the gration on the South's public schools. •h ol Adair County Ruling school year in August or Septembet·, NO TlffiEATS MADE states and the courts probably would The resolution accused the Na­ c 1956. I put this August or September In reply to questions from M. V. not support the private systems when tional Association for the Advance­ Ia (Continued (rom Page 8) ol as it is apparent some registration is Moody of Little Rock, a defense at­ they were challenged because of state ment of Colored People of injecting .u Adair County. The high school pupils had in Adair County in August. torney, Kelly and Hill admitted no grants. the racial issue into the White House 01 are therefore being denied at this ti.me The defendants, by their answers, threats were made against them. Conference. It also said, ~n the rights guaranteed to them by our plead the overcrowding of existing In his opening remarks, school AMENDMENT FORBIDS "We believe the Conference to be lo Constitution. Education is a thing lhat school buildings and the inadequacy board Atty. Bill Penix of Jonesboro He said the Fourteenth Amend­ another fraud perpetrated by the .Ar ment as interpreted by the Supreme tl• cannot wait, and pupils of proper age of transportati.on facilities. I think charged that a "reign of terror" with Rockefeller, Ford, and Carnegie U • are entitled to immediate considera- that these conditions are to be taken "talk of lynching'' enveloped Hoxie Court, forbids state support of any Foundations, the Fund for the Re­ ':) activity which includes racial segre­ Jd ;s ~ tion. It will be the ruling of this into consideration by the court in fix­ when the defendants opened their public, the Southern Regional Coun­ lO court that lhe Negro high school chil­ ing the date for integration, but I do campaign against integrated schools. gation. cil on Human Relations, and other IP dren should be admitted to lhe high not think either of them is a defense He said the temporary injunction re­ "Also," he said, "it is probable that un-American groups to force inte­ 'ol" school by Feb. 1, 1956. the courts would find that education for unlimited delay.... stored peace. gration upon the public schools in "'\p The matter of lhe elementary pu­ It is further pled by the defendants of the masses has become so identi­ the South." •• pils presents a somewhat different that they contemplate the construc­ LEGISLATOR BEARD fied as a state functi.on that they rd Former state Sen. James D. John­ Gov. Faubus said that he hadn't se­ cy question. In the first place, there are tion, reconstructi.on or enlargement probably would hold that there was lected the Arkansas delegates and en son of Crossett said in his opening no such thing as a private school t$1 a great many more of these pupils of the school buildings within the dis­ that "they were chosen by the Ar­ trict and that lhe Adair County Board statements that the suit was brought system. In any event, a private sys­ than of the high school pupils, by the school board to hamper a state kansas Conference on Education and '"cit and I am of the opinion that the sit­ of Education has adopted a resolution tem would be incredibly expensive." their names submitted to me before nf requesting the Adair County Fiscal suit filed by the pro-segregation He suggested that there were only uation as to them is not so acute as is groups, charging the school board I knew who they were." Av Court to submit to the voters of Adair two ways for the schools to remain VI the question of the high school pu­ with irregular employment and pur­ n• County lhe quesion as to whether an segregated-an amendment to the PLAN PETITIONS J .. p~ · .. It is true that many white chasing practices. children are hauled by bus {rom dis­ annual special school building tax Constitution or a reversal of the Su­ On Dec. 4, in announcing an organ­ On the final day of the Jonesboro i:l< tances of as much as seven miles to shall be levied in the district for a preme Court decision. He said be izational meeting of the White Citi­ '"s period of 25 years in order to meet hearing, the defense called to the considered both unlikely. zens Council of Arkansas to be held 1:5 the Columbia Grade Ccnte1· while stand a string of witnesses who denied Negro children are living within the cost of construction and equip­ the next night at El Dorado, James ment. It is also pled that the board allegations of school board witnesses . SCHOOl BOARDS D. Johnson of Crossett, Council di­ walking distance of this school. How­ lhat pro-segregation activities had ever, from the record it does not ap­ contemplates the leasing or purchase AND SCHOOLMEN rector, said that the final draft of a of additional buses but that it is wiUl­ stirred up tension and fear of im­ proposed amendment to the Arkan­ pear that these Negro children are be­ pending danger. lug denied the educati.onal oppor­ out funds. It anticipates that such A committee representing the In­ sas Constitution was "about ready" funds will be available if the neces­ Hoxie Mayor Mitchell Davis said he terdenominational Ministerial Alli­ to be filed and that copies of petitions tunities afforded by the county to any attended a pro-segregation rally at greater extent than are many hun­ sary appropriati.ons are made by the ance of Greater Little Rock composed for a vote on it would be circulated General Assembly of the Common­ Walnut Ridge which adjoins Hoxie, of Negro ministers asked the Little in the February issue of the Council dreds of white children. I think, how­ and that he did not consider speeches ever, that the school authorities . . . wealth of Kentucky. These plans are Rock school board on Dec. 15 to ap­ magazine, Arkansas Faith. laudable, and it is hoped they will made there "inflammatory,'' as plain­ point an advisory committee which He said the amendment, if ap­ should not overlook the fact that "at tiff witnesses had charged. stake is the personal interest of the eventually be carried out. It must be would include Negroes "to work in proved, would place Arkansas in a l>iai.ntifts in admission to public admitted, however, lhat such plans CHIEF TESTIFIES the direction of racial integration in position to circumvent the Supreme ~ls ~ _soon as practicable on a are rather vague and indefinite and Similar testi.mony to the absence of the schools." Court rulings on integration in the nondiscrurunatory basis" and lhat depend for their ulti.mate success ill feeling at Hoxie was made by Po­ Dr. William G. Cooper Jr., board public schools. He said the proposed "the burden rests upon the defend­ upon so many varied elements that lice Chief Cledus McClintock, who president, said the board would reply amendment would contain the best ants to establish that such time is they cannot be considered as lawful said he became chief Sept. l , and later to the request at its January meeting. provisions of similar amendments ~ in the public interest and grounds for delay of the mandate said it might have been Oct 1. On Dec. 17, Amis Guthridge of adopted in other southern states. laid down by the Supreme Court. The Johnson said the proposed amend­ OOnsJStent with good fa1th compli­ Jewell Barnett of Hoxie, a member Little Rock, attorney for White ~ court does not question the good faith America and the Committee Repre­ ment would be supplemented by sev­ Ill ance at the earliest practicable date." of the Committee Representing Seg­ 91 1 :'-Ill of the opinion that an inte­ of the defendants but good faith is not regation in Hoxie schools, said he bad senti.ng Segregation in Hoxie Schools, eral legislative proposals his group c;h the test. There ~ust be "compliance and James D. Johnson of Crossett, a has under considerati.on. ~tion ~f the elementary schools in withheld his children !rom school be- ~·1·5 lwnbla and Adair County should at lhe earliest practicable date." .. · 1·4 >It 1i Jt ------~- -

PAGE 10-.JANUARY 1956-SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS Georgia Assembly Meeting to Strengthen Segregat~~~ G~~!!.... MACON, Ga. !ore it was burned and added Tm: GENERAL AsSEMBLY of Georgia t.hree students were will convene early in J anuary with trouble" as a result of their the shaping of legislation to strength­ Resentment at Dean Tate's en racial segregation one of its ma­ against students involved in jor tasks, in the opinion of legislative 5 affair was believed ~rpoJnsi!)J@ leaders (see "Legislative Action"). a larger demonstration on Pre-legislative session comment, of Dec. 6. Athens police and however, was overshadowed in the :;tate troopers had to use public's mind during December by to disperse a crowd of students the furore created over the question mated at between 1,000 and of whether or not Georgia Tech persons. would play Pittsburgh, a team with Five University of Georgia a Negro squad member, in New Or­ dents were later dismissed leans' Sugar Bowl Jan. 2. The issue school and the cases of about 30 was finally resolved in favor of the ers wct·e being studied. football game being played but not before segregation, schools and sports On Dec. 1, the Georgia Tech dominated the headlines and public dent Council voted to pay interest for more than a week (see damage caused during "In The Colleges"). lions at the State Capitol and A U. S. district court order imple­ tivc Mansion in Atlanta by w~tem~ menting a recent decision of the Su­ money from Tech's 5,200 studenta preme Court opened Atlanta's mu­ a voluntary basis." nicipal golf courses to Negroes after some four years of litigation over the racial controversy. (See "Legal Action.") A suit to test validity of laws prohibiting the use funds to operate mixed been postponed twice, once by Georgia State Patrol troopers and Atlanta policemen stood guard as Georgia Tech students demonstrated against defendants and once by the Gov. Marvin Grillin's request that Tech not be permitted to play the Sugar BowJ football game against a non-segre­ Judge George R Lilly gated University of Pittsburgh team. Lowndes County Superior Two bills designed to sidestep the the request of Atty. Gen. U. S. Supreme Court's decision hav­ of Regents, he told Gov. Griffin that the governor's home lasted until action over the state was strongly poned the state's friendly ing the effect of outlawing segrega­ if Tech won, Tech would accept a about 3 a.m., and some 500 boys were critical of the governor's position. against the Valdosta Board of tion in public recreation facilities Sugar Bowl bid and the governor in the crowd, according to an esti­ cation. were prepared for legislative con­ replied, "Fine." mate by the Associated Press. State TALMADGE SILENT Cook said the continuance was sideration by Atty. Gen. Eugene patrolmen, city policemen armed with Former Gov. Herman Talmadge Cook. quested while the possibility of GAME BAR ASKED tear gas and city Bremen ready with declined to conunent on the contro­ eluding legislation which might One would empower state, county But on Dec. 2, the governor wired hoses had been summoned to keep versy. passed by the