Factual 'OUTHERN CHOOL EWS Objective

VOL II, NO. 5 NASHVILLE, TENN. $2 PER YEAR NOVEMBER 1955

Three Courts Annul State School Laws " School ' l

Cons t r u c.· l ion Exp enditures Sin ce 1949 I lj;:

'li

Aloboma ,. ' ArtcCIIUaS r ~ Delaware ~

II lllsf, of Columbia I.-I<! en florida d: cr. Gtorgla

~ t)' 1 l(elltVCkY Sit

:l! ' Louisiana ill be; MarYJand .~

~ Mississippi .r...., Itt ~ n Mirth Carolina

ll" i::.izC Oldohoma Jll:l f1 South Carolina ) ~

Yl Tennessee th

' ·>?~ WeJt VIrginia

( In Millions of Dollars)

0 50 100 150 200 , , , , , - 110 1

2

Ela1 ~ 44 I 35 I

250 ,

- 3 ~ 60 ~

~ 60.5 l4

-~-Se;it

it ~ Expended Approved

300 350 400 , , ,

50

liJ I ~ L.i Spuued on by rapidly growing numbers of school age !n='daildren and by realization of the need for more adequate di¥t.wJcling, Southern states have, in the past six years, spent 'CIS(• approved more than two and a half bilUon dollars for blaCIDIIStruetion of new (acilities. The figures shown in the

r !Ao2Move bar graph are, of necessity, incomplete. They do, !f Jt however, show something of tho relative rate of cons~c­~U.. in the states and tho Dist rict of Columbia faced With goesJ IIIe problem of racial integration in their schools. While ~1141 appears to have marked d1e start of the period of in-

tens:ive school construction, Ligures for the whole period in some cases were unavailable. By way o( further ex­planation it sh ould be noted that the Alabama figure of $1l0 million approved represents an amount of school bonds authorized by the state legislature but subject to approval by the voters in a referendum scheduled for Dec. 6. The tota.l of $2,556,500,000 does not include approxi­mately $85 million spent during the period in Missouri which is not included in the graph.

n»l I. ~Deludes state, tout and redcrnl Cund~ us.i $ Z. lxpe.ndltures since 1951 •j\sf.o

3. Program began prior Co 1949 4. Expenditures for latest biennium

x: c~il\T ;:.\l~egro Teacher Tenure Is Surveyed

. A sense of insecurity, marked by a ~COIISistent if weakly held fear of loss .3"'ol jobs, hanging over many Negro ~:~ 1te.chers is one result of the Supreme !II ~Court's decisions against public 1 ;3Cbool segregation and subsequent ~'l:Ourt attacks on the South's biracial &I ilpattern of education, according to an ~i ;~xdusive survey by SouTHERN SCHOOL !..;.;:'b:ws. t«iill However, there is no indication tvlll" .hat either this fear or other compul-

lions will lead Negro teachers to sup­lOft continued segregation in the

~ools. / Perhaps one reason for this is that ••fi ob losses as a result of desegrega-11' ion or of pressure arising from the r1~ chool s e greg a t i o n issue have

10 tntounted to less than 300 out of the 1PProximately 75,000 Negro school

h. ~l eachers in the Southern and border ~~ lates. Furthermore, apparently few

! fegro educators fear that the public /chools of the region, so long in de­

eJopment, will be abandoned. These reasons, plus the fact that

!aching is one of the better-paying lfOfessions open to Negroes in an rea where teachers generaUy are ' short &upply, probably explains •hy there has been no widespread )llc:ern about. this aspect of the school !gtegation question. .ESS 'DISCOURAGING' So far, only in Oklahoma, where

esegregation has occurred in some 50 of the state's 1,800 school districts.

/

has the displacement of Negro teach­ers raised much apprehension. And even there, John W. Davis, teacher tenure director for the National As­sociation for the Advancement of Colored People, found in July that the situation "was not nearly as dis­couraging as a good many people think."

At last accounting, 144 teachers and 21 principals had lost their jobs as a result of desegregation. Only four teachers had been integrated into mixed schools and these as coun­selors for Negro students. But. one principal has _bee~. p_romotE;d. ~? s_u= perintcndent m a L1ttle D1x1e dis trict.

Next largest number of displace­ments because of integration was re­ported in West Virginia, whe:e state school authorities are conumtted to a policy of desegregation. Here .o~y seven Negro teachers and 1~ prtnCJ­pals have been displaced, w1th 46 of the state's 55 counties desegregated or moving in that direction. But 83 of the state's total 973 Negro ~eache~ had been integrated along With then· s tudents.

Some displacement reportedly has occurred in Missouri, but since ~ec­ords in this highly decentraltzed school system are no longer kept on a racial basis, statistics were not available. In September, however, the office of the NAACP teacher tenure director indicated that the teachel'

situation in that state had been worked out satisfactorily. FIVE IN TEXAS

In Texas, five Negro teachers have been displaced in Kames County. In

(See TEACHER TENURE, Page 2) ..................................... , Johnny Can Bead

SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS Bc~nnins witlt the first issue

or Volume II, SOtrniERN SCHOOL NEWS hna been made more read· able for the busy educator, pub­lic officialll, school board allor· ne:r ••.

The Page 1 summary gives you the whole month's aetivitiee in capsule (orm.

Then, tlte " lead" on each state report summarizes what has hap­pened in slightly extended form.

Finally, under the topical b ead· in18 you will find more detailed accounts o£ these events: "Legal Action," "School Boards and ~hoolmen," "Le~slative Ac· tion," " In the Colleges," " What They Say," and eo on. A new de­portment has been added this m onth. It'e called: "Community Action."

Only SotJTUERN SCHOOL NEWS offers a complete, unbiaaed n1onthly roundup of' the biccest education s tory in the South to­day.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••c•••••••

C OURTS in three states-two of them state supreme courts-struck down constitutional or statutory provisions for public school segregation during

October. Again it was a busy month on the legal front, as elsewhere and notably in the

Deep South groups opposed to desegregation drew new recruits to their ranks. SoUTHERN ScuooL NEWs counted at

least 21 private organizations oppos­ing compliance with the Supreme Court decisions that were active in one or more of the 17 traditional seg­regation states save Kentucky and West Virginia. Oklahoma reported the first organization of a Citizens Coun­cil, a movement which was spreading out of Mississippi into Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina, Texas and other states.

• The three major court rulings were

in Florida, Texas and Tennessee. In Florida, in a case involving ad­

mission to the University of Florida and remanded to the state court by the U.S. Supreme Court, a &-2 deci­sion by the state Supreme Court nullified state segregation laws. How­ever, the court allowed time for in­tegration by orderly procedures.

In Tennessee a federal district judge held that "the Supreme Court had said very definitely, if it has said anything, in its latest pronouncement that racial discrimination in public education is unconstitutional and all provisions, state or local, calling for racial discrimination must yield to this principle." At the same time, and over protests of counsel for Negro students seeking immediate admis­sion to Memphis State College, the court upheld a Tennessee plan for gradual desegregation of the state college system, beginning at. the graduate level. It was the first ruling in any court dealing with a "step-by­step" integration plan.

In Texas the state Supreme Court ruled that schools may proceed with desegregation without regard to state laws, declaring invalid provisions of the state constitution and the school laws which required racial segreaa­tion. In the main opinion Associate Justice Few Brewster called "utterly without merit" the argument that Texas segregation laws were un­affected by the U.S. Supreme Court decision.

• Reports coming to SSN after school

opening showed meanwhile that sev­en more schools in Oklahoma now have mixed classes; that one more county in West Virginia has ordered desegregation (effective in January), and that 24 of Kentucky's 224 districts have adopted desegregation.

Little or no segregation activity was reported from the states of the Deep South, where the accent was on the organization of protest groups.

A state-by-state summary of key developments follows:

Alabama The U.S. Supreme Court ordered

two Negro women admitted to the University of Alabama without wait­ing for the outcome of an appeal from a federal district court order opening the doors of the university t.o all qualified Negroes. Several of the gov­ernors attending the Southern Gov­ernors Conference at Point Clear ex­pressed the view that school segrega­tion will not be an issue in the 1956 elections.

Arkansas A federal district judge at El Do­

rado said he expected to order inte­gration at Bearden school district within a year. The Hoxie school re­opened without incident but with many absentees. Representatives of White America, Inc. filed suit against members of the school board, alleg­ing irregularities, while the board obtained in federal court a restraining order against interference with the operation of the schools.

Delaware Dover High School (integrated) set

up a unique athletic policy calling for

segregated games away from home but requiring visiting teams to play return games in Dover against inte­grated squads. The House of Repr~ sentatives passed the pending $44 milljon school bond bill. retaining the controversial "C" classification.

District of Columbia Parents and school authorities were

involved in a controversy over a teacher shortage and overcrowding of the schools-conditions traced in part to administrative problems flow­ing from the integration of the school system.

Florida The Supreme Court in a &-2 ruling

knocked out Florida school segrega­tion as a legal principle, holding com­pliance with the U.S. Supreme Court decision to be "our inescapable duty." However, it said the federal ruling does not require "a clear legal duty" to admit Negro students to schools "at any particular time in the future." One of the justices said the ruling did not go far enough and the other mi­nority member questioned integra­tion on principle. Biracial committees were at work in one-third of Florida's counties to survey the school situa­tion and make recommendations.

Georgia Atty. Gen. Eugene Cook and Ex­

ecutive Secretary Roy Wilkins of the National Association for the Advance­ment of Colored People traded ver­bal blows over the issue of whether, as Cook charged, the NAACP was "subversive." Forty-four Negro par­ents filed a school admission petition in Waycross--Georgia's sixth such petition- while the State School Boards Association, meeting in Ath­ens, said that the "legal conflict be­tween federal and state authority must be resolved before local school boards can do anything more than study the question of racial integra­tion in our schools."

Kentucky Twenty-four of Kentucky's 224

school districts reported desegrega­tion, involving some 300 Negro chil­dren who were attending mixed classes.

Louisiana The state was still awaiting the

outcome of litigation over a $100,000 state fund for use in combating inte­gration efforts and attempts in St. Helena and Orleans parishes (coun­ties) to gain admission of Negro chil­dren to all-white schools.

Maryland Mixed classes were reported in

eight of 22 counties having Negroes of school age, plus Baltimore Cit.y. The Maryland Petition Committee, opposing integration, renewed its

(See COURTS VOID, Page 2)

Index State Page Alabama ........................ 9 Arkansas ........................ 3 Delaware ....................... 14 District of Columbia . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Florida .... .. .................... 4 Georgia ......................... 15 Kentucky ................. . ..... 16 Louisiana ... .. . .......... . ...... 16 Maryland .. .............. . ...... 10 Mississippi .. . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .. . . .. 7 1\Jlssou ri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....... 14 North ~Lhta ................... 13 Oklahoma ................. . .. . .. 12 South Carolina .. . . .. . . . . .. . ... . .. ll Tennessee .................. . .... 8 Texas ...... .. ..... . ............. G Virginia ......................... 12 West VU'ginia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

lo Ar ,. U• :3 td 10

•P n ol

~· \P re ·d ·v

'" "' '" ·h ;,, 4v yt

"' ,., til

"' ~ •·S

,. " u ~II ·S 4 t

Je

PAGE 2 NOVEMBER 1955-SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS l(ansas S Is Revived Courts Void

State Laws (Continued From Page I)

activity in Baltimore and Carroll counties. Montgomery County school officials reported that 10 Negro teachers, displaced with the closing of four sub-standard elementary schools had been reassigned-some of them ~ formerly aU-white schools.

M1ssissippi Not a single effort was made by

Negroes to enroll in white schools in Mississippi, a roundup of school opening news showed. Meanwhile steps were being taken to close the "gap" between the quality of white and Negro facilities in the dual school system. Citizens Councils were o~­ganized in four additional commuru­ties.

Missouri School children were settling into a

second year of classwork in integrated schools without incident. "The whole subject has virtually disappeared from the newspapers," wrote SSN Missouri Correspondent Robert Lasch. Meantime, a study arising out of school integration yielded these first findings: (1) Integration can make possible a sharp reduction in the av­erage size of elementary classes; (2) integration in a large city system can mean mixed classes for only 10 per cent of the students though the Ne­gro population may be more than 33 per cent; (3) when optional integra­tion takes place in high schools, as many as one-third of the Negroes eligible to transfer to a mixed school may choose to remain at their old school instead.

North Caroli.na Gov. Luther H. Hodges suggested

that North Carolinians someday may have to operate their schools on a ''local option" basis--meaning, ap­parently, that local districts would be free to desegregate their schools or abandon them as they wished. The plan as yet has not taken any concrete form. The Advisory Committee on Education reported to the governor that it is "pleased with the present operation of our schools and the growing acceptance of ~e . thou~ht that racial pride and raC181 mtegrtty make most probable the substantial success of voluntary racial separa­tion in our schools."

Oklaltoma Seven more schools reported mixed

classes to bring to a total of 271 the number of Oklahoma schools which have integrated their pupils. The Oklahoma Education Association opened its doors to Negro teachers. A late count showed that 143 Negro teachers had lost their jobs; however, one former principal of a Negro school had become superintendent of a dis­trict which included a white ele­mentary school.

South Carolina A Negro minister who was an

originator of the Clarendon County case left South Carolina after some gunplay which was ~e first reported instance of violence in the state over the school segregation issue. Meeting at Columbia, local groups began or­ganizing the Citizens Council move­ment on a statewide basis.

Tennessee Federal Judge Marion S. Boyd,

ruling in a five-month-old college entrance case, held Tennessee's school segregation laws unconstitutional but upheld a state plan for gradual de­segregation of th.e slate college sys­tem. The newly formed Tennessee Society to Maintain Segregation an­nounced plans for a statewide organ­ization and said it would cooperate with the Citizens Councils in Missis-sippi and other states.

Texas The Texas Supreme Court declared

invalid provisions of the state consti­tution and state school laws requiring segregation. This was the celebrated Big Spring case. A survey showed kH?tween 1 and 2 per cent of Texas' Negro scholastics are attending mixed classes in the 65 districts that have been desegregated.

Virginia Doubt was cast on the prospect for

a special session of the General As-

A New Book ,

Finds 3 'Unfinished Tasks WHITE AND NEGRO SCHOOLS

IN THE SOUTH, Truman Pierce, J ames Kincheloe, R. Edgar 'Moor~, Galen Drewry and Bennie Carnu­c.bael, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Clilts, N.J ., 338 pages.

FOUR SCHOLARS, educators all, have taken a sharp look at edu­

cation in the South and have, on the basis of their findings, identified three major "unfinished tasks" !acing the school systems of the region.

And they have gone further. White a.nd Negro School$ in the SOttth not only offers a wealth of statistical data on educational resources of the region, but on the basis of these data it presents the authors' conclusions on several aspects of the biracial school system and points out methods by which the job of educating the re­gion's growing numbers can be tackled.

Subtitled "An Analysis of Biracial Education," the closely documen~ed volume is the result of an exhaustive study financed by the Kellogg Foun­dation and the Fund for the Ad-

Teacher Tenure (Continued from Page 1)

Montgomery County, Maryland, one supervisor has been displaced. Ten Negro teachers have been re-assigned to mixed schools along with the.ir pu­pils, although Negro teachers gen­erally have been excluded, for the time kH?ing, from all-white schools.

In Kentucky, whet·e the 1,386 Ne­gro teachers are, on the average, con­ceded to have higher scholastic and experience qualifications than the 19,482 white teachers, "a few'' Negro teachers are out of their jobs, ac­cording to press reports. However, the state department of education has received no official confirmation. In Kentucky's Floyd County, one of the first in the state to desegregate, though in the reverse, white students in the mining area this year are at­tending the formerly all-Negro school where the only Negro in the state teaching a mixed class is located.

The threat of loss of jobs also has been dangled before the eyes of Negro teachers in several Deep South states in efforts to keep them from pressing for school desegregation. The effort of the Georgia Board of Edu­cation by resolution (later rescinded) to oust all teachers who supported the NAACP or desegregation and the Alabama attempt by legislative ac­tion to accomplish the same end in the Black Belt counties are the best known examples.

S.C. CASE Similar threats reportedly have

been used in Clarendon County, South Carolina, where one Negro teacher reported her contract was not renewed because her father-in-law had signed the petition instigating the new famous court action that ulti­mately resulted in the May 17, 1954, Supreme Court decision.

But the displacements and firings which have occurred still are far be­low expectations. For example, even in Oklahoma, Negro education lead-

sembly to deal with the segregation­desegregation problem as the state stHI awaited a report from the Com­mission on Public Education. A sixth NAACP petition was filed in Virginia requesting integration, this one in Charlottesville. (SSN was in error last month in this space in reporting that "Norfolk Negroes denied admis­sion to aU-white school with school board later turning over building for aU-Negro occupancy." The incident occurred in Newport News, not Nor­folk, and was correctly reported elsewhere in the October issue.)

West Virginia Greenbrier County, scene last year

of a disturbance when an unsuccess­ful effort was made to integrate schools, decided to try again in Jan­uary after a federal district court ruling. It was the first legal action of its kind in West Virginia. Meanwhile, the NAACP implied or threatened suits elsewhere in the state.

TRUMAN PIERCE Studiu South's Schools

vancement of Education. The study was directed by Dr. Truman Pierce

ers have estimated that 450 of tltc state's 1,600 Negro teachers will ul­timately lose their jobs as desegre­gation proceeds, and in West Vir­ginia an estimated 10 per cent of tl•e Negro teachers may be displaced, of­ficial sources reported.

Outside the region, New Mexico re­ported 20 of its approximatE>ly 25 Ne­gro teachers now are instructing mixed classes, with no displacements among them. The state has a total of about 7,200 teachers, with approxi­mate quality reported in the qualifi­cations and salary scales of the white and Negro groups.