and municipal governments to sell Chairman Arnold asking that the order before the demonstrators ar­ in the test case was ,..uuuo:u. or lease public golf courses, swim­ The president of the Tech student board of regents meet at once to bar rived, but the hoses or tear gas were body apologized to Pittsburgh for implementation legislation ming pools or parks. Cook said it any state school from meeting a team not used. Several students were held what was termed Griffin's "unwar­ the governor to close any schools would also circumvent a portion of that uses Negroes and from engag­ by police but later released. ranted action" and Bobby Grier, the which the races are mixed and another U. S. Supreme Court decis­ ing in a contest before an unsegre­ The Atla.nta Constitution. reported Pitt Negro player, said, "I'm just sor­ make public educational grants ion holding that states do not have gated crowd. that one of the Tech students present ry the whole thing came up." individual students has been the power to close public parks Bobby Grier, a reserve halfback on at the demonstration was the govern­ of the 1956 General Assembly through legislation. the Pittsburgh team which Tech had As the controversy continued, a or's own son, Sam Griffin, a freshman basketball team from Valdosta State these angles may be brought into The second bill would allow the contracted to play on Jan. 2, is a at the school. The paper said the son Valdosta suit by amendments. governor or state park superintend­ Negro, and Sugar Bowl officials had College, a university sYstem school, we.nt in and asked his father to come played a nonsegregated team from ents to close a park or other recrea­ announced that Pittsburgh could sell out for a short talk when the mob tion place in emergency situations tickets in its section of the stadium Moody Air Force Base near Valdosta converged on the mansion. on Dec. 3. Five of the 12 Moody play­ The Valdosta Board of J:.ouco' llllll$~111'1 such as the possibility that it might to whomever it wished. Regular and Griffin dismissed the incident as adopted a resolution to name a •"'"'I IIIIC:: become a place of riot or disorder. Tech tickets for the game were to ers were Negroes. Military officials "just a bunch of college boys having at Moody said the Negro players mittee to study the effects of m~• ~­ Some members of the legislature be on a segregated basis. a good time." He said he would not grated schools but the state filed were put in the lineup only in games suit before such a committee .,_ _ _ ,,., said they may introduce bills giving Gov. Griffin said the South must be pressured and had not changed played on the base, and Dr. Ralph bus drivers, railroad conductors and not budge from its rules against ra­ his mind about his position. His re­ Thaxton, Valdosta State College named and no members have station masters police powers to deal cial integration and said playing quest for a stern athletic segregation president, said he "would never have been appointed. with segregation problems. against Negroes in athletics was no policy, he told reporters in a later approved such arrangements" (play­ Two Negroes have petitioned different than going to school in in­ news conference, was aimed exclus­ ing against Negroes) and had told court to inter;ene in the VlliiCIOIII• t tt:!!-':tl PARK BILLS EXPECTED tegrated classrooms. Ben Wiggins, Both Lt. Gov. Ernest Vandiver, ively at Tech's Sugar Bowl game. the coach "last year" that the school case. They are Leonard D. executive secretary to Griffin, said would not play a non-segregated Georgia L. Davis, according to .IJOI~t ah president of the Senate, and Rep. the governor "feels he should have TECH FUNDS THREATENED Marvin Moate, speaker of the House, team. ald L. Hollowell of Atlanta, been consulted on the bid. We under­ Rep. John P. Drinkard of Lincoln counsel for the National Assoc1aU19!11 1t.: expect to see legislation authorizing stand Tech bad chances at two other County, chairman of the powerful The board of regents met Dec. 5 sale of state parks if segregation is as public interest in the issue mount­ for the Advancement of bowls but accepted the Sugar Bowl State of Republic committee in the People. The Davises were among broken. Maintenance of segregation bid." legislature, said he was in favor of ed to high pitch. Most of the throe­ wlll be a major issue before the Gen­ hour session was behind closed doors, signers of the original petition Georgia teams have in the past cutting off state funds to Tech if the ing the Valdosta board to de~~IJ::i eral Assembly, they said. Vandiver school insisted on playing Pittsburgh. with officials stating it was just a said strengthening of statutes prohib­ played against Negro players. The committee meeting, but the public gate, and Hollowell said the u ...... _,,r . University of Georgia played in such iting mixed schools and implementa­ Minor demonstrations interpreted part of the meeting produced an ex­ vention was filed to protect the tion of a constitutional amendment contests in 1950 against St. Mary's as protests against Griffin's action change between Regent David Rice of the original petitioners. and in 1952 against Pennsylvania, and were staged by about 50 Mercer Uni­ which authorizes segregated private of AUanta, who wanted to censure GOLF COURSE CASE Tech played a desegregated Notre versity students in Macon Dec. 3 and schools are major tasks for the Gen­ Griffin for his "attempt to interfere'' An order by U. S. district m111~.-... eral Assembly. Dame team in 1953. by a few Emory University students with Tech's operations, and Regent at the school near Atlanta Dec. 5. Judge Boyd Sloan on Dec. 22 A six-point legislative program MARCH ON CAPITOL Roy V. Harris of Augusta, who said Georgia Tech officials said numer­ the way for Negroes to play on setting up legal and administrative On the night of Dec. 2, Georgia Griffin's action was "the finest thing lanta's public golf courses on an machinery in preparation for a pos­ ous message received by the school that ever happened to this state." Tech students in a crowd estimated urged that the game be played. segregated basis. The U. S. ~... ~mllf l''"•la sible move from integrated public to by police to be some 2,500 strong, Court recently decided in segregated private schools has al­ The Atla.nta. Journal, largest paper in REGENTS' ACTION marched on the State Capitol and the state, said communications to its Dr. H. H . Holmes, his sons, Olhlfl' l'~ ii,.;; ready been recommended to the leg­ left considerable litter damage. An­ The regents voted to: and Alfred Holmes, and C. T. islature by the Georgia Education letters column ran about 6-to-1 other group demonstrated before the against Griffin's position. A spokes­ 1) Allow Georgia Tech to play all Atlanta Negroes who bad Commission (SoUTHERN SCHOOL NEws, Executive Mansion. home of the gov­ Pittsburgh Jan. 2 in New Orleans suit after being turned away from November, 1955). man for the governor said messages ernor, in protest against Griffin's at­ received at the Capitol supported but prevent mixed-race contests in' city's public Bobby Jones coww tempt to prevent the Tech-Pitt con­ Griffin's stand 232 to 119. Georgia and allow future games out­ 1951. ~ • A ... " .) t ..: 0 • test. Most daily newspaper editorial re- side Georgia to be played in accord­ City Atty. Jack Savage said IN :THE .COLLEGES .·.. The marchers fought briefiy with ance with the customs of the host municipality had only two '• : <'~' A ~~~~~y ._ State Capitol building guards and state. open after Judge Sloan issued The football segregation contro­ Georgia Bureau of Investigation Penalized by the Politicians 2) Apologize to Gov. Griffin and order. The city could (1) cl011e versy which figuratively shook the agents at the capitol when one stu­ the people of Georgia for the conduct courses or (2) permit Negroes to state began Nov. 30 when Hugh G. dent was taken in custody on a dis­ for Unnecessary Fair Play of students who demonstrated at the play on an unsegregated basis. Mayor Grant of Augusta, speaking in be­ orderly charge (but later released Capitol and the Executive Mansion. William B. Hartsfield said he be­ half of himself and an Augusta group, some distance from the scene.) Chairman Arnold interpreted the lieved most of the people of Atlanta wired Coach Bobby Dodd protesting Door locks were broken, trash cans policy resolution to mean that would "accept without question" tbt against Georgia Tech's participating overturned and sand from toppled Georgia Tech and University of decision to open the city's se\111 in the Sugar Bowl game against the cigarette urns scattered about the Georgia teams can play "anywhere public courses to Negroes. non-segregated University of Pitts­ first and second floors of the capitol. they are invited" and said he doubted Closing the courses, he said, wonld burgh team. Grant is second vice Fire hoses were pulled from their that the regents would take any deprive some 70,000 white gol!en tJ president of the pro-segregation racks and some shrubbery pulled up. further action in the matter. the use of the links and would pill States Rights Council of Georgia, Inc., A can was placed on the head of the 100 city employes out of work. Mayor but is not authorized to speak for the .. Coach Dodd of Tech commented: statue of Gen. John B. Gordon, Civil I think we can live by this ruling Hartsfield pointed out that the order council War hero, which is on the capitol okay." involved only golf courses ~.~ Tech President Blake Van Leer grounds. swimming pools and playgiVW--; An investigation of the Atlanta later said that Coach Dodd contacted Some of the marchers, on their way which will continue to be operated Gov. Marvin Griffin after receiving demonstrations was launched by on a segregated basis. to the Executive Mansion, left over­ Tech officials and in Athens on the the telegram from Augusta and "the turned trash cans and several burned governor's office told Dodd not to effigies ol Griffin in their wake. Some nig~t following the regents' 'meeting OTHERS PERMIT worry about it." Van Leer also said carried signs saying such things as, durmg the day, some 750 University Hartsfield said the decision was~ that on the day of the Georgia­ "Grow Up, Griffin," ''We Play Any­ o~ Georgia students took part in a a "bold departure" from the actij Georgia Tech game (Nov. 26), in the body," and "We Want to Go to the display, marching behind a banner of other southern cities, manY presence of Robert 0. Arnold, chair­ Sugar Bowl" reading, "This Time We Are With which, he said, already have per­ Tech." man of the University System Board The Tech student demonstration at mitted such desegregation. Dean of Men William Tate said an (Continued on Next Page) SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS-JANUARY 1956-PAGE ll ~ew Texas Suit Seeks Entry of Negroes at Wichita Falls AUSTIN, Texas announce before the deadline next NOTHER lawsuit was filed by Texas May. Other Negroes also will be eligible than other students. After a dispute school. It has authority to approve Negroes seeking to enter white ~ ~nroll at the college under f 1e de­ with the teacher and principal, the or reject proposed new courses. The . The announced candidates are Sen. CISIOn. >lie schools during December. Jlmmy Phillips of Angleton and Reu­ Negro athlete was ordered to leave stated purpose is to improve the lut otherwise there was little ac­ The University of Texas, brgest in school, after which maey of his effectiveness and efficiency of the ben E. Senterfitt of San Saba. former the state, has announced plans for ty on the racial segregation prob- speaker of the Texas House of Rep­ classmates took part in the one-day Texas college system. It will choose ~ccepting Negroes at all levels start­ 1. It was, in fact, the quietest r:sentatives. Both of them have criti­ "strike." a director, who can be paid $15,000 oth in the controversy since the mg in September, 1956. It already Dr. Irby Carruth, superintendent a year under the act. ClZCd the present state administration, offers instruction to Negroes as well •. Supreme Court declaration of ~ut neither has mentioned segrega­ of Austin schools, said the problem y, 1955. tion. as whites in the graduate and pro­ would be left for handling by Prin­ 'arents of 20 Negro pupils filed suit fessional courses. cipal W. B. Campbell, for more than COMMUNITY ACTION United States district court at 1\DNOR POL111CAL ISSUE 20 years the head of the Austin Ne­ gro high school A Citizens Council was chartered :hita Falls for admission to the _It seems likely that desegregation by a Fort Worth group, but the wise elementary school near the w1U be less an issue in Texas politics Thirty-five students were suspend­ month saw little organized activity "s Negro residential district. than in some other states. More than ed from Stephen F. Austin high by either pro- or anti-segregation 'he suit is styled Alfred Avery Jr. 65 ~ool. districts have ended segre­ The Houston school district, said school (mainly for whites) also in groups. 1l v. Floyd L. RandeL et a.l. Randel gallon this year. Others will do so in to be the largest segregated district Austin, just before the Christmas holidays for a walkout from classes Ross Carlton of Dallas, state chair­ president of the Wichita Falls 1956. But in the East Texas districts, in the nation, bas approved desegre­ man . of Texas Citizens Council, ool board. ~here most of the stale's Negroes gated staff meetings. Its board and following suspension of one student promised to tell a home-town audi­ 'he Negroes, represented by Na­ live, there are few signs of active ef­ an advisory committee still are for shooting fireworks in the school ence about "officials of the National ,a} Association for the Advance­ forts to abolish racial segregation. studying steps to be taken toward building. They were expected to be Association for Advancement of Col­ nt of Colored People attorneys, . A local leader of NAACP was desegregation of students. reinstated after conferences with par­ ents and school officials. ored People who are elther Com­ uested a hearing before a three­ k1lled at Schulenberg, in South Tex­ Staff meeting integration was rec­ munists or members of Communist ge court. They asked that segre­ as. But the killing was admitted by ommended by the 25-member advis­ Lront organizations." lon be ended immediately. The a 15-year-old Negro relative after ory council. A similar statement by Carlton ool board previously had an- NAACP officials had started an in­ The board turned down a proposal previously had been challenged by ced that Barwise school will be­ vestigation of the case. The boy was ~ poll the teachers before ordering NAACP Texas leaders. ne a Negro school on Jan. 4, 1956, sent to a corrective school. mtegration at their sessions. Dr. W. ( er a new elementary school is The victim was Herbert Johnson W. Kemmerer, board member, said 60, also a leader in his town's Amer: such a poll would "only aggravate Gov. Allen Shivers appointed a ::·. WHAT. THEY ~ SAY 'tied for white students. ... ··~~- ~ ; • t •• ., ican Legion organization. The motive the situation." new Texas Commission on Higher for the slaying never was made clear. While white and Negro teachers Education, which will coordinate Dr. Erie Darnall, a Dallas psycholo­ sometimes attend the same profes­ more than 20 institutions of higher gist, charged that extremist groups ~ ··'!~ sional meetings in Texas, segrega­ learning that are entirely state­ are increasing racial tensions in - --= - - tion stiU is practiced generally. The supported. Texas. Dr. Darnall spoke to a Uni­ 'be Texas legislature is not sched­ ttfi\~,- ~ Texas State Teachers Association in A. M. (Al) Muldrow, a Brownfield versity of Texas Inter-American d to meet during 1956, unless a November sidetracked a proposal to rancher, was named as temporary Conference of Psychologists. Organi­ clal session is called. LEGAL ACTION . ·. · admit Negro members. chairman. The commission's first zation of Texas Citizens Councils lut 1956 will be a political year, . meeting wlll be held at Austin on was cited as an example of such "ex­ NEGRO PUPILS STRIKE Jan. 9. Muldrow is a former Texas tremist" activity. I segregation is a subject on which U. S. District Judge Joe Sheehy or­ At Austin, more than 200 Negro secretary of state. The speaker declared also that tdidates have made little expres­ dered North Texas Stale College at students attending Anderson high '1. There are two announced can­ Shivers chose the commission press reports on the Dallas school Denton to admit Joe L. Atkins, a school took a brief walkout in an ates for the Democratic nomina­ largely from areas which have no board's statistics regarding education Negro, to its classes in February. The expression of dissatisfaction over one state schools. l for governor, and others will of whites and Negroes, lacking in­ case was Atkins v. North Te:ra.s teacher. She was accused of giving a The commission will have super­ terpretation, served to increase ten­ State College. s football star a harder examination vision over the budget of each state sions. 1 I ) 1 the Atlanta city schools. Several spe­ ~ourt in OklahoiDa Holds 'Good Faith' Pace Set cific points in connection with pos­ ) O~OMA CITY, Okla. o_n the basis of the transfers. In par- Other similar OANT lawsuits report- the move will make it easier for Ne­ sible desegregation difficulties are ,e, ID~AL .TUDCES m Oklahoma have ttcular, he stated, a new school bus edly are in preparation but have not gro high schools to schedule games being investigated. (SSN, October D re)ected a l<><;al ~chool '?atrons' had been purchased primarily to yet been initiated. and will permit a realignment of con- 1955) ,.d ..>rt to push raCial mtegration be- transport the transferees from the ferences Similar questions are being stud­ II 1d the "good faith" pace set by the Coweta district and one additional · ied in the Chatham County (Savan­ c; preme Court. (See "Legal Action.") teacher had been hired for the school nah) school system desegregation " e past month also brought comple- year at $300 a month. He added can­ survey. The board bas directed Supt. J.• WHAT THEY SAY w n of desegregation at the college cellation of the transfers would have . -". . ;. ;.it. William A. Early to make a survey el (see "In the Colleges") and dropped attendance below the point and report in "seasonable (sic) time" I· -ther steps toward merger of white where the budget could have been Dr. J. Chester Swanson, Oklahoma as to "practicability and effects" of 1 Negro professional groups (see financed. Oklahoma Baptist University at City superintendent of schools, dis­ possible future integration. :T1 :hoot Boards and Schoolmen "). Shawnee became the last of the state's closed no faculty changes are planned :S \n opinion handed down Dec. 16 LOCAL LAW IS ISSUE private and tax-supported schools of at Creston Hills elementary during A special committee of the Bibb •'-~ a three-judge panel dismissed a In the light of these facts the court higher education to comply with the the 1955-56 year. Creston Hills, a County (Macon) Board of Educa­ fs t lo force the all-Negro Red Bird ruled no racial discrimination was in­ Supreme Court integration rulings. question mark in the enrollment pic­ tion bas said it could not commit ••q trict in Wagoner County to permit volved, and the issue was one purely Its board of trustees adopted a mo­ ture when Oklahoma City schools itself on integration demands until tn Negro pupils to attend schools of local law. It conceded that the stu­ tion "that the policy of admissions opened their first integrated term in completion of a study, the extent of tV arer their homes. The jurists had dents doubtless would not have trans­ conform to that of our state-support­ September, was assigned an all-white :5 which in mid-October it could not ,~. ard arguments Nov. 30 on the peti­ ferred to Red Bird had they known ed schools and other accredited senior faculty. Situated in an area of rapid assess. Mallory C. Atldnson of Ma­ a, brought in behalf of the Ne­ the Coweta school would be open to colleges in Oklahoma." The board residential turnover, the school came sl con is chalnnan of the committee lh )el' parents by attorneys for the them. It acknowledged further "a cer­ said no Negroes have applied for ad­ up with the city's only mixed student ol mission to OBU and explained the body with a majority of Negroes. Ad­ continuing the study of integration c ttional Association for the Ad­ tain moral inequity" in requesting Ia acement of Colored People. plaintiffs to pay tuition to attend the action was taken merely to "clarify ministrative officials decided against petitions. ol school located in their home district. the issue for administrative purposes." either a mixed or all-Negro faculty u Mle basic question involved in the ~. pute, the panel ruled, was one of "However, even though the plain­ The 18 state-supported colleges, in­ "for the time being." Now, Dr. Swan­ tiffs' motives for transfer to Red Bird cluding University of Oklahoma and son indicated, successful operation of '" al fiscal policies, not of racial dis­ lo ~ mlnation, and therefore was out­ grew out of a pattern established by Oklahoma A&M, were opened to Ne­ the Creston Hills program obviates Ar unconstitutional segregation," the gro students in June. Later, Oklahoma any need for change. Teachers, pupils ,,. e the jurisdiction of the federal U• lrt. But, even if the reverse had court wrote, "nevertheless, the basic City, Tulsa and Phillips unive.rsities, and parents appear to be working to­ ':3 !n true, the judges declared they controversy before this court is one all private schools, dropped race as gether harmoniously, he said. •d a consideration in admissions. Atty. Gen. Cook addressed the 10 ·uld not have granted the relief between two separate colored factions Conservative Society, a Yale law I,,P Jght because the school districts over local fiscal policies." school student organization, on "The ol ected had evidenced the "highest The opinion pointed out that the SCHOOL BOARDS Georgia Southern View of Segregation." De­ osl (Continued from Page 10) IP gree of good faith" in moving to­ Coweta school district, also a defend­ AND SCHOOLMEN spite objections to his appearance by re rd racial integration. ant in the suit, is not now practicing Dr. Holmes said members of the the Yale NAACP chapter, the New rd cy segregation, since it has some 30 Ne­ The Oklahoma Association of Ne­ Lincoln Country club, a private Ne­ Haven Civil Liberties Union, the en gro students-youngsters who did not gro Teachers took two steps during gro golf club, had agreed to instruct John Dewey Society, the Yale Chris­ ,,, transfer out or were able to get their the month looking toward dissolution Negroes who may be unaware of tian Association, the Yale Hillel Ill "h transfers cancelled in lime and those of the 48-year-old organization. It course courtesies in the ethics of the Foundation and the Young Demo­ nf who arc paying tuition. authorized the executive secretary, game. About 150 Lincoln members crats of Yale, Cook spoke as sched­ Av F. D. Moon, Oklahoma City Douglass play golf. uled. He was interrupted only once. 