Similarly, Kansas has a small num­oor of Negro teachers, 340 out o£ a to­tal classroom complement of 16,889 (including pub I i c and private schools). While figures on the inte­gration or displacement of Negro teachers are not available, some dis­satisfaction with the teacher situa­tion in Topeka, the scene of the Su­preme Court case decided May 17, 1954, bas been reported in the daily press.

Beside the fear of loss o£ jobs, listed as the greatest apprehension, there were other reasons for the uncer­tainties surrounding Negro teachers in the 13 states responding to the SSN questionnaires.

The white directors of Negro edu­cation in Florida, Georgia and Ala­bama listed fear of abandonment of the public schools as the second great­est fear. In Tennessee the fear that greater professional preparation would be required ranked second, while in West Virginia it was the fear of lack of cooperation from white teachers, official sources reported. ln Florida, fear of unpleasantness and unfair treatment stemming from the attitude of white school administra­tors and in Oklahoma !ear that after kH?ing displaced, opportunities in other occupations would be limited were the major concerns of Negro educators.

This listing of causes of uncertainty among Negro teachers, of course, rep­resents nothing definite. It is nothing more than the informed opinion of individual educators or school admin­istrators, white and Negro, in the various states. Only in South Cat·­olina has any study of a definite na­ture been made on this topic, and il in the summer of 1953.

HOWARD STUDY Conducted by Hurley H. Doddy, as­

sistant professor of education, and C . Franklin Edwards, associate profes­sor of sociology at Howard University, this study recorded the fears harbored by 150 teachers and principals in South Carolina who had returned to summer school for graduate study. Published in the 1955 Winter issue of The Joun~.aL of Negro Education, the results listed the 12 most prevalent apprehensions in the following ordPr:

(1) Demands for increased profes­sional preparation would be greater.

(2) Fewer couples would be em­ployed at the same schools.

(3) New ways would be intro-

from the George Peabody College at Nashville Tenn. A year's research by the four ~uthors, assisted by a broad array of scholars, educat~rs and school administrators, went mto ~e making of this book which has as lts s tated purpose "to set forth, .analyze and interpret facts concernmg the dual school systems of the South to the end that the findings may be u~e­Cul in efforts to deal intelligently wtth the segregation issue and ~ther pr~b­lems in southern education dunng the years immediately ahead."

Like its predecessor in the area of southern education, the popularly known Ashmore Report, thls most ~e­cent study defines the South as m­cluding 13 states: Alabama, Arkan­sas. Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana Mississippi, North Caro­lina Oklahoma, South Carolina, Ten­ne~, Texas and Virginia.

1952 DATA USED Also like the Ashmore Report (The

Negro and the Schools, Harry S. A:h­more, University of North Carolma

(See A NEW BOOK, Page 11)

duced to evade granting equality in employment, pay and other benefits.

(4) Great amount of job displace­ment would occur.

(5) Greater hostility toward Negro teachers by white school officials would develop.

(6) White students would not show t•espect.

(7) Negro teachers would not re­ceive jobs equal to their training and experience.

(8) Despite the Supreme Court ruling, schools would remain about as before.

(9) White teachers would not co­operate.

(10) Negro teachers would be worse off after desegregation than before.

(11) Negro teachers would not know how to conduct themselves.

(12) The public schools would be abandoned.

LAWS ALTERED However, a review of news stories

on the topic of teacher tenure and status published in the daily press since September, 1954, would indi­cate why concern for their jobs may well be uppermost in the minds of many Negro teachers. For while states such as Oklahoma, Mississippi and Georgia do not have teacher tenure laws, efforts have been made or con­s idered in the past year to alter tenure laws in Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, Ken­tucky and Virginia.

In Tennessee the last session of the General Assembly adopted an amend­ment to the teacher tenure law which leaves it up to local boards of education "to determine the fitness of such teacher(s) for reemployment in such vacancy on the basis of the board's evaluation of ... competence, compatibility and suitability to prop­erly discharge the duties required . . . considered in the light of the kH?st interest of the students in the school where the vacancy exists."

The Tennessee Department of Edu­cation maintains that this amendment merely insures local jurisdiction in the matter oi teacher employment. However, a prominent Nashville at­torney who has spoken publicly on segregation has recommended similar tenure law amendments as one meth­od of getting around the touchy prob­lem of employing Negro teachers in mixed classes in state moving toward desegregation.

North Carolina abandoned its teacher training law last year, and the Virginia Board of Education has approved the introduction of a 30-day dismissal clause in its law pro­viding for continuing teacher con­tracts.

PLEDGE PROTECTION Something of the interest Negroes

have in this aspect of the segre­gation-desegregation question was demonstrated last month in Char­lottesville, Va., at the state meeting of the NAACP where top spokesmen pledged legal support to protect the l('nure of Negro teachers in the state.

While developments relating to the

By ANNA 1\tARY l\1lJRPHY Topeka Daily Capital

TOPEKA, A three-judge federal district

panel ruled here Oct. 29, that the peka Board of Education is ing .. in good faith toward desegregation."

An "option" feature of the "" .......... -­desegt·egation plan was earlier this fall by the resenting Negro parents one oi the original actions, Topeka Board of Eclucation, to the Supreme Court school

"Desegregation," ruled the "docs not mean there must be mingling of the races in all districts. It only means they may be prevented from intenningling going to school together because race."

The Topeka plan has accompiiSIIllt.~f!' the latter, the court said.

By Step No. 3 of the Topeka nu.1 .. ,;~· effectiv(' this fall, the board pupils the option of school in the district where live or continuing to attend former school.

Because of th" options, NAACP's latest suit had alleged purported plan of desegregation. not in conformity with the decree the U. S. Supreme Court."

During the hearing, circuit iud,.,..,.­Walter Huxman told both lack of good faith is the only auE!Stlalt""' W(' are concerned with now, we do not consider this the final

The NAACP contended the feature, combined with the Negroes live in the districts sen.-~ ....... by the three former Negro would keep those ever being anything but schools."

The board's argument mandatory attendance was "immediate compulsory inte~alia:r:-­and not "abolition of segregation." Step three achieved latter, the board said, and the upheld it.

question or teacher tenure and----.... , ...... -.. have occurred at a slow pace, they have occurred at all, the remains that this is an area of tense inter~st to Negroes in the ing profession since it is among most lucrative and respected pations open to th('m in many of the South. In Alabama, ample, wh('re Negro teachers'ave',.Oi(IJ::rl. salary in 1952 was only $2,359 in parison to the $2,541 average the white teachers, the median iru:clllr•ll:!!...:

Cor Negroes as a whole in was only $882 as compared to.....-• . -.""·· for the whites, according to the census report.

Perhaps in anticipation of •ll.li:•~•:a•.:..

on the segregated school Southern stales, beginning 1949, started on programs of ization which have about .., .. .mn .. ..., some portions or the biracial tional systems. Among the benefit from this rush to protect "separate but equal" theory by ing facilities equal in fact Negro teachers. While for Negro teachers still are white teacher averages, salary in practically all of the states been equalized at the state level, any discrimination in salary occun-ing in local supp'lenlentallOIJr­thc minimum foundation now in efTect throughout region.

SALARIES EQUAL In six stales-Kentucky,

Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee. ginia, and West Virginia-wbert Negro teachers generally are qualified in terms of degrees and experience than white Negro salaries, on the averagt. equal or higher.

Just what effect the tensions by these Uncertainties rttt~\Jllll"JI'~~,'~ the status of Negro teach~ have on the quality of educatiCI' the South is not clear.

In Tennessee, at least, an quality of work" has been one an education official reported.

i,~1Court to Order Integration ~ LITTLE ROCK, Ark. He said there was no question be­' ~ Bearden School District took fore the court of the law involved

1 a prominent role in October de- b~t that the problem was to deter­velopments on the Arkansas school ~me what could be worked out with­

~. scene when Federal District Judge m the .law for the best interests of

SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS-NOVEMBER 1955-PAGE 3

• Ill Arkansas' Bearden District

John E. Miller said he expected to all parties. order racial integration there within No date was set for a final deter-a year.

The Hoxie School District, which reopened schools on an integrated basis Oct. 24 after a harvest recess, remained in the news with a state court suit alleging administrative irregularities filed against the school

• board and others by pro-segregation forces, and a federal court suit filed by the school board against pro-seg­regation forces.

'.. tn its federal court suit filed at 11 · Little Rock with Judge Thomas C. ~ Trimble, the Hoxie school board

- asked for and got a temporary re­strainingorder to keep the pro-segre­gation forces from interfering with the re-opening of schools on an inte­grated basis. Still pending is the heart or the suit-a request for a declara­torY judgment to the effect that the Arkansas law requiring racial segre­gation in schools is nullified by the Supreme Court ruling and that the school board would be subject to civil and criminal liability if it re­scinded its integration ordet·.

National and state NAACP attor­neys representing 24 Negro children

· filed a complaint Oct. 28 in federal .... district court at Fort Smith, Ark ..

r· atainst the board and superintendent l o£ the Van Buren Independent School

District of Crawford County, asking an end to racial segregation.

A temporary injunction was asked f!' .oending a final declaration. The r:· t:l' ~lain tiffs asked that a statutory three­

udge district court be convened and : T .hat a "speedy hearing" be granted.

t.ttorneys who signed the complaint r ~ 'Were Thurgood Marshall of New York

:iity, chief counsel for the NAACP; .::: , U. Simpson Tate of Dallas, regional

~AACP attorney; D. L. Grace of Fort :1 • ;mith and Robert L. Carter, address ~: anlisted.

The civil action is styled CaroLyn t lane Abernathy, et al, v. J. J. Izzard

11 board pYesident, et at __ Latest figures show Negroes consti­

ute 2.2 per cent of enrollment in Van "9uren Schools.

The suit was the first of its kind in :::

11 ~kansas since the May 17, 1954 Su­u· ., preme Court decision and is the first P • NAACP court challenge of school ~' - ;egregation in Arkansas. .II!~ Other developments included: c: _ (1) The Biggers-Reyno School -~ .. District, which earlier had announced ~ t. it would begin integration Oct. 24,

1." announced it had decided to con­

•' linue segregated schools this fall. r:t ~ (2) Residents of Star City in Lin-n.... oo1n County, in the plantation section ~.1 , ){ southeast Arkansas, circulated a

• petition against a proposed rally by ~e White Citizens Council of Arkan­

&$- sas and council leaders cancelled the !'! meeting after the county sheriff in­

formed them the town didn't want :he rally.

(3) A leader of White America, .Inc., an Arkansas organization, said

'.: )lis forces would resist racial integra­r. " lion in the schools "even to the point ,. ;f destroying the public school sys-a ,em."

.. (4) The Arkansas Athletic Asso­,.:iation ruled that Negroes cannot ~pete in high school athletic con­.ests with white students if objections

. U'e raised by one of the participating earns.

On Oct. 4 in federal district court 1t El Dorado, Judge John E. Miller old the Bearden School District he

r" •xpected to order racial integration n the district schools within a year. The suit (Alvin J. Matthews , et al.

'· the Board of Directors of Bearden lchool District No. 53 of Ouachita :ou.nty) had been filed in 1952 seek­ng equalization of facilities, but the ;upreme Court decision activated a IOrtion of the suit which asked for ·acial integration.

"The court will nol sanction or •PProve any discrimination on a ra­ial basis," Judge Miller said.

mination in the case. Bearden Supt. Tom Ford said the

distt·ict had about 600 white students and 300 Negro students.

Defense Atty. Lamar Snead of Camden told the court that both sides had met several weeks ago to attempt to solve the problem but found school facilities at Bearden were in­adequate for both races.

Judge Miller said future school construction at Bearden must take into account the Suprcn.e Court rul­ing against school segregation.

The Bearden suit is not being sponsored by the NAACP.

HOXIE BOARD SUED On Oct. 3 at Walnut Ridge, Amis

Guthridge of Little Rock, attorney for White America and for a pro­segregation group at Hoxie, filed suit in Lawrence County Chancery Court against Hoxie school officials and others, alleging several irreg­ularities and asking the court to compel school officials to meet with his group to air grievances. The ra­cial issue was not mentioned in the complaint.

The group represented by Guth­ridge bas been feuding with the board since the integration of about 25 Negroes with 1,000 white students began in the pre- harvest summer session.

Plaintiffs in the suit are Herbert Brewer, J ewel Barnett, Floyd Cole, John J ohns, Gracon Lamb and Ali McMullen. The defendants are Les­lie Howell, L . L. Cochran, Howard Vance, Guy Floyd, and Leo Robert, all board members; Supt. K. E. Vance, B. B. Vance and Howard Vance. do­ing business as B. B. Vance & Sons; Mrs. Leslie Howell, Mrs. L. L. Coch­ran and Mrs. Guy Floyd, wives of board members and teachers in the Hoxie schools.

The suit char~ed that Howard Vance, as one of the owners of B. B. Vance & Sons, a lumber and building material firm, had sold materials to the district in violation of state law. The suit alleged that the district had paid $952.43 to the firm since Aug. 9, 1954, and asked the court to order a refund of that amount. Later, the suit was amended to allege the total sales were $4,181.38.

The suit also charged that the three wives of directors had been employed by the district in violation of state law.

Action in the suit is still pending.

INTERFERENCE ENJOINED On Oct. 14, Federal Judge Thomas

C. Trimble at Little Rock issued a temporary order restraining segre­gationists from interfering with the operation of schools at Hoxie. At a hearing Oct. 20, the hearing was post­poned until Oct. 31 to permit study of whether a federal court has jurisdic­tion, and the restraining order was extended to that date.

The order also restrains the foes o( integration from threatening or intimidating school officials and from seeking to persuade parents from sending their children to integrated classes.

Spokesmen for groups fighting in­tegration denied there had be~n acts or threats of violence at Hoxte and said the legal action was brought to counter the pending suit at Walnut Ridge.

The suit (Hoxie School District No. 46 of Lawrence Ccnmty, et al, v. Herbert Brewer, et al. CiviL Action No. J-918, in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Arka.nsa.s, Jones­boro Division) named the Hoxie school board members and Supt. K. E. Vance as plaintiffs.

Defendants are Herbert J3rev.:er, leader of the Hoxie group opposrng integration· Amis Guthridge of Lit­tle Rock, attorney for White America, Inc.; James D. Johnson of Cro~ett and Curt Copeland of Hot Sprmgs, leaders in the White Citizens Coun­cil of Arkansas, White America, the White Citizens Council, and ~e Committee Representing Segregation in the Hoxie Schools.

wee: ruftl at+ny Qen off Jc 4:5

Among Ute pro-integration forces gathered Oct. 20 for a federal court hearing on a complaint fU ed by Ifoxie school officials are (£rom the left) J~mes Sloan m of Walnut Ridge Bill Penix and Roy Penix of Jonesboro, Leslie R. Rowell of Hoxie and Edwin E. Ounnway of Little Rock. Howell is chairman of the Hoxie school board. The otl1ers are lawyers.

The suit said operation of inte­grated schools "was effective for sev­eral weeks with satisfactory reaction from pupils and the local commun­ity" but that on Aug. 3, the defend­ants began to challenge the board's action.

School officials charged in the suit that the segregationists trespassed on school property, "repeatedly threat­ened to set up a picket line to ob­struct ingress of children to these schools, organized a boycott attempt­ing to persuade the children's par­ents to withdraw them from these schools" and threatened harm to the school officials.

LOSSES, COSTS CrrED The complaint contended that the

school district had suffered a reduc­tion in attendance that would di­rectly cause an immediate loss in revenue of $15,000 a year to the dis­trict. And the restoralion of segre­gation would cost another $4,500, the officials said.

Filed with the complaint were affi­davits from the superintendent of schools and Raymond Saunehes, a faculty member, and Jewel Thorn, a farmer who lives near Hoxie. Supt. Vance's complaint told of threats, and the other men reported on a mass meeting.

The complaint asked that the court first issue the temporary re­straining order, then a preliminary injunction and ultimately a perma­nent injunction against interference or threats by the foes of integration.

JUDGMENTS REQUESTED J udge Trimble was asked to de­

clare: (1) That the board has the right

and duty to refuse to obey Arkansas Jaws which contradict the laws of the United States by requiring segre­gation.

(2) That the board is authorized and required by the 14th Amendment to desegregate without regard to whether the Arkansas law is repealed.

(3) That the plaintiffs would be subject to civil and criminal liabil­ity if they restored segregation at Hoxie.

Johnson termed the action a "deft publicity move" by the school board's attorney. He said the defendants would attempt to claim a $500 bond posted in federal court by the plain­tiffs for the "false and damaging ac­cusations."

At the Oct. 20 hearing, W. H. Greg­ory of Little Rock, attorney for Guth­ridge and the other defendants, filed a motion for dismissal in which he said the court was with.out juris­diction in the case.

Judge Trimble said he wasn't cer­tain that he had jurisdiction and di­rected attorneys for both sides to prepare briefs on that question, ex­change them with each other and file them with the court by Oct. 29. The question of jurisdiction then will be considered Oct. 31, Judge Trimble said.

ther, Roy Penix, who are law part­ners; Edwin E. Dunaway of Little Rock, and J ames Sloan III of Walnut Ridge.

On Oct. 4 at Little Rock, John W. Hamilton of St. Louis, editor of the White Sentinel, official organ of the National Citizens Protective Associa­tion, spoke at the meeting of the Lit­tle Rock chapter of White America.

Hamilton, who said he was proud to be a believer in white supremacy, told of riots, demonstrations and ra­cial tensions which he listed as re­sults of integration "up north."

"There is more racial trouble in Chicago today than in the whole South," he said.