'GOOD FAITH' RECOGNIZED high school principal, to try to set up Commenting on Atlanta's accept­ by a r_nale voice from the balcony, ."'. Je I'he suit (Ernestine Borrough, et al, Said the court: "Because of the de­ a meeting of the executive commit­ ance of the situation, Gov. Griffin said and wtre services reported applause ,:. d• Elmer Jenkins, superintendent of fendant school districts' good faith tees o! the OANT and the 20,000- it is "regrettable that the Atlanta and laughter, about equally mixed, c; •d Bird Dependent School District strides toward complete integration, membcr Oklahoma Education Asso­ city administration has chosen to greeted his address. 1·5 this court would have no disposition ciation to consider merger of the two throw in the towel as far as golf Meeting in Tampa, Fla., the South­ , et al) had been filed in Muskogee ·"'ts the eastern division of Oklahoma's to use ilo; equitable authority to com­ groups. The OEA bas opened its courses are concerned," but the state eastern Advisory Board of the is I It pel Red Bird to renounce all financial ranks to Negroes, but the latter want bas no jurisdiction since the city NAACP, evaluating desegregation ,., ~eral district court. was heard by Je dge Alfred P. Murrah of the U. S. right flowing from the transfers in assurance their rights will be fully was not inclined to offer "further progress in the Deep South, termed l rl >urt of Appeals and U. S. District question for the present school term, protected in the larger organization. resistance." Georgia "one of the most defiant Je tdges Earl S. Vaught and W. R. in order to force complete and imme­ T h e y are concerned particularly Atty. Gen. Cook said that the state states,'' and Gov. Griffin an "irre­ allace. diate integration. Under the condi­ about possible discrimination in cer­ is powerless to intrude in such mu­ sponsible and emotional" man. nicipal matters. The plaintiffs accused Jenkins, the tions existing in the defendant dis­ tain areas of the state, since much of OEA business is conducted on a OFFICIALS ACCUSED tricts, such districts are entitled to .. -l'f ,.._ ~ ~~" .. '. \ ' ;gt'~ superintendent, of racial dis­ district level Griffin and Cook were accused of llnlnation in refusing to cancel this added time to complete, in or­ derly fashion, their desegregation ' UNDER>sulv 'E'Y .· using the segregation issue to "keep U!Sfers they obtained last spring The OANT also recognized its im­ their bands on about two billion dol­ >m Porter and Coweta to the Red program." pending dentise by approving the hir­ lars in tax money'' by John Wesley .rd district. Encouraged by the Su­ Meanwhile, the status quo prevailed ing of a professional historian. He will Surveys authorizing studies of Dobbs, treasurer of the Georgia erne Court anti-segregation ruling, in the first suit by the Oklahoma As­ direct a history-writing project to school desegregation problems are NAACP chapter, in a fund-raising e Negroes had enrolled this fall in sociation of Negro Teachers protest­ "preserve the OANT for posterity," underway in three Georgia school meeting in Atlanta. nner all-white schools at Porter and ing dismissal of one of its members Also on the merger front, the Okla­ system& The conference voted to step up )Weta, despite the transfers. They (Mildred King George tl. Joint School homa Interscholastic Athletic Asso­ Supt. Ira Jarrell is responsible for the school desegregation campaign lhthdrew' after two weeks, however, District No. 5 of Kingfisher County). ciation, composed of 94 Negro high a survey directed by Dr. Warren G. in Georgia and to continue a suit en Jenkins protested. Only new development was a routine schools, voted unanimously to join Fundley of the Princeton University seeking admission for Horace Ward, He testified in the hearing be ar­ motion to quash on grounds that de­ the Oklahoma State High School Ath­ education and advisory section of the a Negro, to the University of Geor­ .1\ged the Red Bird school budget fendants were not properly served. letic Association. Officials explained Education and Training Service in gia law school

re (fe~ I'.Q 20:1 PAGE 12~ANUARY 1956-SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS Delaware Political Parties Face Stand on School Questi In the meantime, in the little town school district will remain Del the office of Atty. ~n. J. Donald WILMINGTON, of Greenwood in the southern part of gration until the people want UNEASINESS IS beginning to creep Craven on the constitutionality of the changed. bill Delaware, the local board held a into the political state of affairs in meeting also on Dec. 15 when the Delaware as the election year of 1956 The bill is interesting because in question of integration popped up. develops; for within several months, Delaware no local funds are required the leaders of the state Democratic to build Negro schools. All Negro The principal of the school, H. and Republican parties will have to schools in Delaware have been fi­ Geiger Omwake, asked one of the Four times, state Rep. Paul Liv­ board members, Wilbur Root, what decide what stand they will take on nanced by 100 per cent state funds. WhHe Bryant Bowles o£ ingston (Democrat of Wilmington the latter meant by saying that the "the question." Del., is reported to be in _,.., ,., and the only Negro ln the Delaware White schools are financed on a 60- Greenwood school would not partici­ 111 And in Delaware "the question" is 40 basis; the state paying 60 per cent on business, the NAAWP of General Assembly) tried to get an pate in any inter-schoo~ activi~ies be is national president has been integration v. segregation in the pub­ FEPC bill passed. And four times the of the cost and the remainder raised with schools that have mtegration. lic schools. by local school districts through bond quiet. bill was defeated, though supported Root replied that he meant even such But the We, The People group In the meantime, two anti-integra­ by the small group of Republicans but issues. activities as statewide school choruses tion groups in Delaware are watching Some"l egislators are afraid that the been active. In the first week of with Democrats voting on what was and statewide school bands were "off cember, a group of citizens of developments very closely-the Na­ virtually a sectional basis. designation of Negro schools in the limits" for the Greenwood school i( tional Association for the Advance­ Finally, in the ri'Uddle of December, construction bond issue bill of the County gathered in the other choruses or bands were form the Sussex County ment of White People and the newer Rep. Livingston managed to get state will either hamper or cancel the integrated. organization known as "We, The chance of the state selling the bonds. Health Association. enough votes to have his bill passed. EarHer in the month, a so-called People." It was immediately sent over to the An attempt was made by misunderstanding was straightened people at the meeting who As 1955 ended, the actual "front" Senate whose chamber was filled out in the Laurel Board of Education of the controversy - the public with representatives of We, The tified as We, The People SUilDOI~ (Sussex County). There had been a to block the organlzation of the schools of the state-was quiet. People. question as to whether or not the In the meantime, the state House The Democratic president pro tem sociation. board had actually authorized a reso­ The opposition to the of Representatives (Democratically of the Senate, Charles G. Moore of lution to the State Board of Educa­ controlled) has passed an FEPC bill Hartly, assigned the bill to the Com­ Health Association was led by tion, asking for a certificate of neces­ Abbott of Ellendale, Sussex and sent it over to the Senate where mittee on Public Health of which Several months ago the State Board sity for expanding school facilities it was put "on ice." (See "Legislative Sen. Hoey (out-and-out segregation­ who claimed that the national of Education asked some 19 local but on a segregated basis. health organization is infiltrated Action.") ist) is chairman. boards of education that had declined Such certificates are necessary for It is generally assumed that the bill Communists. THE POLITICAL SCENE to undertake integration in this school local districts before they go into a However, the We, The People will not be reported out, and if it year to explain why their facilities bond issue referendum for school In the summer of 1954, before the porters were declared out of should be pried out, it will be de­ were not adequate enough for an in­ building purposes. so-called Milford incident disrupted feated. the presiding officer of the tegration program. former state Supreme the peace of Delaware, both major RESOLUTION ASCERTAINED political parties adopted integration UNION PUSHES BILL To date, only seven of those 19 have James M. Tunnell Jr., of plans in their respective platforms. Soon after this particular meeting responded. However, the state super­ It was decided on Dec. 7 that such town. The wording of the planks varied, of the state Senate, the International intendent of public instruction, Dr. a resolution had been authorized, Days Inter, a controversy but in essence both state parties went Longshoremen's Association formed a George R. Miller, suggested that though a week or so before, certain oped as to who is the official on record as cheering the U. S. Su­ political action committee to work for more time be given for the other members of the board declared they man for We, The People in preme Court opinion on integration the passage of the FEPC measure. school districts. He was obviously not knew nothing of the resolution. -Nelson Abbott of Ellendale and pledged support for any program Other than this FEPC bill, nothing willing to force the issue at this time. At that same meeting of the Laurel Charles E. Boyce of Seaford. that would proceed in an orderly has happened in the past monili in the At the meeting of tl1e State Board school board, the Rev. Harry L. May­ Boyce claims he's the spo•keslllll fashion toward integration. Delaware General Assembly touch­ of Education Dec. 15, the CIO of Del­ field, rector of St. Philip's Episcopal and says he has such authority And though the conventions of ing on the segregation-desegregation aware sent a memo to the board ask­ Church, spoke briefly and declared the regional director of We, both parties were composed of dele­ question. ing "that through the media of the that the cancelling of games between People who he said was Merwin •f gates of all shades of opinion on the The school construction bill for State Board of Education, the process the Laurel teams and integrated Hart of New York. ~'I subject (though with a preponder­ millions of dollars, the designated of integration be carried on in a schools had had a "demoralizing'' Il is reported that We, The~ .• ance, perhaps, against out-and-out Negro schools characterized with the greater degree as prescribed by the effect upon the school. a small but alert group in Dela .,. integration in the schools) not a word letter "C," has been signed by Gov. historic ruling of the U. S. Supreme The board, in its reply to the rector, intend~ to figure in the 1956 e t~ of protest was registered on the Boors Boggs, but an opinion is pending ln Court." said that the present poHcy of the campa1gn. ..., of either convention. ISSUE BEC.UIE LIVELY But when school opened in 1954 First Louisiana Challenge in Hands of 3 Ju and Milford residents discovered that 11 Negro children had been admitted NEW ORLEANS, La. campaign issue a:; the candidates vied However, the laws were not in ex­ possible means of keeping the to the Milford (white) high school, ~ FIRST DIRECT challenge to Louisi- to see who was willing to use the istence when the original suit (Bush separate in the schools. the issue became a lively one. ana's segregation laws enacted in strongest measures-such as aboli­ v. Orleans School Board) was filed in State Sen. W. M. Rainach said The election went in favor of the 1954 was in the hands of a special tion of public schools-to maintain 1952. It was amended to attack the his "joint legislative committee Democrats on virtually a landslide three-judge federal court as a fateful segregation. laws after their passage. preserving segregation" will scale, with the Republicans claiming year for the Deep South drew to a The method of the suit's amend­ likely look into the possibility that integration had helped to defeat close. ment was one of the points in the plying the legal device when the them. The court has under advisement an motions for dismissal made by the id:lture meets next May. Oddly enough, the fact that the NAACP suit (Bush v. Orteans Parish. school attorneys, ~rard A. Rault and SchooL Board) to open all public W. Scott Wilkinson. Democrats had promised support for A suit which, if upheld, would in­ integration in their platform didn't schools in Louisiana's largest parish They argued that the amended (county) to all races; also four state tegrate Louisiana's largest school dis­ complaint was improperly filed. seem to make any difference in areas trict was taken under advisement by where the NAAWP was influential motions for dismissal. (See ''Legal Other state contentions were that: Action.") a federal court in New Orleans after -State instead of federal courts and citizens were opposed to integra­ a one-day hearing early in December. tion. The NAACP gear ed its case toward had jurisdiction in the suit, because keeping the issue "federal" and clear­ Judges Wayne G. Borah, Herbert Another election year is here. Willi it was an action brought by Louisiana 11 cut-that the state violates the U. S. W. Christen berry and J. Skelly citizens against a Louisiana agency. The first organized public obitli the exception of the office of governor Wright prepared a decision which which is held by a Republican, Caleb Constitution by segregati.ng its -The action asked by the peti­ tions to integration in Catholic~ • schools. will affect the future of Orleans Par­ tioner would be a criminal violation of the Archdiocese of New Orlet!l Boggs, the state government is Demo­ ish (county) public schools. These cratic. State's attorneys have asked the of existing state laws. came in December. schools, operated for generations on Two leading Republicans - state federal court to step out of a local -The plaintiffs had not made all Archbishop Joseph Francis R dispute, all aspects of which are cov­ a separation-of-races basis, and in the appeals to school board authori­ mel has called the principle of seii'J­ Rep. James Snowden and former more recent years on a "separate but chief deputy attorney general, Vin­ ered by existing and valid state laws. ties specified by Louisiana's segrega­ gation morally unsupportable,andbt They also asked the court to recog­ equal" basis, are in fact almost equal­ tion laws. said schools under his jurisdic&. cent Thei.sen-have expressed them­ ly attended by each race. Out of a selves on a possible approach to "the nize, in effect, the priority of the -The plaintiffs had not shown that would be integrated at an appro- !(! question." state's duty to protect public health total enrollment of 72,803 for the cur­ segregation brought them any irre­ priate time. and maintain educational stand.ards. rent school year, 36,527 are whites parable harm; but that integration Parents clubs o{ two New Orlelll Their attitude is that their party and 36,276 are Negroes. should recognize the existence of Attorneys opposing the NAACP would harm pupils of both races. area schools, St. Francis Xavier The mental and physical detriment Metairie and Holy Name of Mary "the question" and the existence of suit presented a number of affidavits which would be suffered by students the Supreme Court decision and that from schoolmen and physicians pur­ APPROPRIATION UPHELD Algiers. strongly urged that ,_,...,...... _ of both races following integration lion be preserved. The resolu the local communities should be porting to show that integration was one of the arguments advanced Two days before the hearing of the guaranteed the right to proceed would create a health hazard to white suit District Judge Coleman Lindsay cited health hazards, dissimilar by school attorneys - an argument tural backgrounds, and the dan toward integration at their respective public school students and lower the which NAACP lawyers Tureaud and ruled in Baton Rouge that there was paces. of "fraternization" as reasons for standard of education which could be Robert L. Carter said was unscientific. no cause of action in an NAACP offered them. challenge to the constitutionality of integrating. INTEGRATION 'NO ISSUE' HEALTH ASPECT TIED IN using public funds to hire lawyers to Catholic schools in the archdi However, other Republicans have ACTION 'PURELY LEGAL' The "public health" question was fight segregation suits. are attended by about 75,000 pupilt! come out to say that "the question" The NAACP's response to these tied in with an amendment to the 61,250 whHe and 13,150 Negro. is not a political issue. One of these The plaintiff charged (Adams v. affidavits was a refusal to budge from Louisiana constitution passed in 1954. Attorney General of Lcntisiana) that was state Sen. Elwood F. Melson Jr. its "purely legal" action. However, A. This asserts that the state has the PRO-INTEGRATION GROUPS of near Wilmington. He declared in a public funds could not be used in an P. Tureaud Sr., Louisiana c.hief coun­ right, through its inherent police effort to s u p p o r t unconstitutional A second pro-integration org~ recent radio broadcast that it is not sel for the NAACP, said the state­ power, to maintain public health and a political issue because neither party state laws. Judge Lindsay said that tion was formed in Louisiana ments were not based on scientific welfare by preserving segregation. in spending the funds to support sta~ Louisiana Council on Human Re can do anything about the U. S. Su­ fact. The suit, filed on behalf of 90 Negro preme Court decision. laws which have not yet been in­ lions. Formed in New Orleans ~ A preliminary on the hearing, school children against the Orleans validated, the attorney general was headed by Dr. Joseph Taylor, its The attitudes of Sen. Melson and which stems from a 1952 court action Parish school board, challenges this Rep. Snowden are significant because doing his "sworn duty." act was to otTer assistance to the brought by the NAACP, was a deci­ amendment only indirectly. The suit's leans school board in making Sen. Melson has said he would not sion by a Louisiana district court that The plaintiffs were "expressing a direct attack is on two legislative acts legal conclusion, unsupported by any transition toward integration. tum down the nomination for gov­ the state could legally use $100,000 in which stem from the amendment. ernor if it were given him by his judicial decree" when they "alleged The only other pro-integratitll appropriated public funds to hire One withholds State Board of Educa­ group in the state, the ConulU.ssiGI party's convention and Rep. Snow­ counsel in defending local school tion approval from any school which the unconstitutionality'' of the state den is being regarded as a potential segregation laws, Judge Lindsay on Human Rights of the Cath~ boards against integration suits. (See mixes the races. The other requires Committee of the South, adopted I candidate for the nomination. "Legal Action.") that parish school superintendents ruled. He upheld the state's motion In the Democratic ranks is Walter Cor dismissal. statement that orderly integration ell A backdrop to the suits, and one assign each individual pupil to a be brought about by intelligentefforl F. Hoey of near Milford, currently a which overshadowed them in public school, and sets up a system of ap­ . ' A "Citizens' Forum Cor IntegraticJ state senator. He is known to be an interest, was the heated gubernato­ peals from the school heads' rulings. aspirant for the nomination for gov­ rial campaign. All five candidates for LEG.ISLATIVE ~CTI~N . ·. was in-the-making in New Orleali These laws are unconstitutional in headed by the Rev. John H. ernor on a segregation platform the Democratic nomination declared ' ' < ...~· l"' ~~\\ .;,;. Telles view of the U. S. Supreme Court's Although not yet officially either with the regular Democrat!