Hamilton said be was "amazed" to learn that the Urban League at Lit­tle Rock was supported by the Com­munity Chest. He said the Urban League was not a benevolent or charitable organization.

"The Urban League is a Negro political pressure organization out to stuff the Negroes down your throat," Hamilton told the audience of about 60 persons. He urged Little Rock cit­izens to "call up the Community Chest and tell them you won't give a penny" that would be passed on to the Urban League.

On Oct. 8, Dr. J . Curtis Dixon of Atlanta, Ga., vice president and ex­ecutive director of the Southern Edu­cation Foundation, said at a Hot Springs meeting of the Arkansas As­sociation of School Administrators, a group affiliated with the Arkansas Teachers Association for Negroes, that integration was not "an impossi­ble problem."

It can be solved, he said, by "sitting down at the conference table in a spirit of goodwill and understand­ing.

"Integration won't be brought about in state departments of educa­tion," be said. ''It will be brought about on the local level."

WHITE AMERICA'S PLANS On Oct. 15, Amis Guthridge, of

Little Rock, an attorney for White America, Inc., said his group would take the following steps to maintain segregation:

(1) Seek passage of a state law modeled on an Alabama act which sets up several ways in which local school districts can "assign" white and Negroes to separate schools.

(2) Fight for election of public officials "in cluding a governor and legislators" who will maintain seg­regation.

(3) Seek legislation to withdraw s tate financial aid from Henderson State Teachers College, Arkansas Tech and Arkansas State College be­cause they admitted Negroes to classes.

(4) If all else fails, seek to abolish the public school system.

board members who would "reduce the millage rates to nothing." He said this would destroy the "public status" of the schools, permitting the build­ings to be rented, leased or sold to private corporations to operate. Guthridge said existing state laws would permit such a move.

ATHLETIC POLICY In a policy statement adopted Oct.

12, the executive committee of the Arkansas Athletic Association said that Negroes may participate in high school athletics with white students only through mutual agreement of the participating schools. All 457 white high schools in the state are members of the AAA.

The committee ruled that a school canceling a game during the present school year with a team that includes Negroes will not have to forfeit the game or pay the minimum guaran­tee.

On Oct. 14, the Biggers-Reyno school board in Randolph County in northeast Arkansas announced it had decided to continue segregated schools this fall. The board had an­nounced earlier that racial integra­tion would begin when schools opened Oct. 24.

Glen Cox, a board member, said the action was taken after a mother wrote the board to ask that integra­tion be on a voluntary basis. Cox said White America, Inc., had promised to pay $150 toward the expenses of two Negro students who will be sent to schools at Pocahontas and Jones­boro. One of the Negro students is in grade school, the other in high school.

On Sept. 29, the Hoxie school board failed to appear for a meeting which had been requested in a petition signed by 50 electors and citing an Arkansas law which requires school boards to meet when so petitioned.

Hoxie reopened its racially inte­grated schools Oct. 24 without inci­dent but with a high rate of absentee­ism. Supt. K. E. Vance estimated about half of the high school and junior high students were present. A smaller percentage of elementary students were in the classrooms, he said.

Vance said the high school and junior high attendance was about normal for this time of year because many pupils still are picking cotton. But he said integration was a factor in the absenteeism in all grades. He said it was possible some parents of elementary pupils kept their children at home "just to see what is going to happen."

Most of the Negro pupils were on hand for the re-opening after the harvest recess. Generally, they sat on one side of the classroom apart from the white students and stayed to­gether during recesses.

Normal enrollment is about 25 Negroes and about 1,000 whites.

INTEGRATION SUGGESTIONS On Sept. 29, five ways of integrat­

ing public schools were suggested at an organizational meeting of the Hot Springs school board's Advisory Committee on Integration.

Dr. Imon Bruce, superinte.ndent of schools, told the committee of 28 members, including five Negroes, that under the Supreme Court ruling "we are obliged to plan integration." He suggested five methods:

(1) Creation of an auto mechanics course open to Negroes and whites on a voluntary basis.

(2) Opening some senior high school courses to Negroes at the new all-white school in cases where sim­ilar courses are not offered at the Negro school.

(3) Integration on the high school level but allowing students to re­main at their present schools if they so desire.

(4) Start integration at the first grade level. Assisting Gregory as attorney for

the defendants was M. V. Moody of Little Rock. Attorneys for the plain­tiffs include Bill Penix and his fa-

Guthridge said the Latter could be accomplished by electing school

(5) Integrate at the elementary level,

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PAGE 4-NOVEMBER 1955-SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS

Florida Supreme Court Bans School Segregation As a 'Legal Principle'

Supreme Court mandate and should be ended immediately. Justice Elwyn Thomas joined in this dissent.

MIAMI, Fla. THE Florida Supreme Court last month, in a case which has been

before it since 1949, knocked out seg­regation as a legal principle.

The state's highest court, by a vote of 5-2, held that "our inescapable duty" is to abide by the desegregation ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Conflicting state laws, such as the constitutional provision against the mingling of races in the schools, have no force and effect, and stat~ agen­cies have no authority to bar a stu­dent merely on grounds of color, the court said.

But, the court added, the federal ruling does not require "a clear legal duty" to admit Negro students to schools "at any particular time in the future."

"On the contrary, the clear import of the federal ruling and indeed its express direction is that the state courts shall follow equitable princi­ples in the determination of the pre­cise time in any given jurisdiction when members of the Negro race shall be admitted to white schools.

LAWS NULLIFIED "The Supreme Court of the United

States said in that decision that these cases call for the exercise of the tra­ditional powers of an equity court with particular reference to its fac­ulty of adjusting and reconciling pub­lic and private needs and the prac­tical flexibility in shaping its rem­edies."

School officials, after a study of the decision, said its net result is to nulli­fy the state segregation laws. But it also allows time for integration by orderly procedure,

Biracial committees are at work in about a third of Florida's coun­ties to survey the situation and make recommendations.

- - ~' ._·_ -===-:::- ~

- .:~·· ~- \!:::: ~ 11\~: ~ ~

LEGAL ACTION

The Florida Supreme Court opin­ion involved the case of Virgil Haw­kins, 46-year-old Negro publicist for Bethune Cookman College, who bas been fighting for six years for ad­mission to the law school of the Uni­versity of Florida.

The appeal was denied by the Flor­ida Supreme Court. The case went to the U. S. Supreme Court, and was remanded to the Florida court for a ruling in keeping with the federal court's integration decision.

The court held that the board of control, which administers the state's system of higher education, "cannot lawfully refuse to admit (Hawkins) to the University of Flor­ida Law School merely because he is a Negro."

It added that admission of Haw­kins to the university presents ''grave and serious problems affect­ing the welfare of all students and the institutions themselves, and will require numerous readjustments and changes at the institutions of higher learning.'' These changes, the state board of control said, "cannot be made satisfactorily overnight."

NAME COMMISSIONER To see that the rights of Hawkins

are protected and the situation solved " without public mischief," the Supreme Court appointed a commis­sioner to take testimony from Haw­kins and the university "and such witnesses as they may produce to show whether or not the university law school is ready at this time to accept Negro students.''

Circuit Judge John A. H . Murphree of Gainesville, where UF is located, was designated for this duty. He was instructed to "conduct all necessary hearings and file a transcript with­out recommendations or findings of fact." His report must be completed in four months.

The court specifically said that Judge Murphree's investigation "must be limited in scope to the con­ditions that may prevail and that may lawfully be taken into account in re-

spect to the college of law at the University of Florida.''

On the basis of Judge Murphree's findings, the Supreme Court will de­termine when Hawkins shall be ad­mitted to the university.

"We adopt this procedure pursuant to the directive of tM implementa­tion decision to the effect that we retain jurisdiction during this period of transition so that we may properly take into account the 'public inter­est' as well as the 'personal interest' of (Hawkins) in the elimination of such obstacles as otherwise might impede the systematic and effective transition to the accomplishment of the result ordered by the Supreme Court of the United States."

PRINCIPLE DISCUSSED While the court majority limited

the scope of the decision, two sup­plementary opinions dealt with the whole question of segregation. One held the court did not go far enough, the other questioned integration on principle.

Justice Glenn C. Terrell, senior member of the court, in a special concurring opinion, agreed with the majority, but was critical of the fed­eral ruling.

"Segregation is not a new philoso­phy generated by the states that practice il," he wrote.

"When God created man He al­lotted each race to his own conti­nent according to color-Europe to the white man, Asia to the yellow man, Africa to the black man, and America to the red man.

"But we are now advised God was in error and must be reversed.''

Declaring the "separate but equal" doctrine has resulted in huge sums being spent for school facilities ~or white and Negro students, Justice Terrell continued:

"The dove and the quail, the tur­key and the turkey buzzard, chicken and guinea, it matters not where they are found, are segregated. Place the horse, the cow, the sheep, the goat and the pig in the same pasture and they instinctively segregate.

"The fish in the sea segregate in schools of their kind.

'LAW FOLLOWS NECESSITY' "In a democracy, law does not pre­

side, but follows a felt necessity or public demand for it. The genius of the people is as resourceful in devis­ing means to evade a law they are not in sympathy with as they are to enforce one they approve.

"States with segregated schools have them from a deep-seated con­viction. They are as loyal to that conviction as to any other philosophy to which they are devoted.

"They are as honest and law abid- . ing as the people of any state where integrated schools are the rule. Con­vinced of the justice of their posi­tion, they will not readily renounce it if they are required to forfeit ab­ruptly their conviction.

"There is no agitation for a change; the whites and Negroes are, as a rule, satisfied with what they have, and have made remarkable progress with it.

'RACES UNPREPARED' Justice Terrell said the two races

at-e "totally unprepared in mind and attitude" for non-segregated schools.

"The degree of one's culture and manners may resolve these differen­tials, but they will not resolve under the impact of court decrees or stat­utes. Closing cultural gaps is a long, tedious process and one for the home, the school and the church rather than for the courts and legislature."

Stating that segregation was a "natural" process, as evidenced in churches, residential areas and other aspects, the senior Supreme Court justice wrote:

"Are we to build now at a cost of millions to the taxpayers new schools so that Negroes and whites can go to school together?"

Another dissent was written by Justice H. L. Sebring, who has re­cently retired to become dean of the Stetson University Law School.

Justice Sebring held that segrega­tion is unlawful by United States

The Sebring opinion said: "The only federal judicial guide that we have as to what the states must do to provide 'equal educational oppor­tunities' to their citizens within the purview of the 14th Amendment is laid down in Brown v. the Board of Education, supra (the desegregation ruling), which expressly holds that in the field of education the doctrine of separate but equal has no place.

"That it is our judicial duty to give effect to this new pronouncement cannot be seriously questioned.

"Therefore, whatever may be our personal views and desires in respect to this matter, we have the binding obligation, imposed by our oath of office, to apply to the issue at hand the federal constitution as presently interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States, and give force and effect to this new principle that the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place in the field of public educa­tion in Florida, even though our own constitution and statutes contain pro­visions that require in our schools the separation of the races.''

Comment on the Supreme Court's opinion and its meaning came from varied sources. Chairman Fred Kent, of the state board o! control, tech­nically the defendant in Hawkins' suit which resulted in the ruling, said:

"No action will be taken on any decision or applications now pending before it (board of control) until the Supreme Court bas considered Judge Murphree's findings and given the board the benefit of its decision on integration.

"The board of control will comply carefully with all the provisions of the decision and will cooperate to the fullest with Judge Murphree and ob­tain for and present to him all the facts in its possession, which he might consider helpful in carrying out the wishes of the Supreme Court.''

Chief Justice E. Harris Drew of the Florida Supreme Court said that "it could not be concluded" from the Hawkins opinion tJ1at all petitions by Negroes for admission to the Uni­versity of Florida, or to the public schools, or any other state supported institutions, would be handled in the same manner.

EACH CASE DIFFERENT "Each case will have a different

set of facts and must be handled in­dividually on the basis of those facts and conditions," be said.

Thomas D. Bailey, state superin­tendent of schools, said the opinion, in his view, was consistent with the U. S. Supreme Court decision, as well as with the official stand taken by Florida's Atty. Gen. Richard W. Ervin in the "friend of the court" brief filed in the federal proceedings.

"Any implementation of the U. S. Supreme Court decree is dependent on local conditions pertaining to so­cial and educational factors," Bailey declared.

"The Florida Supreme Court de­cision, which stresses equality as a factor in arriving at the decision, es­tablished a pattern which may pre­serve the orderly functioning of our public school system."

Atty. Gen. Ervin said he consid­ered the court opinion "a very wise and helpful one in that it allows time for additional fact-finding and study to take place."

"U the solution to this whole prob­lem of racial integration of the pub­lic schools is to be found, I believe the answer will be found in study.

''We have constantly maintained that the problem cannot be solved by precipitative coercive action in any direction. We argued this contention to the U. S. Supreme Court and that court in its decree last May recog-

SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS cou s.,tho" s,hool N.., ;, tho ofll<lol P'bllootlo• of tho S~'lho" Ed,,.,;,, ~

R -•· Service en ob·1ective feet-finding egency estebl11hed by southern eporllng • • . f 'd'

d'tors and educetors with the e1m o prov1 1ng eccurate, newspeper e I bl' rr· . I d . unbiased informetion to school edministrators •. ~u 1c o cc1a s an Interested

I 't' developments in education em1ng from the U. S. Supreme ay Cl 11ens on , . . Court opinion of Mey 17, 1954 declaring segregat1on 1n the publ1c .schools unconstitutional. SERS is not an edvocete, is neither pro·segregat1on nor anti-segregation, but simply reports the feels es it finds them, stele by state.

Published et 1109 19th Ave., S., Nathville, Tenn.

OFFICERS Virginius Debney . . . . . · · • · · • · Thomes R. Wering . .... · · · · • ·

......... Chairman . . . . . . . Vice·Cheirman

. Executive Director Don Shoemaker . . . . · · · · · · · · · · · · ·

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Frenk Ahlgren, Editor, Memphis

Commerciel Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.

Gordon Blackwell, Director, Institute for Reseerch in Social Science, University of N.C.

Harvie Brenscomb, Chancellor, Van­derbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.

Virginius Debney, Editor, Ric:hmond Times-Dispetch, Richmond, Ve.

Colemen A. Herwell, Editor, Nash­ville Tennessean, Nashville, Tenn.

Henry H. Hill, President, George Peabody College, Neshville, Tenn.

Charles S. Johnson, President, fis~ University, Neshville, Tenn.

C. A. McKnight, Editor, Charlotte Observer, Cherlotte, N.C.

Charle1 Moss, ~ecutive Editor, Neshville Benner, Neshville, Tenn.

Don Shoemaker, Exec:. Director Sou. Education Reportin9 Service

Thomes R. Waring, Editor, Cheri••· ton News & Courier, Charleston, s. c.

Henry I. Willett, Superintendent of Schools, Richmond, Ve.

P. B. Young Sr., Publisher, Norfolk Journal & Guide, Norfolk, Va.

CORRESPONDENTS

ALABAMA Williem H. McDoneld, Editorial Writer, Montgomery Advertiser

ARKANSAS Thomas D. Devis, Asst. City Editor, Arkensas Gaulle

DELAWARE William P. Frenk, Steff Writer, Wilmington News

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Jeanne Rogers, Educetion Writer. Weshington Post & Times Herald

FLORIDA Bert Collier, Staff Writer, Miami Herald

GEORGIA Joseph B. Perham, Editor, The Macon News

KENTUCKY Weldon James, Editorial Writer, Loui1ville Courier.Journal

LOUISIANA Merio Fellom, Politicel Reporter, New Orleans Item

MARYLAND Ed9ar L. Jones, Editorial W riter, Baltimore Evening Sun

MISSISSIPPI Kenneth Toler, Mississippi Bureau, Memphis Commerciei-Appeel

MISSOURI Robert Lesch, Editoriel Writer, St. Louis Post-Dispetch

NORTH CAROLINA Jey Jenkins, Releigh Bureau Chief, Cherlotte Observer

OKLAHOMA Leonard Jeckson, Staff Writer, Oklehoma City Oklehoman-Timll

SOUTH CAROLINA W. D. Workmen Jr., Special Cor· respondent, Columbie, S. C.

TENNESSEE Jemes Elliott, Staff Writer, Nash· ville Banner

Wellece Westfeldt, Staff Writer, Nashville Tennessean

TEXAS Richerd M. Morehead, Austin Bu· reau, Delles News

VIRGINIA Overton Jones, Editorial Writer, Richmond Times.Dispetch

WEST VIRGINIA Frenk A. Knight, Editor, Charltl· ton Gazette

MAIL ADDRESS P.O. Box b I Sb, Acklen Stetion, Nashville 5, Tenn.

nized the validity o{ this position in refusing to set a mandatory dead­line.

"The decision of the Florida Su­preme Court is consistent with that philosophy."

Virgil Hawkins, whose long court fight was ended by the decision, said, "I am not a test case. 1 want to be a lawyer. I've wanted to be a lawyer aU my life."

From Hawkins' attorney, Horace E. Hill, came word that he "wanted to give judicious study" to the de­cision "in the light of precedent set by the U. S. Supreme Court.''

There was little newspaper com­ment on the ruling.

The Miami Daity News editorial­ized that "the decision undoubtedly will have the effect of delaying inte­g~·ation in any Florida school from six months to a year or more.

"The fact is the attitude of the federal courts, beginning with the district courts, is ultimately going to be more to the point here in Florida and elsewhere.

"The court itseli, recognizing the probable question of jurisdiction during the transition period before any actual integration, held it was the province of the state courts to permit integration only after it can be shown that no harm to the public will result.

"That may be the very question that will eventually be forced into the federal courts-here in Florida and elsewhere."