~ at the outset they would be defenders ruling on segregation, the petitioner org~ The head of the committee which the group held a meeting Dec. 16 I party or perhaps a third party, pos­ of segregation if elected. (See ''What claims. The court was asked to en­ sibly supported by the NAAWP and They Say.") authored Louisiana's 1954 segrega­ Rabouin public school auditoriU111 join the Orleans school board from tion laws said he will recommend a We, The People. But segregation was revived as a New Orleans to hear the Rev. All enforcing the segregation laws. study of "nullification" as another (Continued on Next Page) SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEW~ANUARY 1950--PAGE 13 Faces School Crisis As Voters Scorn Tax Scheme MONTGOMERY, Ala. Despite the defeat of the hvo school I rT.V'1 YEAR finds Alabama with a amendments, and despite the en­ and lawmakers, Folsom said the made to education for the biennium 'l'l£1i . nal .. In schools faced no danger of closing 1955-57." The failure of the $ll0,- 1 ,,, 'or educatio crtSas. a con- treaties of educators and legislators amendment election Dec. concerned over the possibility of a before the end of the current aca­ 000,000 bond amendment has also left .m:~nal education with a "critical building tile voters rejected, by the over­ shortened school year because of in­ demic year. ..__,_,"."' margin of 4 to 1, two adequate revenue, Folsom bas re­ "You can quote me flatfooted that problem," Dr. Meadows said. designed to provide more fused to include education in the schools are not going to close," he "There has been no increase in any said. ''You can quote me flatfooted state funds for school construction. for Alabama schools. special call. This means that to con­ in fact less is being allocated today amendment would have sider educational measures, a two­ that the teachers' salaries are not t ~first going to be reduced; and you can on a teacher unit basis than 20 years ~ ·~ted a supplemental income thirds vote of agreement is required : annarked for education. Ac- quote me flatfooted that the schools ago,'' he said. of both houses. Without saying are going to run the full nine P e to predictions, it would have where the needed revenue is coming months." ECONOI\UES ASKED t in an additional $29,000,000 from, Folsom has insisted that the The Alabama State Board of Edu­ urrent operating expenses and schools will not close before the end cation Dec. 16 asked local school of­ \: r Jready authorized salary increase of the school year. (~ "What They ficials throughout the state to tighten 1 11 teachers. Author of the income Say.") their spending for the rest of this ~P amendment is Rep. 0. J. (Joe) 2) The University of Alabama term. The request was prompted by ;:, 'Joodwyn of Montgomery. asked the U. S. Circuit Court of Ap­ the failure of the Goodwyn income ., 'l1le second would have authorized peals in New Orleans to reverse the tax amendment.. Without the Goodwyn tax, the ~ sale of $110,000,000 in bonds to decision of an Alabama federal judge The University of Alabama's dean " ce school construction. State who ordered the university to open state board said, "It appears from the of admissions asked the U. S. Circuit most recent estimates made by the , of Education Austin R. Mead- its doors to Negroes. (See "Legal Ac­ Court of Appeals in New Orleans tion.") department of finance and the de­ • backed by Gov. James E. Fol- Dec. 7 to reverse an Alabama fed­ bad emphasized the importance partment of revenue that less than ~ : eral judge's order opening the doors 90 per cent of the appropriations to ~ f this amendment as a means of REP. GOODWYN of the university to Negroes. Negro schools with those educational functions will be avail­ quanzmg LEGISLATIVE ACTION Amendment Defeated Attorneys for Dean William F. Ad­ able for the current school year." ~ ~ ~ ..· ,.' .· : •,... . ' - · white children to stave off chal­ ams argued that a court of three Accordingly, the state board sug­ )ll&t$ to the state's traditional pol­ for free public education. The dele­ judges should have been constituted gested that each city and county ':'/ of segregated schools. The Alabama legislature convenes tion of these sectioras would give the Jan. 3 in a special session called by to consider the application for injunc­ school board "make every economy legislature "flexibility,'' proponents tion sought by the original complain­ : 'OLS()M 'DISAPPOINTED' . Gov. James E. Folsom to consider possible in its operations" and '~defer said, in dealing with segregation ants in the case (Autherine LtLCV, et lt Gov Folsom expressed surprase reapportionment and rewriting the all capital and other expenditures problems as they arose. The changes at, v. Adams), Autberine J. Lucy and where possible to do so." ~ disappointment over the ~~fe~t state constitution. would permit the legislature to abol­ Mrs. Polly Anne Myers Hudson. The ~ tbe school bond amendment. This School finances, and perhaps the ish public schools if necessary, thus women, both of Birmingham, con­ i ~would have been used in get- segregation question. will be on the paving the way for any number of tended they had been denied admis­ log the Negroes out of their shot­ ., MISCELLANEOUS .. minds of many of the lawmakers. "private school" plaras similar to sion at the university because they ,' , ;(':~ ,· ""' •""~A"'t~il(,_~x·' ~Jill school houses into decent build­ But to consider such matters, both those proposed in Virginia. are Negroes. bf"i!P. and then they wouldn't be so houses must agree by a two-thirds One paradox is that many of. the U. S. District Judge Seyboum H. The Montgomery White Citizens i0.1etermined to go to the white vote. Otherwise action is limited to conservatives who are most con­ Lynne of Birmingham found for the Council has voted to include sur­ ~Is" Folsom said. "And from the the subject matter in the governor's cerned about the racial question, be­ plaintiffs and ordered that not only rounding counties in the organiza­ iat a1k 1' hear about segregation I call. ing from Black Belt areas where Ne­ they, but all other qualified Negro tion. At a closed meeting the la.st ! ght the people would be all for Despite the warnings of educators groes outnumber whites as much as students, must be admitted to the of November, the group decided to :::: but they weren't." and legislators that schools face a 5 to 1, are the very members who are university. change its name to the Central Ala­ i ~ Both amendments were crushed in most opposed to permitting Folsom bama Citizens Council About 500 5 financial crisis, Folsom has so far re­ surprisingly heavy opposition vote fused to include educational needs to "tamper" with the state's organic ARGUE JURISDICTION attended the session. held in the ch also carried 27 other amend­ in his call The govemor has pointed law. They are also opposed to re­ In New Orleans Dec. 7, attorneys Montgomery County courthouse. for Dean Adams asked the court to -~: ts to defeat. Only one of the to­ out repeatedly that the legislature apportionment, which could cut Elected chairman of the new of 30 offered the voters was rati­ Black Belt representation. send the case back to the Northem group, which until this meeting had f) has not been reapportioned to con­ District Court of Alabama, arguing and that one, pertaining to the form with population shifts in more been in the process of organization, mtment of circuit judges in Jef­ that Judge Lynne was without juris­ was State Sen. Sam Engelhardt of .." than 50 years. And the constitution, diction to grant his injunction. 0 County, was generally re- amended 110 times since 1901, con­ Macon County. Engelhardt was the d as anti-Folsom. Thus the de- Adams' attorneys also argued that sponsor of the state's new pro­ .. tains conflicting, confusing and out­ the individual members of the uni­ tl of the two school measures, both moded sections, he has said. segregation school "placement'' law. •C: which Folsom had endorsed, versity's board of trustees, omitted One of the legislature's most active n so far as respondents in the case, are ... led with the passage of the sole CHANCES LESSENED and outspoken advocates of contin­ 1· ent regarded as anti-Folsom, Some observers believe Folsom's Commenting on the defeat of the indispensable parties to the action. ued separation of the races, Engel­ w chances of getting the constitutional two school revenue amendments Therefore, the argument continued, hardt has often been critical of Fol­ to an interpretation of the vote the lower court should have granted a protest against Folsom, and/ or convention, which must be okayed Dec. 6, State Supt. of Education Aus­ som's attitude on the issue. a motion to dismiss the complaint 1• i protest against additional taxation. by the voters, were le.ssened by the tin R. Meadows said: overwhelming expresston of protest against Adams. ~ 1955 legislature had already "There was no way before the ref­ Adams also argued that the dis­ in the Dec. 6 amendment election. erendum and there is still no way South Carolina i%·e several new taxes, includ­ trict court erred in permitting the t Thus the conservatives in the legis­ today for the schools to stay open (Continued from Page 5) an increase in gasoline tax. (See case to be maintained as a class ac­ t They Say.") lature, including many Black Belt nine months unless this additional Klan spokesmen as saying Black­ Jft lawmakers who stand to lose most tion and in ruling it a class action. lq r developments during De­ revenue is secured. However, I have mon should be gotten out of town or In by reapportionment, may find their every confidence that the legislatu~e Adams' attorneys asked the court iv r included the following: to instruct the district court to or­ out of the state. A local magistrate, numbel's increased. will take some action to find this however, J. R. Bardin, said he heard :S ganize a court of three judges to ~~ The segregation question could money. They are not going to let our or rule on the case, and that the appeals the talks and thought the ouster talk come up if the lawmakers v.ote to schools close." was a misinterpretation of what was Ill ) Six days before the Dec. 6 ref­ court order the district court to in­ vh consider school matters, or m tJ:e Meadows' hopes for swift legisla­ ol urn, Folsom issued a formal clude the university board of trus­ actually said. debate over whether to call a consti­ tive action received no encourage­ Blackmon. meanwhile, has told the c for the Alabama legislature to tees as defendants. Ia tutional convention. Proposals of­ Associated Press that be has "no ol vene in special session Jan. 3 ment from Gov. Folsom, who has re­ .u eonsider rewriting Alabama's fered (but not acted on) in the leg­ fused to ask the legislature to con­ idea" of leaving the community. He dl tcl!work" constitution, as he bas islature last year called for changes sider the needs of education when was active in circulating petitions { '" to the state's organic law. in the constitutional requirements the lawmakers convene in special for integration of public schools in lo session Jan. 3. the Elloree community. .Ar In Orangeburg, the vice president ,,. said that two of his opponents, former In warning that the schools may U• Gov. Earl Long and .New Orl;,~ be forced to close in March, Mead­ of the local NAACP branch, Mrs. ':3 Louisiana H. F. Pierce, said she had turned Jd (Continued from Page 12) Mayor DeLesseps MorriSOn were ~­ ows referred to the fact that schools Trustees of the Alabama Education •o sincere" in their pro-segregation are now operating on a budget, au­ over to law enforcement agencies a \p Association urged after the defeat of •rs ett, a Congregationalist pastor thorized by the legislature in the letter threatening her life. She also SL Louis, describe integration statements. the school amendments that teacher said that other Negroes had received ol A public opinion poll c~~ducted by summer, which assumed that the that city. salaries not be cut in order to stretch l;imilar notices in the wake of the "'\p 13 Louisiana afternoon dai_lies showed Goodwyn amendment would pass or funds for the full nine-months term. ,. Long running fi_rst, Morrason second that an equivalent amount of money filing of an integration petition in rd A resolution passed by the group Orangeburg. The economic pressure cv and McLemore fifth. would be provided from another en source. Thus schools are currently noted that the 1955 legislature in­ being exerted by Negroes against creased appropriations to education white firms identified with the Cit­ ttl spending some $2,500,000 per month "'ch more than there are funds available. to include an average increase oi izens Council movement, she said, •nf : 1. ~eanaer H. Perez, South Louisiana $600 a year to public school teachers. "is pretty extensive from what I Rights political leader and dis- The added outlay includes salary .Ay raises for teachers averaging about These salaries were accepted in hear but I iust don't know how it's vs J!ct attorney for St. Bernard and "good faith" by the various city and $GOO a year. coming out." :e ~uernines par i s h e s, told the county boards of education, the ;.~s­ 'Jft" ;;J'.naquemJnes Citizens Council that A News and Courier staff writer, FINANCE STUDY PROPOSED olution pointed out, and were m­ investigating a reported boycott by d< 9" lie desegregation movement was The controversy in Georgia ove_r a corporated in contracts or agree­ '"_c; After defeat of the school amend­ Ne~oes of the Orangeburg County l:S f' 'Communist inspired," and that the state school, Georgia Tech•. playmg ments two Birmingham lawmakers, ments entered upon with teachers town of Elloree, wrote on Dec. 23 that ~ "" CP platform was "identical with 'nst a University of Pittsburgh Reps.' Rufus Lackey and Jesse K. and college faculties." no such boycott was in evidence in o.r the Communist party in the .p .,! ~g:~ro athlete in the Su~ar Bo:wi Edwards, propos7d a sch~l finance Therefore, the resolution contin­ lhc community. A first-hand survey • ~ IIIIVS m regard to racial issues." caused only a small ripple m Lows- study by a speCial corruruttee com­ ued, the various boards are urged or the town, said Jack Leland, showed ~~ State~. Rainach, the legislature's iana. h G n- posed of businessmen fror'f each . of to "see that these contracts or agree­ business to be about as usual, al­ ~ ation leader, said "we are A request from the Sout ern e the state's nine congreSSional dis­ ments are followed as regards thou~th refiectinst the relatively poor at Gov Kennon intervene •liS ed toward serious racial trou- t I emen th · 'al b ght a tricts. They said they would offer a monthly salaries of teachers as long farmlnll conditions of the recent ~~ " if the voters fail to elect a with Sugar Bowl offiCI s rou resolution proposing such a stu~y as funds available from state and years. He discounted stories which $., ly pro-segregation governor. reply from the governor that he was after the convening of the special local sources permit ... and that no said that Elloree businesses were rs" who wanted speedy integration PP<>sed not only more integration of this fall. Coffman said there were 65 people in their school communities. ty, Chapel Hill, Charlotte, Fayette­ t~cher s but any early integration of throughout the county. county members of We, The People, No one was to be placed on the list ville, Guilford County, Greensboro, children as well, as far as the rural Not all of the speakers were against which also was orga.nized this fall. because of position or membership Johnston County, Lee County, Lum­ UP-county half of Montgomery is inte~ation. The Rev. John Baker of in certain organizations or for rea­ berton, Mecklenburg County, Nash concerned. the Unitarian Church of Montgomery sons of prestige. The primary con­ County, Orange County, Raleigh, The spokesman for the Montgomery County spoke in favor of present in­ LEGISLATIVE ACTION sideration was to select people with Rocky Mount, Vance County, Wake ." ~ ~ ' . ' , County Fann Bureau was reported in tetrration policies and said that "the . . children in school. County, Warren County, Weldon, ~county press as having offered at placement of Negro teachers and Winston-Salem. 1 other school personnel is a technical The Maryland General Assembly The school superintendent and ii1' meeting to recommend an in­ will meet in short (30-day) session his administrative staff had asked l'ENm:sSEE- Chattanooga, David­ ~~' eTeased school budget to transport ndminjstrative matter." Mrs. C. D. son County (Nashville), Hamilton Stolzenbach, education chairman

wee: runs ottny oen off Jc ~ :S PAGE 16-JANUARY 1956-SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS New Member of the School 1956 Federal Aid Bills Board? 3 More W. Va. Counties r~ Facing Segregation Ban Desegregating Schools / CHARLESTON, W.Va. lost his job through a previous sclloco WASHINGTON, D.C. ference agenda: "In What Ways Can merger. The board agreed A CHAIN reaction started two months to L EOI.SLA'l'ION providing federal aid We Organize Our School Systems as much substitute teaching for bll: for school construction could bog More Efficiently and Economically?" ago by the federal court case in Greenbrier County, which brought as possible and to place him in 1: down in this session of Congress over and "How Can We Get Enough active teaching assignment as the school segregation issue. Good Teachers-and K eep Them?" an agreement to desegregate this month, now has the NAACP pre­ as possible. Rep. Adam C. Powell Jr. (D., N.Y.), Wilkins left before the conference paring for new legal action in other Kanawha County School Supt. Negro congressman, has served no­ ended, stating: "What's the point in gil L. Flinn said plans are being tice he will seek to amend any as­ staying?" counties. Mercer, Summers and Raleigh to completely integrate whlte sistance measure so that funds would The r acial issue was injected into Negro students next school be denied school districts that prac- the conference at the first general ses­ counties quit short of a court battle after the Greenbrier Board of Edu­ Kanawha has the largest "'"!§;u•~:omot tice racial segregation. sion. Clarence Mitchell, director of the state's population. On the Powell unsuccessfully the Washington Bureau of the cation agreed to desegregate. They National tried to hook such a pro­ NAACP, asked conference Chairman scanned the decision rendered by Scene viso on the school build- Neil McElroy whether federal travel Judge Ben Moore and dissolved their ing bill which was ap­ money has been paid to delegates long-standing policies of "separate proved last July by the House Edu­ who "do not support the Constitu­ but equal" educational opportunities. cation and Labor committee, of which tion?" McElroy said he would look -Baltlmore Sun T. G. Nutter of Charleston, state he is a member. into the matter. president of the National Association This bill must clear the House Rules "My only question," Mitchell told including a quarter- inch one on a for the Advancement of Colored Peo­ While integration was ple, said Dec. 17 his group is plan­ committee before it can be debated newsmen, "is whether the govern­ key chain, two Boy Scout knives and ahead at an erratic pace in a Davy Crockett knife with a rabbit's ning actions against McDowell, Lo­ on the ftoor. Rules Committee Chair­ ment can spend money on people lie schools, a group of ~ man Howard Smith (D., Va.) has said from states which have publicly an­ foot on one end. gan and Mingo counties. educators met with a special ~ : nounced defiance of the federal gov­ Asst. School Supt. Lawson Cantrell. publicly he will not go for an anti­ ACTION IN EASTERN AREA committee on higher educatju ~ 1 segregation amendment. Failure of his ernment." He named four states, head of city junior highs, told both Later, the NAACP will try simi­ formed by legislative directive k tl group to adopt a rule for the bill South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi principals in no uncertain terms they study higher education shortcomlne , lar court tests in the eastern Pan­ 4 could hold the measure up indefi­ and Louisiana. had misinterpreted the handling of growing out of one year of noo. ,; nitely. the survey. '"lou just were supposed handle counties of Jefferson and NO ACTION YET Berkeley, as well as another eastern segregated college programs. to discuss with police whether you Five hours later, McElroy told a county, Hardy. All three border Vir­ These experts proposed seven 'OUT THE WINDOW' had any knife problem," Cantrell told sweeping changes in their mee~ The amendment undoubtedly will news conference that the Administra­ his officers. ginia, and have strong southern sym­ tion's decision was to pay expenses pathies. here Dec. 5, among them the recom. be offered on the House ftoor. If this Corning issued an immediate ban mendation that the State Board happens, the legislation will lose im­ of all delegates. This decision was Greenbrier, where demonstrations made by Parke Banta, general coun­ on any further search of students for Education "take steps immediately portant support of such Democratic knives after he learned of the em­ broke out in 1954 when the board insure racial integration not only leaders as House Speaker Sam Ray­ sel for the Department of Health. first tried to end segregation, will Education and Welfare. Mitchell barrassing mixup that resulted from students but also of faculty and ad. bum of Texas and House Education the routine program of police co­ begin integration J an. 18 on a volun­ ministrative staffs in all instituti01:1 later told reporters he will carry his tary "first come, first served" basis. Committee Chairman Graham Bar­ operation. Corning said it was a case o! higher learning." den of North Carolina. Barden has fight to the Unit~ States Comptroller Then, next fall, integration will be General. This action has yet to be of "complete misunderstanding" and Racial integration at the said a school aid bill will "go ou t done "completely without my knowl­ completed. level, the educators observed, the window" if it is to be made the taken. Mercer, threatened with federal At the conference close, a group edge." The faux pas already had ceeding rapidly at West vehicle of social reforms. brought angry calls of parents to his court action even before the hearing State