While a score or more of have been filed with local boards for admission of Negro dren to white schools, a large her requesting continued ""•"""natllltl were presented to the ty board.

They were placed on the desk Chairman A. Franklin Green and mained unopened until the the meeting when Green read a ter from the Citizens Council Pinellas asking that the petitions returned in a month.

Green handed the unopened die to Supt. Floyd Christian instructions to return them in cordance with the request.

"They can have them back now so far as I am Christian said.

Pinellas officials have they intend to obey the Court mandate and have a hi,.,a&l .:"

committee working on the That program was praised as cellent" by Dr. George Mitchell. ecutive secretary of the Souther. Regional Council.

In the celebrated Platt case in County, the Circuit Court ruled

(Sec FLORIDA, Next page)

---~--------~

""' ~IICounty In West Virginia ...,.~ Will Desegregate Again

CHARLESTON, W.Va. 0 th d h \ • R ACIAL S E GREG AT I 0 N in n e ay e announced his plan ~ for ~cDowell, Mingo and Logan

:.. Greenbrier County, scene of counties, Logan said representatives ~ ... 'West ViJ·ginia's major incident of of ~e Mercer County Boor·d of Edu-.. 1 1954, started a slow walk to oblivion cation had conferred on a settlement

Oct. 12. of an injunction suit against them. The board of education made it a Nutter did not divulge the results

casualty of the times in unanimously of the conference, but he said he had • submitting to a recommendation in turned "thumbs down" on the plan

, • Cederal district court to desegregate offered by the Mercer School Supt. ~- the public schools in two steps. W. R. Cook and Joseph Sanders, a t-

~ With the beginning of the second torney for the board. semester on Jan. 18, 1956, Greenbrier The NAACP leader stated that he

, I.. schools will be open to all children in told Cook and Sande1·s what would their districts, regardless of race. be ~tisfactory as a means of inte-

• 1

• Next fall, desegregation will become g1·ahng Negro and white children in ~ • all-encompassin.g. Mercer County, and they went back I),,. ed t p. • Segregat schools were frowned o rmceton to confer with the board. -... , ::.upon by Federal Judge Ben Moore of The NAACP filed a suit Sept. 27 in

• ',Charleston in a special term of court federal . court requesting that Judge ~\,iat the Greenbrier County seat, Lew- Moore ISSUe a permanent injunction ~It, isburg-a staid old community with restraining the Mercer board from :: • strong southern sympathies situated continuing segregation. Cook has

: near the Virginia border. previously said his board wanted to integrate next year when a school building program is completed. JNFOR~fAL STATEMENT

: 1

Judge Moore, in an informal e·..,. statement of views at the end of a ~

1 three-day hearing, spelled out a plan

1 for ending aJleged disc1·imination against Greenbrier County's 400-odd Mcgro school children.

The action, in which an iniunction • ~Nas sought against the board of edu-

cation, was brought by the .Nauonal Association for the Advancement of Colored People to hasten integration

9 1.,. in the county schools. ::w- The NAACP wanted an immediate

change. The majority of the board • • wanted to wait until next year. ':" -.· Judge Moore took the position that

';egregation could be brought to an ~nd either by injunction or by agree­

•• ic.c.~nent among parties to the sult. As for ~~ ! C !lis injunction power, he declared,

'Government by injunction is one of .he worst of aJl evils."

'fi •r Such a power should be used spar­ngly, he continued, and as an alter­

:.; utive a meeting of minds on a less .. ;evere course could achieve the same

-esults. Judge Moore was critical of the

..d ~-•IJreenbrier board for not starting de­;egregation this term. He said the nembers allowed a "public demon­ltralion a year ago to intimidate

~- .hem ... " i:r. He recognized the fact that if inte­

gration were started immediately. :..w) disruption in school curricula would ~ result. But he said he saw nothing

wrong with starting desegregation on a voluntary basis next semester.

He proposed integration in January r on a "first-eome-first-served" basis, ~bserving that some schools in

reenbrier are crowded. An over­~~· he said, could be held on a

, , 1 l"ouUng list.

INJUNCTION DENIED :: .. T. G. Nutter1 head of the NAACP in

West Virginia, was no~ pleased with ~ this proposal when it was first pro-

pounded and asked for an injunction. ~ "!o this the judge replied: "I'm not go-1 : ,...1ng to issue an injunction unless I

think it's necessary." •j The board quickly went into an ex­

a: .,..-ecutive session and in fou r minutes ~> "" returned to the courtroom to an­:· nounce through Supt. D. D. Harrah

that it would comply "both in the let-:.., t.er and the spirit of the rccommenda-.. tion."

Five days after the hearing, firs t in West Virginia on the integration question, Sheldon E. Haynes of Lew­isburg, lawyer who handled the

1 board's case, said public sentiment : regarding the outcome of the pro­

ceeding was "very good." Apparently encouraged by this

turn of events in Greenbrie1· County. II ,Nutter announced Oct. 18 that the

NAACP would press its fight for ra­~ cia! integration by sending letters to

t: . three counties which still have segre-1'1 gated systems.

NEW SUITS THREATENED . He said he had started preparing ~quiries to be sent to the superin­

tendents in McDowell, Mingo and Logan counties relative to the prog­ress they have made towa1·d inte­gration. U none has been made, Nut­ter added, suits in federal district court similar to the one in Greenbrier might follow.

A 10-minute board meeting in Ra­leigh County on Oct. 20, open to the public but attended by fewer than half a dozen outsiders, b•·ought ap­~rov~ of a program to begin integra­tion m the first three grades with the opening of the 1956-57 term.

From T. G. Nutter of Charleston. state president of the NAACP came the immediate observation: .:That's not anything."

He said he would insist on total in­tegration by this J anuary and that his group plans to file suit in federal court to restrain the Raleigh board from continuing to segregate Negro and white pupils in public classrooms. He also referred to Judge Ben Moore's recommendation in Green­brier County that integration be started with the end of the cu1·rent semester on Jan. 18 .

PROBLEMS DIFFERENT While the Greenbrier board voted

to accept Judge Moore's recommen­dation, A. P. Leeber of the Raleigh County school group noted that the problem was "differen~" in his area because of a larger Negro population. President Dale Covey of the Raleigh board asserted, "That's about all we can do."

The NAACP was not represented at the Raleigh meeting. George White, president of the Raleigh branch, said tha~ a committee had planned to attend, but that his illness prevented it.

The Raleigh board ol"iginally in­tended to integrate eight schools in seven scattered communities begin­ning with the current school term, but abandoned the program when residents protested that such a move would be discriminative against their towns.

Jn Chn.-lcston, Virgil L . Flinn, su­perintendent of the state's largest (Kanawha County) school system, announced on Oct. 7 that there have been "no incidents or demonstra­tions" since desegregation was start­ed Sept. 6.

Negro and white students in the first, second and seventh grades were integrated this term, and the school board hopes to complete desegrega­tion in all grades by September, 1956.

Early this month the Charles ton chapter of the NAACP, at its first fall meeting, expressed a desire to stim­ulate the employment of Negroes in Kanawha County plants.

"We are terribly disturbed about the employment situation as far as Negroes are concerned," Willard L. Brown, president. of the organization. said. "We should try to get employ­ment in general for Negroes through­out the county."

JUDGE BEN MOORE Suggestion Accepted

There was considerable comment by West Virginia newspapers follow­ing the Greenbrier hearing before Judge Moore. The Charleston Ga­ze!te, the state's largest newspaper, sa1d:

"West Virginia can well feel proud of the outcome o! the state's first school integration hearing . . . not only because of the judicious and common-sense manner in which the court proceeding was conducted, but also for the general acceptance it has received ... "

The West Virginia Board of Con­trol has begun a study of the indus­trial school system leading toward integration at a future but unspeci­fied date.

Board President James M. Dono­hoe said at mid-month that the board's aim is to integrate the Negro and white girls now separately housed in two schools. Similar plans for integration of the boys' industrial schools also are under consideration.

He stated that the white schools presently are overcrowded, while the Negro schools have an abundance of beds. By desegregating, Donohoe says the facilities could be utilized more efficiently.

The board's integration plan was kept in mind in preparing budgets for the schools which will be subrnitt~ to the state's budget-fixing body, the Board of Public Works, in December.

,, ~ ':"

iN THE : COLLEGES ;:\

West Virginia's colleges, in the meantime, are experiencing one of the greatest student enrollments in history. College officials attribute the increase to the return of Korean War vetet·ans entering under the G. I. Bill of Rights.

A news service poll brought little discussion of the integration issue, but Dr. William J. L. Wallace, presi­dent of West Virginia State College, a previously all-Negro school until the summer of 1954, said there is "grow­ing acceptance of the institution by the citizens of Kanawha County (where it is located.) Integration ... has been a contributing factor."

Florida (Continued From Page 4)

the five Platt children, dismissed on charges that they were of Negro de­scent, are entitled to attend any white school in Florida.

The children were dropped from the rolls of the Mount Dora school at the insistence of Sheriff Will.is V. McCall.

Allen Platt, a fruit picker who came from South Carolina, insisted h.is children were part Cherokee Indian and had no Negro blood. He appealed to Florida's Gov. LeRoy Collins and

SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS-NOVEMBER 1955-PAGE 5

'Shortco~nings' of D. C . Systein Arouse Parents

WASHINGTON, D. C.

I N THE LAST MONTH, Washing­ton parents have adopted a get­

tough policy toward the shortcom­ings of the public school system.

Forgetting self-interest complaints of the past, Negro and white parent groups united in their demands to District commissioners and the board of education for immediate remedy of overcrowded classrooms and a teacher shortage.

During the hearing on the subject, a white mother told the school board: "Integration is going smoothly at our school where one-fifth of the pupils are Negro. But the present crowded conditions can jeopardize the situa­tion by breeding dissension in the community."

The speaker lives in Southeast Washington, a section of the city where residents were reluctant to accept integration because of long­running racial conflicts over housing and recreation issues.

Other parent spokesmen repeatedly said they wanted proper school facil­ities for all children. They demanded higher educational standards for all.

Two days before the new term opened, principals ol 4.{) grade schools were notified they would be short from one to two teachers. This meant that two or more grades were com­bined in one classroom. Parents be­came aroused.

MISCALCULATIONS The teacher shortage resulted from

admin..istrative miscalculations and lack of funds. Grade school adminis­trators counted on picking up 50 teacher salaries from secondary schools where enrollment was ex­pected to drop. Junior and senior high officials, however, already had hired a full complement of teachers.

For an unexplained reason, officials !ailed to get together in their plan­ning. Some school officials claimed administrative channels had become clogged since the reorganization ol top level staff under integration. Oth­ers said there was a "lack of direc­tion" f rom Supt. Hobart M. Corning.

The board of education last month refused to let a fraternity, founded by Negroes, conduct an essay con­test in Washington high schools on the theme: "Desegregation, A Way Station; Integration, Our Destina­tion."

In recommending the denial, Corn­ing said the subject of the essay is "too advanced and philosophic."

James Carr, spokesman for the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., told board members that Washington is the only area in which the or~aniza­tion's request had been turned down.

"Alabama, Georgia, Florida and even Mississippi have not denied high school students the ril!ht to partici­pate," Carr said. He added that the national contest has been endorsed by the National Education Associa­tion.

NEGRO M'DffiERS OBJECT Two Negro board members, West

A. Hamilton, a member of the fra­ternity, and Mrs. Margaret J. Butch­er, whose father was a founder, ob­jected to the denial.

Mrs. Butcher said: "II the school board is so timid it won't let students discuss its own positive action on in­tegration, there's something wrong with the board." Hamilton said the subiect no longer is controversial.

Board member Robert R Faulkner said, "It's a one-sided subject." Mrs.

the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the protection of his rights.

Judge T1·uman G. Futch approved Platt's petition for mandamus after examining birth records and other family documents.

Sheriff McCall termed Judge Futch's ruling "disgraceful."

"In my book they're still mulat­toes," McCall said. "I will continue to enforce the laws laid down by the state of Florida and let tl1em man­damus me in every case."

P. B. Howell Jr., attorney for the school board, said he will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.

Butcher replied, "Only in the minds o! people who make it so."

Mrs. Manson Pettit, new board member from Southeast Washington said: ,

"I don' t feel the topic is pertinent and timely in the District. We've not reached a way station, we've gone beyond it. rd hate to sec us lose ground. I don't feel the subject is too deep. But there still is a great deal of tension in the area in which I reside. I have a feeling we have a small geyser. It's just bubbling but it could erupt. rm not being tfuud."

Mrs. Butcher said, "The reason we have potential geysers is that few youngsters and oldsters know what democracy means."

ESSAY REQUEST DENIED Comlng said, "Our feeling is we've

been so busily engaged doing things along this line, it is better to be do­ing than talking."

The school board by a 5 to 2 vote denied the fraternity's request.

A Georgetown University profes­sor c1·eated a stir in the Washington area last month by his published statements on the Negro and the Su­preme Court decision on school seg­regation.

According to a news account in the Arlington (Va.) Sun, Prof. Charles C. Tansill in a talk before the De­fenders of State Sovereignty and In­dividual Liberties in Arlin~Iton County described the Negro as a "mo­ron" and said Negroes have contrib­uted nothing significant to Western culture.

Tansill later told The Washhtgton Post and Times Herald he had not used the word "moron" during the talk. Many of the opinions he ex­pressed, Tansill said, were not his own.

"All I did was read .from books," he added.

'ACCO~fPLISHED NOTHING' In an exclusive interview published

Oct. 18 in the Washington Daily News Tansill was quoted as saying: "The Negro race has contributed nothing-ever-they've been in con­tact with the whites for 6 ,000 years and they've accomplished nothing. Nothing."

The News said Tansill told the A:r­lington meeting that school integra­tion would make morons of us all­and emphasized the "menace of the Supreme Court to American liber­ties."

Following publication of the News interview, the Rev. Edmund B. Bunn, president of GeorgetoWJI University, "publicly disavowed" Tansill's re­marks and promised to take "proper action" in his case.

Father Bunn told The Post he had written identical letters to three Ar­linsrton residents who protested Tan­sill's talk. They read in part:

"You may be assured that the re­marks of Dr. TansiU are absolutely contrary to the policy and teaching of Georgetown University. They must be viewed as those of a private indi­vidual speaking outside the field of his own competence and training.

OPlNIONS DISAVOWED "Moreover, as they are opposed to

the teaching of the Catholic Church, we publicly disavow these opinions. Furthermore we take this occasion to reaffirm our adherence to the princi­ples of justice and charity promul­l!ated in the papal Encyclicals the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution ... "

Father Bunn wrote the letters on the strength of the talk carried in the Arlington newspaper. He sent a copy of the letter to Tansill, who replied with a Jetter of his own. It included this phrase: "I am not responsible for the reading of a series of quota­tions." Father Bunn said, "That reply is absurd."

The priest said Tansill will be given a hearing when "we take the proper action."

Tansill told the Post he holds "no personal opinion on integration ... it's out of my field ." Tansill was in the news in 1947 when he publicly chastised Abraham Lincoln for "pro­voking" the Civil War.

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PAGE 6-NOVEMBER 1955-SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS

Texas Supreme Court Knocks Out School Segregation La"' ~cbl regard to race at all levels of th~ uni- taini~g houses, reported. .1~(~ AUSTIN, TEXAS

THE TEXAS Supreme Court has ruled that schools may proceed

with desegregation without regard to state laws.

It declared invalid provisions of the state constitution and the school laws which require racial segregation. This came in the Big Spring case (R. E. McKhmey et (t{ v. W. C. Blankenship et (tl) where the district authorized Negroes to attend 'white elementary schools.

Twenty-one Negroes were eligible to attend the white schools at Big Spring. Seven actually enrolled and 14 chose to attend the segregated Negro school.

Big Spring is one of 65 districts which started integration in Texas this fall. Unofficial estimates indicate that between one and two per cent of the state's Negro scholastics are affected by these orders.

The lest at Big Spring was filed by four citizens, one of them a school trustee, and by the Texas Citizens Council, a pro-segregation group. Ross Carlton, Dallas attorney and head of the Council, represented the plantiffs in the Big Spring lawsuil

'NO SPEED-UP' Gov. Allan Shivers and Atty. Gen.

John Ben Shepperd made public statements pointing out that the state Supreme Court's decision does not call for any speed-up of desegrega­tion.

The state court upheld the judg­ment of District Judge Charlie N. Sul­livan of Big Spring, who denied the injunction sought to stop the local board desegregation order. Also up­held was Sullivan's opinion that state laws and the constitution must yield if they conflict with the United States Supreme Court's anti-segregation de­cision.

In the Texas court's main opinion. Associate Justice Few Brewster labeled as "utterly without merit" the argument that Texas segregation laws were unaffected by the U. S. Supreme Court decision.

A concurring opinion by Associate Justices Meade F. Griffin and Rue! C. Walker added deletion of the Texas Gilmer-Aikin school law's segregation provision leaves a "fully and com­pletely effective" method of financing schools.

Atty. Gen. Shepperd had argued that if a portion of the financing l11w is invalid, the whole act is invalid until revised by the legislature. The court did not rule directly on Shep­perd's point that a restriction uoon n legislative appropriation cannot be erased by court action.

EXPECT NO APPEAL Gov. Shivers said that "develop­

ments of the next few months will dictate whether a special session of the legislature will be necessarv." But the court's decision apparently headed off any prospects for an early le¢s­lative session on the segregation ques­tion.

No appeal is expected from the Texas Supreme Court's opinion.

Atty. Carlton declared that the only hope for victory in the Big Soring case lay in the Texas Supreme Court. An appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court -which held segregation to be un­constitutionSII in the first place - is considered futile.

Atty. Gen. Shepperd likewise took the Texas court's ruling as final.

"This settles the law in Texas on a statewide basis, but integration will still be a district-by-district matter," said Shepperd. "As attorney general I will, of course, as I have in the past. uphold the law as declared by the court or such new laws on the ~bject as may be passed by the legislature."

SIDVERS COMMENT Gov. Shivers pointed to the Dallas

case, where Negroes lost an applica­tion for immediate entry into white schools.

The governor commented: "Faced with a demand that colored

students be admitted to certain Dallas schools, Judge (William H.) Atwell held that the U. S. Supreme Court had required school officials to work out proper plans for desegregation, but, while this is being done, 'when similar and convenient schools are

furnished to both white and colored that there then exists no reasonable ground for requiring desegregation.'

"In the light of these decisions, no school district should feel compelled to take hasty or unnecessary action."

Justice Brewster wrote that Section 7, Article Vll of the Texas constitu­tion and Article 2900 of the statutes are unconstitutional "to the extent that ... they require segregation of the white and Negro students in the public schools."

"It does not follow, however, that (these articles) are unconstitutional and void as applied to other subject matter which by their terms they were intended to cover."

The constitutional a rticle says: "Separate schools shall be provide-! for white and colored children, ancl impartial provision shall be made for both."

Article 2900 of Texas law says white and Negro children may not attend the same schools.

The state court asserted that de­claring the two articles entirely un­constitutional "would destroy the safeguards found therein which guar­antee equal and impartial provision for students in schools not yet inte­grated."

"No judgment which would lead to that result should be rendered unless it is necessary, and we find it unneces­sary," wrote Judge Brewster.

LAW ANALYZED The Court also analyzed Article

2922-13 of the Gilmer-Aikin laws. It provides that payments based on at­tendance shall be "separate for whites and separate for Negroes." Brewster referred to other sections of the same law and concluded: "We find in the act no language which would deny the use of such funds to integrated schools."

The concurring opinion by Justices Griffin and Walker agreed with the majority view except on construction of Article 2922-13.

The two judges said the law's re­quirement foi' spending separately on white and Negro schools is unconsti­tutional under the U. S. Supreme Court's decisions. But they said the language "is severable and when ap­plied to a case of this character does not affect or impair the validity and operation of the remainder of the stat­ute."

'"iC=- --=:. ~ ~ -= • - --= - -~...:__.-111'~1 - ~ )i

LEGAL ACTION

Parents of three Negro pupils in the Mansfield. Tarrant County, Independ­ent School District filed suit in the U. S. Supreme Court seeking admis­sion to the high school there.

The plan tiffs said they are required to travel 40 miles a day to attend high school in Fort Worth, 20 miles from Mansfield. They asked for an injunc­tion to abolish the Mansfield district's policy of keeping Negroes out of its high school.

The case is styled Nath(tn.iel J(tck­son.. (t minor. et (tl v. 0. C. R11wdon, president of the Mansfield tnutees, et al. It is set for hearing Nov. 7 be­fore U. S. District Judge Joe E. Estes at Fort Worth.

WHAT THEY SAY

Dr. Frederick Eby, long-time mem­ber of the College of Education fac­ulty, University of Texas, suggested that the most intelligent Negro stu­dents should be put into white schools first.

A long-time foe of segregation, Dr. Eby said it must be recogrtized that the average Negro pupil iS! unequal to the average white student.

"Could even nine sage judges of the Supreme Court of the United States make all men equal in intelligence?" asked Dr. Eby at the annual meeting of the Texas Association of School Boards.

The speaker added: "We must rec­ognize that the great majority of Negroes have not demanded integra­tion for the Negro."

ASSOCIATE JUSTICE BREWSTER Tex(ts R(tce Bars Void

Dr. Eby said that present conditions of overcrowding and teacher short­ages make desegregation an extra­difficult problem.

The San Marcos school board re­vealed a problem which has come up there. The Negro high school was abolished this fall, and the students permltted to attend the white high school.

Now the board is faced with the problem of policy on transferred stu­dents. San Marcos has accepted stu­dents from rural areas in the past. The board now is concerned over whether it must accept transfers of all races if it accepts white transfers.

In Dallas, Supt. W. T. White asked white and Negro parent-teachers as­sociations to study the possibility of integrating their groups. He re­quested both PTA Councils to appoint study committees and report to the Dallas school board next spring.

The Dallas board declined to order desegregation this year, but outlined its program of areas to be studied in making policies for the future. A fed­eral court in September declined to order Dallas to admit Negro students immediately.

At Garland, in Dallas County, Rus­sell T. Sanborn wrote letters to state and federal officials complaining that the Negro high school is inferior to the white high school He listed sev­eral courses taught at Garland High which are not available to Negro stu­dents at Carver High.

SCHOOL BOARDS AND SCHOOLMEN

Dr. W. R. Goodson, director of ac­creditation for Texas Education Agency, reported that Carver High at Garland ''has a clear standing'' after completing a new building and mak­ing other improvements. He said it is not necessary for every school to teach the same courses in order to have accredited standing.

Leslie J. White, executive secretary of the Teachers State Association (Texas Negro teachers group), said five Negro teachers lost their jobs in Texas this year through integration. They were employed last year in Kames County, whose 120 Negro stu­dents now attend desegregated schools.

A spokesman at Texas Education Agency pointed out that the Negro teachers in Kames County did not. receive contracts for 1955-56 and were notified last spring that the schools might be integrated this fall. At El Paso, Corpus Christi, San Mar­cos and other desegregated systems, Negro teachers were given contracts earlier and are being retained in this school year, the spokesman said.

A survey conducted for the Uni­versity of Texas Student Assembly using student interviewers, found fe~ operators of housing units stating definitely they would accept Negro students.

The board of regents has announced that students will be accepted without

versity in September 1956, subJect to unanimously that Negroes will I"' :1 aptitude tests to be given all new stu- cepted. Only two ?ut of 47 · ~< dents. The tests are necessary to pre- reluctance to admtt Negroes. ;~.A; vent overcrowding, the regents said. Negroes are being admitted now ~~:(t f!'

The student survey committee all-university dances, sponsored rl- ti-J: found that 11 of 131 housing units all students, and are allowed to (} tt contacted are willing to admit Neg- lend other functions without ~ roes. Most of the others were non- restrictions. Negroes now are • Jl;-committal. ir. graduate and professional ~

Three of 16 restaurants in the uni- at the University of Texas. versity neighborhood will allow Ne- At Southern Methodist groes to eat there, but two said re- a p~n:J sponsore~ ~Y the National strictions may be imposed. soctallon of Chnstians and Jews,

Academic organizations, not main- proved desegregation in the South, .. I •• .. . ...... ,' :Jexl o/ fhe Jera~ Ruling

This is a direct appeal in an action for a declaratory judgment as well as an injunction, filed by R. E. McKin­ney, Ted 0. Groebe, John W. Currie, and Roy Bruce, residents of Big Spring, Texas, and McKinney and Bruce as representatives of a group organization of Dallas, Dallas County, as plaintiffs; against Clyde Angel, R. W. Thompson, Tom McAdams, Omar Jones, Robert Stripling, and John Dibrell, composing the Board of Trustees of Big Spring Independent School District, W. C. Blakenship, superintendent of Big Sprin~ Inde­pendent School District, J. W. Edgar, state commissioner of education. and R. S. Calvert, comptroller of public accounts, as defendants.

Appellants alleged in their petition that the board of trustees of Big Spring School District had made and entered an order integrating white and Negro students in grades one through six in the elementary schools of the district. They sought an injunc­tion to restrain the allocation or expenditure of public free school funds in any manner inconsistent with and contrary to the provisions of Section 7 of Article VU, Constitu­tion of Texas, Article 2900, Revised Civil Statutes of Texas, and Section 1 of Article 2922-13, Vernon's Anno­tated Texas Civil Statutes. They also sought a declaratory judgment de­claring that the foregoing constitu­tional and statutory provisions were valid and enforceable, and declaring the rights, duties and obligations of the defendants thereunder. In their answer to the petition the board of trustees and superintendent of Big Spring School District also asked a declaratory judgment declaring their rights, duties and legal obligations "under all appropriate and applicable laws and statutes." The attorney general of Texas intervened and aligned the state with the plaintiffs except in so far as the state commis­sioner of education and the comp­troller of public accounts were con­cerned.

The trial court denied the injunc­tion and by its judgment declared unconstitutional and void Section 7 of Article VIl of the Constitution, Article 2900, R.C.S., and certain lan­guage, to be noted later, of Section 1 o£ Article 2922-13. I t then declared the remaining portions of Article 2922-13 valid and enforceable.

Appellants' first three points of error assert that the trial court should have granted the injunction to restrain the various defendants from certifying, paying and expend­ing public free school funds in any manner inconsistent with the consti­tutional and statutory provisions.

The duties of the commissioner of education to certify the funds to which a school district is entitled and of the state comptroller to issue and transmit warrants therefor are purely ministerial and mandatory ... The injunction against these parties was properly denied. To this all parties agree.

As to the other defendants the trial court's judgment was und~ubt­edly predicated on the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Brown v. Board of Educ(ttion of Topeka, Kansas . .. Rejecting the doc­~rine "separate but equal," announced m 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson ... the Supre~e Court held ... that separate educational facilities are inherenlly unequal, and that, therefore the plaintiffs and others similarly sit~ated Cor whom the four suits were brought had been, by reason of their segrega-

lion, deprived of the equal protectict of the laws as granted by Fourteenth Amendment.

In its final decree the court said had declat·ed in its original vuu ..... .,.

"the fundamental principle cia! discrimination in public Lion is unconstitutional," and it proceeded to declare that "all visions of federal, state or local requiring or permitling such crimination must yield to this ciple."

• At the threshold of our cor•~·~~- •

lion of the issues in this case we ., met with the argument that since th. constitutional and statutory visions requiring segregation in schools were not before the Court in the Brown case they not condemned, and we should them valid and enforceable. Tho proposition is so utterly without mtr that we overrule it without furthr· discussion ...

Section 7 of Article VIl of the (4. stitution and Article 2900 of or; statutes, declared unconstituticn. and void by the trial court, read 1 follows:

"Sec. 7. Separate schools shall pl'ovided for the white and children, and impartial shall be made for both."

"Article 2900. All available pulit school funds of this state shall bo

appropriated in each county for education alike of white and children, and impartial shall be made for both races. white child shall attend schools ported for colored children, nor colored children attend schools ported for white children. The 'colored r·ace' and 'colored childrell' as used in this title, include all sons of mixed blood descended Negro ancestry."

To the extent that these tiona! and statutory provisions quire segregation of white Negro students in the public they are unconstitutional and and cannot stand as a bar to tht penditure of public funds in grated schools. It does not however, that Section 7 of of the Constitution and Article of the statutes are unl"nt,dituti!llli.ll and void as applied to other matter which by their terms were intended to cover.

Even a casual reading of SecbOD of Article Vll of the and Article 2900 of the make clear that they purpose: They require ,.,,rr~>t~aU•DG white and Negro students in the lie schools of this state, and require that equal and impartial vision be made for the eauc~"'"" both. The extent of their should be determined in the what was said by the Supreme of the United States as limited by facts of the cases before it. When language of the court is so iimiud will be evident that what the condemned as unconstitutional void, and all it condemned, was stitutional, statutory, and local provisions which require or forced segregation through govcntmental officers and

The Supreme Court did not immedlale and complete in all schools. To declare Section Article VI of the Constitution Article 2900 of the statutes tulional and void in their would destroy the safeguards

(Continued on Page 7)

~ School .. ~ Desegregation ~ JACKSON, Miss. 1: , AGITATION for integration in s~ Mississippi's public schools has c-. been more or less submerged in a

backwash of controversy stemming from the recent acquittal of two white men of murder charges in con­nection with the slaying of a 14-year­old Negro youth.

~~ The school issue, after coming to ~..;:· the front following filing of integra­~~~ Uon petitions in five cities, moved in­"'-'. to the background as leaders in both · races centered attention on other as-... ~. th . 1 t' pects of e rac1a ques ton.

As a result, Mississippi's segregated schools opened in September with­out incident. Not a single effort was made by Negroes to enroll in white

... schools as the fall term commenced. ;; The status quo developed after school ~ boards in five cities remanded to the ~ . files without action petitions by par-

ents of Negro children asking imme­~ diate reorganization of the school ~ systems along non-segregated lines. :... "'(• Since filing of the petitions, many of , ..., the signers have had their names ~t>' withdrawn.

~ TO CLOSE 'GAP' Meanwhile, two steps to equalize

the dual system by closing the "gap" between white and Negro schools

ir;: were taken in line with assertions ~~ from state officials that segregation

will be maintained in Mississippi. =tt: ~ Mississippi's latest official pro-fit;~,· nouncement on the segregation issue ~l:t~ came from state Rep. Ney Gore, Jr., , tct ~ of Quitman County, secl'etary of the h1 ~:;,. 25-member Legal Educational Advi­~ sory Committee, headed by Gov. ~~..... Hugh White, and created at the 1954 ~ legislative session to devise ways and

means of bypassing the United States r\Jti Supreme Court's integration d~­~ .., cisions. Gore, an attorney who 1S

~.,: drafting bills embodying a recent six­~ po.int approved legislative program,

S81d on Oct. 19: ''Mississippi is giving no thought

to any sort of desegregation, either gradual or otherwise. All our efforts a1·e concentrated on the maintenance of segregated schools in this state on a permanent basis."

The two equalization steps were: 1. Approval of a $250,000 bond is­

sue by voters in Bolivar County (68.3 percent Negro), for construction of a new Negro school at Cleveland.

2. Dedication of a new $125,000 ul­tra-modem parochlal school for Ne­groes by the Catholic church in a ru­ral section of Madison County (73.6 percent Negro), believed to be the only Catholic Negro agriculture hlgh school in the South.

The only legislative action in Mississippi was drafting of a six-point program to tighten Mississippi's hold on segregation as adopted by the Le­gal Educational Advisory Commit­tee. Committee Secretary Ney Gore has been put on full-time to draft bills embodying the program for sub­mission to the 1956 biennial session of the Legislature which convenes Jan. 3.

Final approval will be given the proposals by the LEAC at a Decem­ber meeting.

·.- , LEGAL ACTION '

No legal action has been made of record since rejection in August of petitions Ior reorganization of the school districts in five cities in con­formity with the United States Su­preme Court's integration decisions. Petitions were filed by Negro parents on the school boards of Vicksburg, Jackson, Clarksdale and Yazoo City.

SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS-NOVEMBER 195S-PAGE 7

Put • Ill Background •

Ill Mississippi The school authorities received them and placed them in the files without action.

Mississippi will send 18 delegates, three of them Negroes, to the White House Conference on Education, meeting in Washington Nov. 28-Dec. 1.

At a meeting in Jackson on Oct. 19, the pat1icipants in a statewide meeting presided over by J. M.. Tubb, state superintendent of education, instructed the biracial group to en­dorse federal aid for school buildings "without federal control."

The delegation goes to Washington pledged to the proposition that "edu­cation should be provided for all children, giving every child advan­tages to the extent of his ability through a more comprehensive pro­gram."

Another action states the "we be­lieve that the state should establish and enforce high minimum standards and let the local community work out its own situations in terms of its need."

Mississippi's Legal Education Ad­visory Committee has ordered copies of the pleadings and all testimony in tho Memphis "gradual integration" school case recently decided in fed­eral court there. However, committee Secretary Gore said the action is in keeping with the committee's cus­tomary procedure "since our com­mittee is attempting to keep abreast of every development and every as­pect of the segregation problem all over the South."

A1TENDED HEARING "I attended the hearing of the

Memphis State case in the federal

court in Memphis on Monday, Oct. 17, but only as an observer and at the direction of the LEAC, and in the hope that it might be possible to in­crease our knowledge or the problem we face and thus avoid the very thing which has been ordered to be done in Tennessee," Gore said in a state­ment Oct. 19. ''The LEAC has no in­tention of following the course of ac­tion that has been taken by the State Board of Education of Tennessee in recommending the gradual desegre­gation of Memphis State and other institutions in Tennessee."

"Our efforts," the state legislator added, "are being exerted so as to keep segregated schools at all levels in Mississippi."

WHAT THEY SAY

The Rev. L. J. Twomey, S.J., di­rector of the Institute of Industrial Relations of Loyola University of New Orleans, told the Mississippi Federation of Labor in annual con­vention at Jackson Oct. 4 that "non­whites hold the balance of power in the world."

Twomey said one-third of the world's papulation is under domina­linn of the Communist party, anoth­er one-third believes in the demo­cratic way "and the other one-third doesn't believe either way and holds the balance of power."

Asserting that 99 percent of the latter one-third are non-white, the Catholic priest said "in order to sur­vive, we the people of the world must create their goodwill for with­out it the people of the world will be digging themselves out from under the rubble of an atomic war."

Responding to southern United States senators who have criticized the United States Supreme Court's integrations decisions, Father Two­mey told the Labor delegates:

"I am a southerner but no United States senator who states that the decision handed down by the United States Supreme Court regarding seg­regation is desecrat.ing Southern tra­ditions is speaking for me."

URGES COOPERATION Stating that racial prejudices will

forever stand in the way of world peace, Father Twomey urged the la­bor union members "to work to­gether and be loyal to the United States before they were to Missis­sippi." He said, "the actions of the people in Mississippi are flashed across the world to the Communists and they use our actions as clubs to beat us over the bead."

He said that the non-white people of the world could never believe that democracy was right "when we don't even live it at home."

"We have failed to live up to our own mode of life and unless we real­ize that the little people of the world are tired of being pushed around and do away with racial prejudices, we are lost," Father Twomey said . ''We in the labor unions must organize and show them that the little people of the United States have rights."