College," an all-Negro schoa Rayburn has promised "early ac­ of 31 individual delegates posted this in Greenbrier County, began moving statement on the bulletin board in the office. until June, 1954. The {act-finders saM tion" on the bill and predicted some Both Corning and police, however. tow a r d desegregation following further: fonn of school-aid legislation will press room: "We must in conscience Judge Moore's decision. Sever al con­ were relieved when they were told "It is believed that further prot pass the House. express our belief that one of the ferences were held with board offi­ gravest moral issues facing our na­ the unofficial frisking of 338 girls and ress would be made in the enroll· Both the Administration and the 1,129 boys produced a total of 11 cials, NAACP officers and the judge tion is acceptance and implementation present before it was decided that ment of white students at BluefieW Democrats in control of Congress knives from the latter. All the blades State College, which needs a larger r.:r of the decision of the Supreme Court integration should start Sept. 4, 1956. want to see some school construction for desegregation. We do not ask the were of penknife length. There were student body in order to reduce per 5:. law before the end of the session be­ conference to vote on the issue or no lethal and illegal switchblade FOLLOW GREENBIER PLAN student costs, through the addition ti ;­ cause of its political importance in an take sides. knives found, officials said. Summers was the next to decide in white persons to the instructional election year. "We call on every citizen, edu­ P olice Inspector John E. Winters, favor of integration. Under NAACP staff." cator and public official in our local prodding, school authorities there ADMINISTRATION PROGRAl\t head of the Youth Aid Division, re­ Bluefield has been under a legisla. state and and national governmen~ ported the survey-which is at an decided to follow the Greenbrier President Eisenhower, in either his tive cloud for more than a year as to translate the law of the land into end-"proves there is no knife prob­ plan. Voluntary integration will be­ the result of high per student opera!· ~ta~ of the Union or budget message, a living reality." lem in the sch.ools." gin Jan. 19 and complete integration ing costs there. This imbalanced cost IS expected to call for some form of next September. factor, the educators said, "is due II aid-to-education program. Legisla­ Rtm10R DISPELLED REQUEST DENIED R a I e i g h was warned by the a large extent to the low enrollment• tion carrying out his wishes prob­ Last month, another rumor grow­ last Meanwhile month, the District NAACP that court action was immi­ ably will be introduced in the Senate ing out of District school integration Board of Recreation declined to take They recommended, however, that by Administration friends. was dispelled. Police are satisfied nent after it backed away from a Bluefield not be closed. The college action on a member's request to per­ gradual five-year integration plan in Last year, the Senate Labor and there is no serious knife-carrying is needed, they continued, to serve mit a national Negro group to use the face of citizen threats of vio­ Welfare committee failed to approve problem in Washington junior and certain school facilities for a meeting the people of Mercer, West VirgiJlia'a senior high schools as reports to head­ lence. This happened in September southernmost county, whose needs a federal aid bill. Threats of anti­ next summer. just before schools opened. segregation amendment reportedly quarters had indicated. But here is may not be met by larger and better At the same time, Col. West A. Later a suit was filed in federal staffed Concord College a dozea kept Chairman Lister Hill (D., Ala.) what happened: Hamilton, Negro member of both the from pressing for committee action. School Supt. Hobart M. Corning court, and subsequently the board miles distant in the other end of the recreation and school boards, said he passed a resolution directing its legal county. During testimony on aid measures was asked by police officials would make a case out of the fact On if they could contact second- counsel to confer with J udge Moore "Another basic issue facing the before the Senate committee, power­ that the American Legion used cer­ on a plan identical with that in Mer­ ful lobby groups like the National the ary school principals to find tain District schools while the Na­ legislature," the educators said after Education Association said such an Local out if there was any truth to cer. U the judge agrees, Raleigh their six-month survey, "is whether tional Order of Negro Shriners has County schools will be fully integrat­ amendment is unnecessary. Spokes­ Scene rumors that some teen-agers not been able to get permission. to continue the operation of tht ed next September. men pointed out that funds would be were carrying dangerous land-grant colleges which the state Hamilton said the Shrine group had has maintained under racial segrega· administered by state school officers weapons to class. asked the board of education for use Nutter didn't say when the new who would uphold the law of the Coming replied, "Of course ... the suits will be filed. But McDowell tion, or to discontinue this !unction of halls in two schools next summer. holds priority. Next is Logan, and at West Virginia State College." land. schools are always glad to cooperate He said school officiais have failed to third is Mingo. Delegates to the recent White ~ith the police." Subsequently, prin­ take action either way on the request. During the past year West Virginia House Conference on Education Clpals were told they might be visited Hamilton said the recreation board Once these actions are completed, State enrolled approximately 25 stu· . (Nov. 28-Dec. 1) gave by member of the Juvenile Squad. could comply with the request be­ the NAACP will concentrate on the dents in agriculture, a normal silua· Whtte Bouse some attention to the Many of the city's 22 junior 12 cause it had delegated powers to per­ Panhandle area. Already overtures tion, and awarded degrees to five. Conference segregation issue in senior highs and five vocati~nal mit use of school facilities for com­ have been made to Jefferson County, The educators recommended that all work sessions on the schools were surveyed "without a munity as well as recreational use. but nothing definite has resulted future land-grant activities be con· question: "How Can We Finance Our hitch," a school official said. from them. centrated at West Virginia Univer· OBJECTION VOICED Schools-Build and Operate Them?" Then as the survey drew to an end, sity. Walter Fowler, District Commis­ The final report to the assembly on two junior high principals of schools TWO-YEAR PROGRAM this topic stated: with predominantly Negro enroll­ sioners' representative to the recrea­ tion board, objected to such use of The instructional program in agri· "One table in 10 recommended that ments misinterpreted the extent of culture should not be abolished com· the police cooperation expected of school buildings. "I don't think these federal aid should be made available private meetings come under the pletely at State, they said. It should to states only for those districts cer­ them in the citywide knife survey. be reduced to a two-year program tifying that they are conforming to term of community use or private STUDENTS 'FRISKED' recreation," Fowler said. beginning in September, 1956, and the Supreme Court decision prohib­ In other actions during December: special provisions should be made to iting racially segregated school sys­ P rincipal Albert Brooks of Garnet­ Hamilton reminded that the Amer·­ Brooke County school officials an­ P atterson junior high marched his ican Legion in its 1954 convention transfer the 10 or fewer juniors and tems." There were 166 work tables of no~ced they had gradually and seniors to the university. 10 persons each. girls to one gym and his boys to an­ made use of several District schools qwetly ended segregation in the pub­ Another recommendation was that other. The boys emptied their pockets and that all over the country schools l~c schools. The process of desegrega­ In an interview, Roy Wilkins, ex­ and the girls their handbags and the Negro 4-H camp at Clifton In ecutive director of the National Asso­ were used for meeting halls. tion was started without fanfare in schoolbags. "Yes," replied Fowler, the D istrict 1953. Fayette County, now operated by ciation for the Advancement of Col­ West Virginia State College, be dis· ored People and a conference dele­ Brooks found four knives among budget officer, "but in spots where no Agreement was reached between the boys. He said one blade was 2% other places can be used. If we do it continued as soon as an orderly gate from New York, said he was Brooke County school authorities and transition can be made for the use of "disappointed" in the conclave. He inches, two were of 21,2 inch length we might put the hotels out of busi: Richard Woodard, Negro teacher who and the fourth blade was 2¥4 inches ness." better facilities at Jackson's Mill in said he thought it a "disgrace" that Lewis County. The educators, as • the problem of segregation was not long. All were returned. Most of the recreation board mem­ "The kids took it in fun," Brooks result of their study, proposed the on the agenda for discussion. After bers agreed that the American Le­ by Dec. 31 clubrooms in Brookland strengthening of the professional all, he said, the President called the said. He had told them "we have no gion had been a special case and that school because only white boys can reason to want to find out the extent program in engineering at West Vir· conference after the Supreme Court it should take no action regarding use them. School officiais say this ginia State. decision. of knife carrying ... but it is part of Hamilton's request. He declared he can't be allowed in integrated schools. a citywide survey." intended to ''make a case" out of the Because o{ the need for engineerS Originally, the club was told to get in the chemical-rich Kanawha Val· WILKINS LEAVES At the same time, Mrs. Muriel Alex­ matter. He didn't say how. out by Sept. 1 because of its policy to Wilkins said further he was sorry ander, principal of Miller junior high, ley, where the college is located. Still hanging fire is a different kind operate segregated units. The school they suggested that the engineering the tables didn't discuss segregation had asked her boys to "turn out their of fight over outside use of schools. board was told club officials were offerings be improved until they art when delegates turned their study pockets" during an assembly. The board of education has notified studying a policy change. None has to these other questions on the con- This produced seven small knives, the Police Boys Club it must vacate equivalent to the first two years of been made. engineering at the university.