According to the Jacks01~ Daily News, Twomey's talk "brought a rousing ovation from the delegates."

Meanwhile, a handbill campaign urging continuance of segregation among Negroes and whites on a ''vol­untary basis" was opened by a Ne­gro minister of south Mississippi.

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MISCELLANEOUS ·.,.· . '-;::~"' ~~ ~~~... ~ .~~

A statewide organization move­ment is under way by Mississippi Cit­izens Councils of "white males ded­icated to preservation of segrega­tion!' New councils have been or­ganized at Greenville, Tupelo, Bates­ville, Mendenhall Officials claim over 60,000 members, statewide.

~~~~IItJIIIIIIIIIII - S - 111---S·--- 1 -~~ 1~111 1~11; ~~~ J~ 1 1111111111 II 1111111 I I Ill I Ill IIIIIIIIIIII ....... JIIJIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

....... therein which guarantee equal and ~- impartial provisions for students in ~>~ schools not yet integrated ... We con­

!! r.o. .. elude that Section 7 of Article VII of t :!I: the Constitution and Article 2900 are btt unconstitutional and void in so far ;.t: as they require segregation of white 001!- and Negro students in the public

:&!to:.. schools of Texas. ~~ The most difficult problem in the :c;.la, case involves a determination of W&.il whether Article 2922-13, V.A.C.S., -r.. one of several articles (Article ~ c:C:;:l 2922-11 through Article 2922-22, d~- V.A.T.C.S.) which were a part, and

together constituted the whole, of the ..: ::a Foundation School Program Act ry i'-:::1 (Acts 1949, 51st Leg., p. 625, ch. 334)

ti 1:. popularly known as the Gilmer­::;e ....... Alkin Law, prohibits the expenditure ~· of public funds in integrated schools. .; 1:r It is asserted by appellants that it .:t.:.:· does. ~ ~ The trial court's declaratory judg-

11' • •!'. ment held certain portions of the first t;:~: !.'- two sentences unconstitutional. These , ~ two sentences, with the parts declared -!»~ unconstitutional being italicized are t:C t: as follows:

"Th~ number or profc:Mionnl units al­lotted for th~ purpose of this net to cach school district, cxc:ept as hc:rcln provldcd, shall t:.oe bnscd upon and dctcrmlned by the average dally attendance for thc next preceding school year. sepnrnle tor whites and sepnrote for Negroes. Suel~ allotmcnla baaed upon white attendance altnlt be utilized In white sclloola. ao1d allntmenla baaed upon Negro attendance sllall be 1ltlllzed In Negro sch.ool1!'

t.;;;: Evidently the trial court held the :) .:;r italicized language unconstitutional ..-·:... on the theory that it prohlbited the :;,:..,. use of public funds in integrated ·~~ -* schools and, in practical effect, re­ttl:Sf quired segregation of white and C. Negro students. I{ that were the -;f.'' proper interpretation of that l::mguage ~- we might be faced with the same seri­~ ous constitutional questions which

< confronted the trial court of (a) :(,", whether the denial of public funds to ~ -::'"' a school district which undertook a ~' program of integration Tequired • N segregation, and (b) if so, whether ~ the offending language rendered the ~ ·, entire Act unconstitutional and void.

But we do not agree that that is the tL .,d· proper interpretation of the language.

The language must be interpreted in ~·" its context with the remnining pro­

!1 ~~ ~~

visions of the act ... we find in the act no language which would deny the use of such funds to integrated schools ...

• This brings us to a consideration

of Article 2922-13. The article deals only with the allocation of teachers and administrative personnel. The language declared unconstitutional by the trial court does not stand alone. We have no right to declare it unconstitutional until we deter­mine what it means. To ascertain its meaning we must look to the pro­visions of Article 2922-12 and the re­maining provisions of Article 2922-13.

The parties have treated the word "allotments" in the second sentence of Article 2922-13 as meaning "funds." It does not mean funds. Article 2922-12 defines the term "professional units" as teachers a~d administrative personnel, who will be referred to hereafter as "teachers"

As reconstructed in this setting, the second sentence provides: "Such teachers based upOn white attendance shall be utilized in white schools, and teachers based upon Negro attend­ance shall be utilized in Negro schools." It follows that the limita­tion, if any, imposed by the sente~ce on the use of public funds apphes only to their use in the payment of salaries to teachers assigned to teach in integrated schools ...

Our remaining question is this: Does the second sentence of Section 1 of Article 2922-13 as we have re­constructed it, properly interprete~. prohibit the utilization of teachers 10

integrated schools and, in~identa!ly, the use of public funds m ~aym~ salaries of teachers thus aSSigned · We answer the question no. ~ear­rive at our answer from a considera­tion of the sentence considered in its legal and factual context.

To give an affirmative answer to the question might well lead to the further holding that the sent~~ce was unconstitutional as ,.equn~ng segregation, and it is elementary th~t a statute will not be interJ?reted m such a manner as to render Jt uncon­stitutional if by any reasonable con-

wee: "'"' •tt"y ge" oH Je 4:5

struction it may be held constitu­tional ...

The language of the sentence is mandatory to accomplish its purpose but it is not prohibitory. While it requires the use of teachers allotted on the basis of attendance of white students in white schools, and the use of teachers allotted on the basis of Negro attendance in Negro schools, it does not provide that none of such teachers may be used in integrated schools.

The1·e are other considet·ations. The legislature has made appropriations to finance the state's share of the Foundation Fund Program for the school years of 1955-56 and 1956-57; it has authorized the certification and payment to school districts of all funds necessary for operating costs of all schools, with no restriction or prohibition against use of such funds in integrated schools; it has author­ized the certification and payment to school districts of all funds necessary to defray the cost of transporting students to all schools, with no re­striction or prohibition against use of such funds to transport students to integrated schools; it has authorized the employment of and the payment of salaries to all of a given number of teachers in each school district and has appropriated money to help pay their salaries; it is a matter of law . . . that teachers work under contracts of employment and a mat­ter of common knowledge that such contracts are usually and customarily executed several months before the beginning of the school year for which they are executed. Under these circumstances to hold that officials of a school dis trict may not utilize the whole number of teachers, employed and entitled to their salaries under contract, by assigning some of them to teach in integrated schools, not proscribed by the Constitution and laws of this state, once the need for teachers in the segregated schools in the district, if any, has been satisfied, would lead to a foolish result. It would mean that the le¢slature had authorized the use of public funds to transport students of both races to a common building and had authorized the use of public funds to pay all operating costs of the integrated

school thus established, but that a number of teachers, employed under contract for the full school year and entitled to demand their salaries thereunder, could not teach in the integrated school thus established but would remain idle and the stu­dents in the school would be left without instruction. Unless there is no alternative, a statute will not be interpreted so as to lead to a foollsh or absurd result . . . While the law controls the number of teachers allotted to a school district, the as­signment of teachers, once the need for teachers in segregated schools is reasonably satisfied, is a matter left largely to the discretion of local school authorities.

• The dominant purpose of the Gil­

mer-Aikin Act was, by its own terms, "to guarantee to each child of school age in Texas the availability of a minimum Foundation School Pro­gram for nine full months of the year, and to establish the eligibility re­quirements applicable to school dis­tricts in connection therewith." The construction we have given the sec­ond sentence of Section 1 of Article 2922-13 will fulfill, not defeat, that purpose.

From what has been said it follows that no funds of the school district are being expended in a manner in­consistent with the valid provisions of Section 7, Article VD, of the Con­stitution or Articles 2900 and 2922-13 of our statutes, and the judgment of the trial court denying an injunc­tion is therefore affirmed.

The trial court's declaratory judg­ment is modified as follows:

Section 7 of Article VII of the Con­stitution is declared unconstitutional and void to the extent that it requires segregation of white and Negro stu­dents in the public schools.

The first sentence of Article 2900 is declared constitutional and valid. The second sentence of the article is declared unconstitutional and void. The third sentence is immaterial.

The first two sentences of Article 2922-13 are given a construction con­sistent with this opinion and are de­clared constitutional and valid.

FEW BREWSTER ASSOCIATE JUSTICE

CONCURRING OPINION I concur in the result which has

been reached by the majority and agree with the majority opinion ex­cept as to the construction of the pro­visions of Art. 2922-13. If an act of the Legislature can be given any reasonable construction which will permit the law to be sustained as constitutional and valid, that con­struction should be adopted. But we should not adopt a strained and un­reasonable construction simply to enable us to say that the act is con­stitutional

It is my opinion that the language "such allobnents (whether of funds or teachers) based upon white at­tendan.ce shall be utilized in white schools, and allotments based upon Negro attendance in Negro schools" is mandatory and exclusionary, I can think of no stronger language than "shall be utilized." It requires in no uncertain terms that the allobnents or teachers be used in either Negro schools or white schools, and there is nothing in the act authorizing the school authorities to use them in integrated schools.

To hold this second sentence valid would in this case give force and effect to a law requiring separate schools for whites and Negroes. The object of this particular suit is to en­join the use of foundation school funds in schools which have been integrated by the local school board. The result of the injunction, if granted, would be the abandonment of the limited desegregation policy thus voluntarily adopted by the local school authorities, unless the trustees should choose the unlikely alterna­tive of operating without foundation school funds. It is my opinion, there­fore, that under the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Brown case, the quoted provisions of Art. 2922-13 are unconstitutional when applied to the facts of this case ...

MEADE F. GRIFFIN ASSOCIATE JUSTICE

ASSOCIATE .TUSTICE WALKER JOINS IN TffiS OPINION.

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PAGE 8-NOVEMBER 1955-SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS

U. S. Judge Holds Tennessee School Law Unconstitutional NASBV1LLE, Tenn.

J N mid-October a 55-year-old Ten-nessee-born-and-educated federal

judge in Memphis ruled Tennessee's school segregation laws unconstitu­tional and approved a state-gponsored gradual desegregation plan for state colleges.

With his prompt answer to the plea of five Negroes who sought to enter Memphis State College, Judge Marion S. Boyd became the first federal jurist to rule on a gradual desegregation program.

Meanwhile, the fight against school integration in Tennessee stiffened throughout the state during October.

In Chattanooga, Arthur A. Canada, president of the Tennessee Society to Maintain Segregation, announced plans for a state-wide membership and cooperation with the white Citi­zens Council in Mississippi and Ala­bama.

And in Oak Ridge, the Anderson County Federation for Constitutional Government, an organization oppos­ing integration, asked the county school board to dismiss Oak Ridge School Supt. Bertis E. Capehart and Fred Brown. a Negro teacher at the Oak Ridge high school.

Approval of the stair-step integra­tion plan means the first Negro stu­dents can enroll for the winter quar­ter in the graduate schools of colleges controlled by the state board of edu­cation. Seniors may enroll in 1956, and junior, sophomore and freshman stu­dents in successive years.

The plan was the state's answer to a suit filed by the Negroes in which they sought immediate entrance into Memphis State College. The five plaint:iffs-Mardest Van Hook, Ruth Booker, Nellie Peoples, Joseph Mc­Ghee Jr. and Elijah Noel-are under­graduates.

Judge Boyd's ruling met with the approval of the state's attorneys, but Robert Carter, of New York, one of the attorneys for the students, said the case will be appealed.

The state school segregation laws were ruled invalid at the start of the brisk, five-hour hearing and all of the testimony dealt with the merits of the gradual integration plan.

STATE'S TESTIMONY State witnesses said: (1) The accredited standing and

membership of Memphis State Col­lege in the Southern Association of Colleges would be threatened by the practice of unrestricted integration.

(2) Unbridled desegregation could overtax the physical facilities now available.

(3) There would be friction on the Memphis State campus if immediate desegregation were granted.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs called no witnesses to offset this testimony.

At the start of the hearing, Judge Boyd disagreed with the six attorneys for the Negroes when he ruled that the case was not one which required a three-judge court.

"The Supreme Court intended it this way," said the judge. "It is a simple question as t.o whether or not the integration plan is adequate to carry out. and effectuate the transition at Memphis State College from a seg­regated to a non-segregated basis."

At the close of the unexpectedly short hearing, Judge Boyd surprised many court observers with an im­mediate ruling. He said, in part:

"In the court's opinion, the plan is feasible, adequate and a sound solu­tion of this whole problem. The court cannot agree at all that the plan is an evasive method to circumvent the decisions of the Supreme Court as it has been pointed out in the argu­ment."

DISCUSSION SUGGESTED After his ruling, Judge Boyd sug­

gested that certain leading educators in Memphis, both white and Negro, meet to discuss the integration prob­lem.

In Nashville, several days after Judge Boyd's ruling, Z. Alexander Looby, one of the lawyers who rep-

resented the Negroes, also said the ruling would be appealed.

Looby said the ruling gave no re­lief to the five plaintiffs and that it would have been more acceptable had the stair-step plan started at the other end of the college ladder.

A member of the Tennessee Fed­eration for Constitutional Govern­ment said that at the hearing "the question of the constitutionality of the segregation laws was not argued."

In a prepared statement, Richard Burrow Jr., of Milan, a West Ten­nessee member of the TFCG advisory board, said:

"The larger issues remain unde­cided. Whatever Judge Boyd's ruling may mean, it still remains true that the state of Tennessee has no pro­vision either in its constitution or its statutes for operating and supporting a desegregated educational system.

"It will not have such provision un­less and until the people of Tennessee and their representatives in the legis­lature authorize such a system by specific action."

"The real legal batUe on the segre­gation issue has not yet even begun in Tennessee," the TFCG said.

While newspapers throughout Ten­nessee gave Judge Boyd's ruling good play, other reaction, either pro or con. appeared to be negligible.

Memphis, a city of almost half a million, accepted the court action with aooarent calm.

One newsman termed the ruling a "very accurate summary of the atti­tude of the communitv." A school arl­ministrator, saying there was little excitement, cautioned, "you never know what can happen tomorrow."

EXPLANATIONS GIVEN A check of Memphis newspapermen

and educators brou~ht forth these explanations for the lack of reaction:

(1} A growing feeling of "enlight­ened self-interest" among the whites toward the Negroes, an awareness that a Negro better prepared to make his way will, in tum. be a better citizen, a more profitable customer.

(2) An awareness that Memphis is the "caoiU>l" of the mid-South, much of which is taut with racial tension, ;md the feelin~ amon~ both races that "wh:~t we do here could set a pattern for the region."

(3) A subconscious guilt complex brought on bv past injustices to the Negro which forces some white peo­ple to acauiesce to legislation and judicial action favorable to the Ne~o.

(4) A feelinl( of inevitability, since the Supreme Court already has ruled on this question.

(5) The steady Negro leadership which to date has been "easy-going." Although the NAACP spearheaded the Memphis State suit, no petitions have been filed. However, branch president H. T. Lockard said they will be.

(6) The separate-but-equal school facilities which the city takes pride in and which, according to one school official, keeps Negroes from wanting to integrate.

City and county school officials have been meeting, sometimes jointly, to discuss the integration problem, al­though no publicity has been given these meetings.

No in-the-open action is contem­plated by school officials, either city or county. As one said: "Our emphasis is on the common-sense approach."

SCHOOl BOARDS AND SCHOOLMEN

On Sept. 26 members of the Ander­son County Federation for Constitu­tional Government asked the county school board to fire Oak Ridge Supt. Bertis E. Capehart and Fred Brown, Negro teacher hired this year at the Oak Ridge high school.

Dr. Capehart's dismissal was asked on the grounds that he was violating the state law in permitting integration in Oak Ridge classes.

Brown's dismissal was asked on es­entially the same grounds, but, in addition, the ACFCG contended that Brown was not a fit teacher.

For example, they accused him of having a slovenly classroom. They said he permitted bad language among his students and also contended he was afraid to criticize his students

JUDGE MARION S. BOYD Okays 'Graduat' Plan

and was prepared to give them all high grades because he was afraid of them.

While not at the meeting, Dr. Cape­hart and T. H. Dunigan, principal at the high school, later denied all the accusations about the teacher.

The county school board took the requests under advisement. Chester Hicks of Lake City, board chairman, said he first wanted to find out wheth­er the county school board has juris­diction to do anything about the firing of Oak Ridge school personnel in view of the fact that the county board takes no part in hjring them.

On Oct. 13, the county board met again. This time Chairman Hicks stated that the county board did not intend to take any action on the re­quest for firings until it received clear-cut notice from a proper au­thority that it has jurisdiction. In fact, Hicks invited the ACFCG to file suit against. the county board to test whether it did have jurisdiction.

OPINION SOUGHT Meanwhile, Hicks said, he has in­

structed the county attorney, Eugene Joyce, to write the state attorney gen­eral for an opinion, which Joyce has done, posing two questions:

(1) Will Anderson County be in violation of the state constitution and in danger of losing state scllool aid if it integrates its schools?

(2) Are Oak Ridge schools in vio­lation of the state constitution and state laws in integrating?

Joyce's letter did not raise the ques­tion of whether the county board has jurisdiction to fire Oak Ridge school personnel.

There has been no answer to the Jetter and no word from the ACFCG on whether it intends to follow through with the lawsuit.

One avenue for the suit, if filed, which the ACFCG has advanced is to enjoin the school board from sil!ning the payroll checks of Oak Ridge school personnel on grounds that the schools are operating in violation or state laws and the constitution.

The Atomic Energy Commission has said nothing about the request to fire Dr. Capehart.

In Chattanooga the school board re­affirmed its intention of complying with the Supreme Court ruling. al­though last month its head, Harry Allen, declared himself in favor of segregated schools.

In a prepared statement released Oct. 12, the board said it was giving consideration to the selection of mem­bers of the advisory committee "who will assist us as we study the problem and seek a solution."

A dim view of the position of Negro teachers in Tennessee was taken by a Negro congressman from New York.

In a speech to Negro members of the Middle Tennessee Teachers As­sociation, Rep. Adm Clayton Powell told the teachers they must take united action if they are not to lose their jobs when the state's public schools are desegregated.

"The right of seniority must be pre-

served at all costs, but it is not going to be if you are silent about it," he said. "Negro teachers are just as well trained and qualified as white school teachers, but the same thing may hap­pen in Tennessee that happened in Oklahoma. There, with very few ex­ceptions every Negro school teacher has bee~ relieved of his duty."

OPPOSITION RAPPED ln Knoxville, at a state meeting of

the National Association for the Ad­vancement of Colored People, the state president, the Rev. J. F. Grim­met of Nashville, said:

" ... Th1·ou~th their hooded gangs. the Ku Klux Klan, the White Citizens Council, the Tennessee Federation for Constitutional Government and num­erous other such organizations amo""' some classes of white people have contradicted every principle of law and fairness.

"Many people have proven that they would rather turn the South into a land of anarchy than to abide by the clear and humane decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. ...

"I think in all fairness I ought to assert here and now that we are not going to be enthusiastic in boosting the political ambitions of any public official, even though he may be the head of the state government, who plays mumble peg and fails to speak out and take a. manly stand in defense of law and justice, while we struggle Cor freedom and recognition as full­fledged citizens in a so-called de­mocracy."

In Memphis, at the annual conven­tion of the Tennessee Bottlers of Car­bonated Beverages, Clayton Rand, author and publisher of Gulfport, Miss., said:

"The equalization fetish has run its course and the historian of the future will look back upon this century ... as the most peculiar political phe­nomenon of the great American ex­periment..

"There will never be integration in the Deep South as long as people of Anglo-Saxon descent respect their heritage.''

The Warren County Quarterly Court voted unanimously to press for construction of a modern Negro school in the P leasant Hill community.

The action came after a large dele­gation of Negroes said they would seek integration with nearby white schools if their present building was not replaced.

Money for the school was author­ized in October, 1954. School Supt. H. E. Scott said the state board of education, which must approve the program, keeps "changing the plans."

An organization opposing desegre­gation, with plans for statewide mem­bership and cooperation with white Citizens Councils in Mississippi and Alabnma, has been formed in Chat­tanooga.

Arthur A. Canada, president o£ the Tenn7ssee ~oci.ety to Maintain Seg­··~gat~on, s~•d his group has no "legal" tie w1th e•ther the Citizens Councils or the Tennessee Federation for Con­stitutional Government.

"But we will cooperate with the Councils or any other organization that supports similar principles" he saW. '

The_ society, said Canada, was first orgamzed "informally" last July when the Chattanooga school board an­nowtced its decision to desegregate the city's public schools.

~a~ada is an employe of the Target Prmting Company, and chairman of th~ ~solutions committee of the Prmt.ing Pressmen's Union, Locall65.

The local has announced opposition to the school board decision, and de­lllanded the removal of the secretary of the Central Labor Union in Chat-

tanooga .. by reason of his be~ integrationist.''

The CLU secretary is Smith, pres ident of the Federation of Labor, AFL.

STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLEs Canada said his organization is

icated to the following principles: The preservation of the social

litical and economic institutions;! Southland.

The prevention of the en~~roactunPn•ll of subversive ideologies which as their aim the undermining of sti tutional rights.

The preservation of the the while and Negro races system of seg•·egalion as the means of maintaining racial

The use of every lawful achieve and maintain the ul.l.Jectlvtr.LG.:IP set forth above.

The society, he said, has l''lliU('IL...:P

"and has in circulation" petitions 400,000 signatures demanding continuance of segregation. The titions are addressed to Gov. Clement of Tennessee.

The petition states: "We, the si~natories to this ""''u<~~:..

state, as taxpayers and citizens .,..., ....... . we are unalterably opposed ~ integration of the white and blaci races, in anv form and by any means in our public schools, and that want Jaws enr>cted, proceedings in· sligated, or other means, that wn: continue sec,'l·egation in our !:t'h ..... l.IP""

even to the exh•'lt of schools as such. This is in ....... ft: ..... -with out· n1cial pride, our herita11e freedom in selecting our associa~ out· long-established Southern cus. toms. and in o•·der that minoriitvll\liiiUI le~ti!'lation shall not be the cause strife and further racial cleavas:e our beloved state of Tennessee."

Canada declared: "The SuPren»l~ Court has decided, yes, but been opposed before. And rernen~bfr.P the people are the last court of peals."

The Rev. W. N. Daniel, Negro or St. John's Baptist Church Clarksville, will be admitted to uate study at Austin Peay State lege in ClaJ·ksville Jan. 1.

Dr. Halbert Harvill, president Austin Peay, said Daniel is the ft"J,PIOJ:QI Negro who has made formal appll· cation since Judg~ Boyd's ruling.

• I

J~e Ruling Ill Ul r

We have had a full hearing on class action, and the single issue be­fore the court is relatively simple ..

In the first place, we are all bow» to agree that the Supreme Court hi very definitely ruled that racial dit­crimination in the public schools 1

unconstitutional, and that all state• local laws requiring or pennitlizl racial segregation in the publi schools must yield to this principle.

While the Supreme Court in itsn­cent decisions was dealing with ~ lie grade schools, unquestionably, i this is a question in this lawsuit, th! reasoning in those cases is as appli('j­ble to public schools of higher eduCI' tion such as Memphis State Collegt

The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, I believe, said I!

much recently in Frayser agaln!l U1e Board of Trustees of the Univer· sity of North Carolina .. .

Now, t11e Supreme Court has to!! us what must be done, but has JIIIC

told us how it must be done. So therf remains for consideration of thil court only the manner in which the Supreme Court's will be carried out. This is our prob­lem in this case. The Supreme Caut1. recognizing the perplexities in situation, has vested the judges with discretion in with tl1e problem.

This court . . . is impressed much with the prompt and dnt~ll'a.... efforts of the respondent board hers who have the primary resJIOil' sibility in this matter, to comply bl· erally with the commands of theSU· preme Court. The respondent meiJI· hers of the board have acted promp!·

(Continued on Page 9)

)~Two Women Ordered MONTGOMERY, Ala.

THE United States Supreme Court '":... Oct 10 ordered the University of ~ Alabama to admit two Negro women ~. as students without waiting for the "'!( outcome of an appeal from a district ..._ court order which opened the uni-

versity's doors to all qualified Ne-" groes.

The high court's order was limited . to the two original complainants in ' the action against the university ~ ( Autherine Lucy, et ttL v. A dam$), ~l' Autherine J. Lucy and Polly Anne

t'· Myers Hudson, two Birmingham Ne-

iq; ~ gro women.

11 ~ U. S. District Judge Hobart ~· Grooms of Birmingham permanently .1.:., ~ enjoined the university in an order ~ ~Aug. 26 from rejecting applicants for

enrollment "solely on account of race ~ or color." Attorneys for the two com­~ pl.aihants asked that the judge make

- his order a class action applying to ~ all Negroes generally, which he did. , ~ However, Judge Grooms gTanted the • university a four-month stay of

execution Sept. 6 pending the out­". come of the university's appeal, now ~ before the U. S. Circuit Court of

... Appeals at New Orleans.

!).,. The Circuit Court upheld Grooms' EJ~delay order, but the U. S. Supreme

.:.: ~Court voided it, reinstating the dis­~ lrict judge's original order though ~:a limiting it to the two persons .... named. ·~.,. ~:~GSET J::~ The complainants went back into OJ: atcourt Oct. 21 and asked Judge :O.;z Grooms to hold University Dean of b dmissions William F. Adams, t 1:f gainst whom the original action had It~ directed, in contempt for failing !'.".:& to enroll them in accordance with the "":t S:)upreme Court's order. The motion .•J;.;illeged that Adams had "wholly bl=:lai]ed and neglected to obey" the ;CO!::' ligh court's order.

.nn........u.-- ...

... not only with respect to Mem­- · his State College, but a number of

tber schools s imilarly s ituated k:II'Ound the state.

~ (:; The plan here proposed by there­t:.:i pondents to open the doors of stale ?5'~.upporled institutions of higher : L earning to academically qualified - -~egro students a year at a tirne from - he graduate level down is certainly r-~ ~ reasonable good faith start toward

. ' ull compliance and implementation c.-w.:,f the governing constitutional prin­

:!iples announced by the Supreme 1 1 :ourt. tdUtf In this court's opinion, all things

-'Onsidered, the board's plan is a feas­ble, adequate and sound solution of

n~ his whole problem. The court cannot !Cl~tgree at all that the plan offered by •=--·~~he respondent is an evasive method •· tfl o circumvent the decisions of the :;.-.rr~)upreme Court, as counsel has point­J::J:»!d out in argument.

,~ .. • ~; "-e Respondents here, in the court'!< ; • lpinion, have shown with certainty

D -..,_hat it would not be advisable or If~ : 1tacticable to order immediate inte­~..:~tion at all levels at Memphis State .: ,;;11-;ollege, as contended for by the ;::.ot"'llaintiffs, but the plan of respondents -p;~• o accomplish this over a five-year <f~'>eriod of time is necessary in the ~ i:i1"1Ublic interest and to carry out the t"' •;upreme Court's rulings in an effec­. ~ ... ~ve manner. . :? In this connection, the court is ' ,1, If'~ .. •bliged to consider, among othe1· ::;.; hings, the present very limited phys­,:t c:o: :al facilities of the school. Thirty­(!;."- ~~.ve hundred and thirty-two students .~;#)~Ve entered this year, an all-time ;;...s 1gb. The court is obliged to conside1· . ..,· {le ~elihood that this school's. a~­.,.~ redJted standing and membership m ' ..... 'le Southern Association of Colleges : '~_..... 10uld very likely be adversely af­i.t· ~ted should unrestricted integration ¢f:' f the races be ordered forthwith .. . f!. (!" As respondents point out. also, and

s the proof shows, necessary funds • > operate the college on a basis of

~ ~ nrestricted admission of students ~ "'•ill not be available before July, J'!. ~57.

:t r' Now, the respondent board mem­':J. ~ ers, as the court understands this ~ ase, are asking that they be given t~"' ufficient time within which to com-

~"ri'

However, Judge Grooms threw out the contempt proceedings Oct. 28 after hearing Dean Adams testify that final date for fall registration was Oct. 6 and that the two women applied too late to be admitted this term. Appli­cations from four other students, non~ of them Negroes, bad also been rece1ved and refused after the dead­line, Adams said.

No public notice o£ the litigation was taken by the University Board of Trustees at its annual Homecom­ing Day meeting in Tuscaloosa, Oct. 22. However, after a two-hour open session, the board excused newspa­permen and met in closed confer­ence. Subject of the executive ses­s ion was not announced .

Other significant happenings in AJabama during Octobe1· included the following:

1. Gov. James E. Folsom twice again repeated his condemnation of racial extremism and defended his action in vetoing (SoUTHERN SCHOOL NEws, October) three local segrega­tion bills and his failure to sign the state's new school "placement" law. Folsom's approach was denounced at two White Citizens Councils meet­ings. (See "What They Say.")

NOT AN ISSUE

2. Several of the governors attend­ing the Southern Governors Confer­ence at Point Clear, AJa., expressed the opinion that segregation and the Supreme Court's decision will not be an issue in the South in the elections next year. Many of the chief execu­tives seemed to feel that since both major political parties had a hand in the events which led to the Su­preme Court's decision neither can exploit the issue in the South. (See "What They Say."}

3. A "preliminary organizational" meeting of what would be AJabama's

plete orderly and peaceful integra­tion, and the court agrees the re­quest is in all things reasonable. The respondents, it is very evident, are proceeding in this matter with all deliberate speed, in the court's opin­ion.

Now ... this case was filed before the Supreme Court's opinion of May 31 in the Brown case, where the Supreme Court recognized, among others, th e existence of important ad­ministrative problems. The plaintiffs had no opportunity before this case was filed to consider it in the light of that case and what now is the plain law governing the transition from se~egation to integration in the public schools.

• The court, in the circumstances of

this case, approved in all things the integration plan which the respond­ents submit. The respondents have clearly demonstrated that time is absolutely necessary to carry out the Supreme Court's ruling in an effec­tive manner.

While the September school term has been under way ... for a couple of weeks, more or less, any qualified Negro students at the graduate level will be eligible to enter at this time under the pJan which the court in this proceeding is approving.

Now what the court has said will suffice,' at least temporarily, as its findings and conclusions under the rules. The court has only hit the high spots, but if more detailed findings and conclusions are necessary, I sug­gest counsel for the respondents may submit them with a judgment in ac­cordance with the court's views here expressed, during the next few days .

Plaintiffs' counsel may have the same privilege, and may submit pro­posed findings and conclusions, if they would like. I suggest the final judgment to be drawn by counsel for respondents be first submitted to plaintiffs' counsel.

• Now, the court would like to make

a few observations of its own. The lawsuit is over, but if I may say so, we all live in a mighty good state. Many of those present are ci~ns of Memphis, a very fine, clean, fnendly

Ad~nitted to

GOV. JAMES E. FOLSOM Criticized

ninth White Citizens Council was held in Montgomery Oct. 3. About 300 showed up at the municipal audi­torium. Gov. Folsom's take-it-easy approach to the segregation problem was lambasted at the meeting and again, two nights later, at a meeting of the Butler County White Citizens Council in Greenville. (See "What They Say"} .

4. Mrs. Ruby Hurley of Birming­ham, regional NAACP secretary, said the Department of Justice wiU be nsked to investigate reports or "eco­nomic pressure" against Negroes in Mississippi, Alabama and South Car­olina, to determine if there have been civil rights violations. Her announce­ment was followed by a number of denials that any such pressure has been brought to bear. (See "Legal Action") .

city. Educational facilities in thls state, and particularly in Memphis, Cor both white and colored, are the very best, as most of us know-I be­lieve, in !act, models for the whole country ...

Now, as I say, stepping out of the character of judge, I would suggest, in an effort to be helpful, that these fine citizens ... might make a real contribution to the settlement of the matters here involved if they could sit down together. This, in my humble judgment, should be done without delay. The lawyers in this case could be of tremendous servic:-e, I might add.

Now, I clipped this rather perti­nent article £rom one of the local newspapers several days ago, quot~ ing Dean Redd o£ Fisk University at Nashville, and I shall read from it:

"The dean of Fisk University be­lieves political leadership and the influence of its many colleges and universities will lead Tennessee to serve as a model for desegregation in the South.

"Dr. George N. Redd, writing in the Negro J ournal of Education, said the outlook for desegregation in Ten­nessee is 'encouraging.'

"He said the state is blessed with the influence of 'a great reservoir of educational leaders not paralleled anywhere else in the deep South .. .' He said that 'by tradition, Tennes­see's political offices have been rela­tively free oC demagogs who would pounce upon the race issue for politi­cal or personal gains ... ' "

Now, I doubt if there has been any opportunity whatever for discus­sion o£ this matter, and I am, as an individual, as I say, suggesting this course in the interest of the har­mony between the races we have in this state and city enjoyed so many years. I say to you it is a matter for discussion and patience, and, yes, prayer. Rome was not built in a day, and this matter won't be settled over­night, I can assure you.

I am confident that this is the prac­tical, common sense approach and that it can be worked out and re­solved mutually and for the weHare of all concerned, if both sides will work In a spirit of harmony and co­operation.

SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS-NOVEMBER 1955-PAGE 9

University ·7~.- . ,~ '·iuGAL ACTION fl( ... --..

The regional secretary for the Na­tional Association for the Advance­ment of Colored People announced in Birmingham that the Department of J ustice would be asked to inves­tigate reports of "economic pressure" against Negroes seeking integration in the schools.

Mrs. Ruby Hurley, who has just. completed a 30-day tour of the South and Midwest, mentioned specifically alleged acts of economic coercion in the Mississippi delta region, in AJa­bama's Dallas, Bullock and Butler Counties (SoUTHERN ScHOOL N.:ws, October), and in Orangeburg, Ello­ree, Clarendon and Sumter, S. C.

PETITIONS FILED The three AJabama counties men­

tioned by Mrs. Hurley all have large Negro populations-Dallas (65% Ne­gro); Bullock (74% Negro); Butler (45% Negro}. Petitions calling for the desegregation of local schools have been filed in each of the coun­ties. Several petitioners in each have since withdrawn their signatures ex­plaining that they misunderstood the purpose of the documents. In Selma, Macon County White Citizens Coun­cil Chairman Alston Keith reported in September (SoUTHERN SCHOOL NEws, October} that of the 29 peti­tioners in that county, "about 16" bad been fired within a couple o! weeks after the petition had been made public. The council, he said, would not take "credit or censure" !or the firings. The firings were, he said, "spontaneous" actions by the respective employers. But, he added: "I don't believe there would have been the unity of action that there was without the educational work of the Citizens Council."

Elsewhere, Mrs. Hurley's charges brought denials. J. G. Sanley, editor and publisher of The Greenville Ad­vocate, said he had heard of no eco­nomic pressure against petitioners in Butler County.

Gov. James E. Folsom told a news conference at the Southern Gov­ernors Conference at Point Clear, Ala., that Negroes came to the South as slaves, "but they're not slaves now -they're voters-and I'm doing all I can to get the vote Cor them."

As be has repeatedly, Gov. Folsom cautioned against excitement and ex­tremism over the segregation issue: "We have had Negroes for 325 years and we're going to have them for 325 years more. There's no use getting upset about something we can't do anything about.''

Early in October, Folsom was asked the following question at one of his weekly press conferences: ·•ean we assume that you will accept integrated schools and that you are willing Cor you children to attend integrated schools?"

Folsom replied: "It's not what I'm willing to do, it's what the law says.''

De!ending once again his action in vetoing three local segregation bills (aimed at NAACP organization­al work and teachers who might ad­vocate integrated classrooms} as well as his refusal to sign the state's new school "placement" law, the gov­ernor said: "A bill that works an in­justice on part of the people would work an injustice on all of the peo­ple if it came into the wrong hands."

PRESS CONFERENCE Other questions and answers at the

Oct. 2 press conference: Question: "Is the report by News­

week magazine that you plan to dou­ble Negro voter registration true?"

Answer: ''First time I ever heard of it."

Quution: "Do you favor the pol­icy of pro-segrega&.ion citizens coun­cils in using economic presswres against advocates or racial integra­tion?"

Answer: "It can't be done." At his Point Clear press con!er-

of Alabama ence Oct. 19, Folsom said he didn't think segregation would be an issue in the 1956 elections, an opinion that was underscored by several other Southern governors. Then the gov­ernor began to talk at some length about his liberalism and that of Ala­bama's two senators. He said:

"You know something AJabama has the two most liberal U. S. sen­ators of any state, and I guess I'm about the most liberal governor ln the South. The people of AJabama know how we feel, yet we have all been reelected. What accounts for it?

"It's hard to take a stand like this in the South, and the newspaper boys have been pretty hard on me about it. But the people knew how me and Lister Hill and John Sparkman stood, and they keep returning us to office. Some of you boys from the damnyan.kee newspapers try to ex­plain it ... . "

CLEMENT'S VIEW Gov. Frank Clement of Tennessee

also expressed the opinion that seg­regation would not be an issue next year. "I personally do not believe it will be a factor in the presidential race, and if so, who is it going to be against, Republicans or Democrats?"

At what was described as a "pre­liminary organizational meeting" of a Montgomery County White Cit­izens Council Oct. 3, Alabama's po­litical leaders were sharply criticized for their restraint on the segregation Issue.

Olin Horton, of Birmingham, presi­dent of the American Stale Associa­tion, a pro-segregation group, said:

"Mississippi has Gov. White and Jud~e Tom Brady; Georgia has Gov. Griffin and former Gov. Talmadge; South Carolina has Jimmy Byrnes, all on the firing line . . .

"Who does Alabama have?" A voice from the audience, in sar­

castic tone, replied: "Folsom!"

ATI'ACKS NAACP State Sen. Sam Engelhardt of Ma­

con County, sponsor of the state's new school placement law and an ardent pro-segregation leader, told the audience of about 300 that the real goal of the NAACP is to "create friction" and to "mongrelize the white race.''

White Citizens Councils have been organized in eight other AJabama counties, principally in the state's <.-entrally located Black Belt. Mont­gomery County is 44% Negro.

SAME NOTE Two nights after the Montgomery

WCC meeting, the Butler County White Citizens Council, meeting in Greenville, struck the same note. Without mentioning Folsom by name, Chairman Jeff Beeland, his voice heavy with sarcasm, said:

"You know we are in pretty good shape here in Alabama. What if we had an administration which looked like it was ready to give in to the Supreme Court's race mixing de­cree? What if we had an executive who opposed the White Citizen's Council? What if we had a chief ex­ecutive who vetoed bills passed by the legislature which were enacted to help protect our way of life? Do we have that type of executive?"

The audience shouted "yes" in re­sponse.

IN THE COLLEGES . . -

The segregation question was in­jected, obliquely, into the annual meeting of the Southern Regional Education Board at the Southern Governors Conference at Point Clear Ala., Oct. 18. '

Dr. Martin D. Jenkins of Morgan State College of Baltimore introduced a resolution calling for an SREB study to "ascertain the extent to which differential opportunities are available to white and Negro students in existing memoranda of agreement, contract, and other programs devel­oped under the auspices of the board."

Dr. Jenkins explained that he and other Negroes had been excluded {rom an SREB meeting in Virginia. "I don't think it is the purpose of the SREB to deprive the Negro of this work," he said.

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PAGE 10-NOVEMBER 1955-SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS

School Month Quiet • Ill

BALTIMORE, Md. Q CTOBER was one of Maryland's

quietest months as far as the school integration issue was con­cerned, contrasting sharply with early October of 1954, when anti- integra­tion demonstrations in South Balti­more reached the near-riot stage. Some mixed classes were in progress this October, without reported inci­dents or discord, in Baltimore city and in eight of the 22 Maryland counties having Negroes of school age. Deseg­regation studies were under way in the remaining counties.

No new opposition to desegregation was reported in October. The Mary­land Petition Committee, the most ac­tive anti-integration group in the state, appeared before the Baltimore County Board of Education to protest against mixed classes and also held a meeting in Carroll County, where some parental opposition arose in September over the admission of 15 Negroes to two formerly all-white schools. A committee spokesman warned the Baltimore County school board members of possible suits and removal from office. The same spokes­man, at the Carroll County meeting, advised integration opponents to work for a new set of lawmakers and other pubHc officials (See "What They Say").

The only new move toward integra­tion in education during the month was the decision of the Montgomery County Board of Education to operate its adult education program and classes fot· handicapped children on a non-segregated basis. A possible disagreement between some board members and the county school su­perintendent over the integration of teachers was shaping up (see " Under Survey").

8 CLASSES MOVED Baltimore school officials took ad­

vantage of the flexibility afforded by its year-old policy of non-segregation, moving eight classes from two over­crowded Negro schools into an un­derpopulated, predominately white school. The move had the effect of removing 16 classes from part-time status (see "School Boards and School Men").

In a move related to the school is­sue, the state board of pubHc welfare has asked for a legal opinion from the attorney general's office as to whether the Supreme Court's decisions on seg­regation are appHcable to training schools for delinquent youngsters. Behind the question is a plan to en­large the present training school for white girls and to transfer to it the population of the colored girls' train­ing school, which would then be avail­able for other purposes. If Supreme Court decisions have not invalidated present state laws establishing sep­arate training schools, the transfer plan will have to await legislative ac­tion.

In a move not related to the school issue, but indicative of the trend to­ward non-segregation in Maryland, merit system rules were revised in October to strike out the provision under which state department heads formerly specified race in their re­quests for certified personnel from the State Commission of Personnel. The ruling does not affect the assign­ment of school teachers.

Prior to the opening of school, the Montgomery County chapter of the National Association for the Ad­vancement of Colored People pre­sented a list of six questions to the county board of education, the most significant being whether or not the board had considered filling vacancies in white teaching and supervisory posts with Negro applicants. The an­swers were prepared by the county superintendent of schools, Dr. Forbes H. Norris, and released late in Sep­tember.

Dr. Norris informed the NAACP that the 10 colored teachers who for­merly served in the four sub-standard colored elementary schools which were closed out in Montgomery

County this year had been 1·eassigned, along with their pupils. Most of the displaced Negro teachers were as­signed to integrated (formerly white) schools. As for the policy on assign­ing Negro teachers in general to white schools, Dr. Norris reviewed the board of education's desegregation program, which called for "the inte­gration of administrative, supervisory and teaching personnel ... at the same time as the integration of pupils" but which left the timing up to the coun­ty superintendent and his staff. Dr. Norris then said:

PLACEMENT BASIS "Filling a vacancy in our school

system will be based on the particular needs of each vacancy and the quaH­fications of the candidate applying.

"Other items to be considered are the degree and caliber of service re­quired by the school system, and the prospects of success faced by the can­didate. As with pupils, so with other personnel, it is a wise policy to place individuals in situations where they will have a reasonable chance to suc­ceed.

"In view of the above, no Negro candidates for filling vacancies in white schools, or the appointment of Negro supervisors are being consid­ered this year."

No adverse NAACP reaction was reported to Dr. Norris' statement that Negro teachers in Montgomery Coun­ty would not be assigned to white school posts this year, other than a complaint that the NAACP had not been given an opportunity to discuss the answers to its questions at a school board meeting. But two mem­bers of the board of education ex­pressed adverse reactions at a board meeting in October, a primary com­plaint being that the hiring policy was not one on which the board had voted. Dr. Norris was not present at t' meeting, and it was decided to bring the matter up again when he would be on hand.

STUDY GROUPS MEET Desegregation study groups ap­

pointed by local school boards,' con­tinued to meet in October in those counties which have not yet started the transition toward desegregation, including the study group in Dor­chester County, on the Eastern Shore, where determined opposition to earlv integration has arisen. The biracial Dorches ter group had a discussion at its third meeting on the advisability of calling outside experts to discuss desegregation, with one member of the 12-man group warning that "if we get out of line by proceeding to hold meetings with the public present and experts discussing our problems, we exceed our advisory capacity."

Two Negro members of the study group also cautioned that "we must always make the recommendations from the local level." The resolution that carried unanimously in the end, however, was that of a third Negro member; and it gave the group's chairman the authority to bring in any ~nsultant, white or Negro, he so destres to aid the committee in its studies. The chairman proposed that the first experts called be the presi­dent of the county school board and the top county school supervisors.

Opposition to integration in Dor­chester County is centered in a group organized under the name of Better Dorchester Schools, Inc. The group had about 2,000 members at last re­port and is aiming for 7,000. The county itself has some 5,500 school pupils, 32 per cent of whom are Ne­groes. The legal adviser of the greup is Charles Awdry Thompson, who told a meeting of the group in September that the metropolitan press had not given a fair account of the group's purposes.

Thompson was asked in October on behalf of SoUTHERN ScliOOL NEWS to give a first-hand account of his gt·oup. He replied on Oct. 18: "Thank you very much for your letter of Oct. 13, offerinJt me space to state the facts about Better Dorchester Scl1ools, Inc. I do not believe that I am authorized to make any such statement, but I will submit the matter at our next board of directors meeting and will get in touch with you if they desire to take advantage of your offer."

At the October meeti.ng of the de-

Maryland; Studies Are Under Way ·QB1'1

segregation study group in Kent County the members heard the an­swer from the county school board president, Peter W. Jopling, to their question as to the advisability of concentrating for the present on the development of plans for desegre­gation of elementary schools. Jopling indicated that the school board felt that tackling desegregation on the elementary level first would be a wise procedure to follow, but Jopling said the school board wanted the study group to understand clearly that the board does not wish to direct the group's deliberations or findings.

The Maryland State Teachers As­sociation at its 88th annual conven­tion in October reaffirmed its posi­tion of a year ago that racial inte­gration in Maryland schools "should be effected in a fair and lawful man­ner," in accordance with the Supreme Court decision. "We recommend," the resolution said, "that teachers, pupils and other citizens throughout the state cooperate in effecting this change." Much the same resolution was adopted in 1954.

Robert M. Furniss Jr., chief spokes­man for the Maryland Petition Com­mittee, was quoted by the Associated Press as telling a group of integra­tion opponents in Carroll County that "there is nothing improper in circumventing the law, and that is what we are going to do until we can change it." Furniss told the meeting of about 125 persons that the Petition Committee plans to circulate 50,000 leaflets throughout the state calling for political action. "You people have got to get up and go if you want ac­tion," he was quoted as saying. "At your next meeting you should start looking for candidates."

PTA ACTION PLANNED An appeal to the state board of

education and possible legal action is to be taken by a colored PTA in St. Mary's County, which lies at the southern end of Maryland. The county school population is more than 30 per cent Negro, and the school board there has adopted a policy of not desegregating during the 1955-56 school year but has appointed a cit­izens group to help plan for "ulti­mate integration."

As the situation is explained in The Enterprise, a St. Mary's County weekly newspaper published at Lex­ington Park, the protesting parent­teacher group represents the Jarboes­ville school at Carver Heights which formerly housed an overflow of pupils in two rooms of a community build­ing at the Patuxent Naval Air Sta­tion. The county lost the use of the rooms under the Defense Depart­ment's directive against segregated school facilities on military bases. The Jarboesville school, as a result, has been jammed this fall.

A delegation representing the Jar­boesville PTA and the county chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ap­peared before the county board of ed­ucation in September to seek greater speed in relieving the overcrowding in their school. Several courses were suggested, all of which involved inte­gration-a course which the board disapproved as not being consistent with its policy for U1e current school year.

SubsequenUy the school board noti­fied the Jarboesville parents that bids were being advertised for a two-room structure to be built as soon as pos­sible on the grounds of the Jarboes­ville school. Not satisfied with the board's approach, the Jarboesville PTA voted a t its October meeting to appeal to the state board of educa­tion and instructed its president to ask the counsel Cor the Maryland chapter of the NAACP to represent it before the state board and in whatever fur­ther action might be necessary.

A new voice was heard among de­segregation opponents. A meeting of the Howard County chapter of the Maryland Petition Committee on Oct. 25 was addressed by Lieut. Gi!n. Pedro A. Del Valle. U.S.M.C. (re-

lired), who was reported to have told an audience of about 45 persons that integration of the public schools is a violation of the Constitution and stale's rights, and that "miscegenation is the aim of our enemies." Gen. Del Valle, who commanded the First Ma­rine Division at Okinawa and now Jives in Howard County, ran fourth and last as a Republican candidate for governor in the primary of June, 1954, receiving approximately 4,000 votes to McKeldin's 62,000.

When schools opened in Baltimore this fall, it was found that there were 14 classes on part-time at overcrowd­ed School No. 100 and another 10 classes on part-time (or shifts) at School No. 141. Both are all-Negro schools. At the same time, enrollment was down at predominatly white School No. lOA to the point where, with a little shifting about, eight classrooms were available. (Here it should be explained that compulsory segregation was dropped in Baltimore at the start of the 1954-55 school year. But since most pupils choose to go to the schools nearest their homes, and since neighborhoods in Baltimore tend to be all-white or all-colored, many schools continue to have stu­dent bodies all of one race.)

The department of education re­lieved the overcrowding at the two colored schools by shifting seven classes, teachers and all, from School 100 to lOA and an eighth class anti its teacher from School14l. The pupils meet at their old schools in the morn­ing and are transported to their new schools by bus. The shift has meant the complete elimination of part-time shifts at School 100 and has reduced the number of classes on shifts a t School 141 !rom 10 to eight.

The shift of Negro classes to a pre­dominantly white school marked the first time that the department of edu­cation had, in effect, initiated a mix­ing of school populations. Prior to this time the entrance of children of one race in to a school wholly or pre­dominantly populated by children of another race has been on a voluntary basis.

~'-&··.·-~ -~ .•

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MISCELLANEOUS . :· · "'''.,.. ..,

" ;

A report on Baltimore's public sd1ool building program was pub­lished in October by the Commission on Governmental Efficiency and Economy, a private, non-profit or­ganization of long standing in Balti­more which conducts research in the operation, management and cost of state and local governments. The commission analyzed all aspects of school construction in Baltimore and had this to say about integration:

"Abandonment of the practice of providing separate schools for Negro and white pupils apparently is hav­ing little or no effect upon the _geo­graphical distribution of schools. Principal reasons for this seem to be (1) a large part of the Negro popula­tion so far continues to reside in areas of the city distinctly apart from the areas of white population, and (2) au­thoritative sources assert that the vast majority of Negro children, so far, generally prefer to attend the schools which their relatives attended in the past and which ar·e in predominantly Negro areas.

"This inclination tends to result in some imbalance in attendance at. schools which are in sections which are undergoing transition. In formerly white sections that have changed t~ Negr~, existing schools of adequate capacrty for the white enrollment, and even of excess capacity as the sec­tion was changing, become completely filled or overcrowded due to the den­ser Negro population and higher ratio of children per family and per dwell­ing unit."

DIFFICULTiES RECOGNIZED Commenting on the decision in the

Federal District Court in Memphis Tenn. which upheld a five-year trans: it ion to integration in state-supported colleges in Tennessee. the Baltimore

Sun said editorially that the case illustrated "both the placed on the states by the oC the Supreme Court and the ingness of the federal judges to those difficulties into account." Sun concluded its editorial this way

"Some states are prepared to drastic s teps to sidestep the law have heard as yet oi none who · pose to defy it. The the present decision is that the will use the latitude and the tion with which the decree ,.m...,. .... _ • them and that they will pressure brought by groups."

The Baltimore Evening Sun this to say about the actions or Maryland Petition Committee Baltimore and Carroll counties:

"Since school officials are bound by a Supreme Court to adjust school systems as possible to a non-segregated is hardly proper or helpful to them with punitive action for what has to be done in the best they know how. It is also neither ting nor constructive to advise ents that there is nothing wrong circumventing the law. Such is likely to stir up more prc>blc!m!ll- · misunderstandings, racial and administrative troubles for officials.

"The spokesman for the rPCid•-.1'~

gr·oup comes not !rom Carroll counties but from gomet·y County, which has also gun a graduaJ move toward segregated schools. The group has appear·ed before the nntan,., .. u u,_ .... Board of Education to gration there, or held mass m to urge Montgomery countians circumvent the law. Possibly It believed that Baltimore and "-&11IL_ ,.., countians are less ready to legal responsibilities than gomery countians are. Or Baltimore and Carroll considered more gullible than mua.t.•l·~.:u gomery countians. Either ""~'"""w'­would be incorrect, we Baltimot·e and Carroll have as much common sense Montgomery countians or else, and this is bound to assert self in strong support for school ficials during a difficult period."

A weekly newspaper in u~11>~-..JI·'""

County, The Union News of had an explanation-not in an torial but a news story-of there were demonstrations at desegregated county school other white county schools ----• . .JI.,;,.J­

Negro pupils without incidenL paper said, "Observers blamed Herefore situation on the fact young girl in the neighborhood stabbed and attacked a short ago. Feeling at the time ran and it is believed that this is directly responsible for the unwillingness of some persons ar·ea to go along with the school gration program."

SECRET SESSIONS RAPPED The St. Mary's County

had the following editorial procedures followed by the galion s tudy group set up county board of education to out integration plans for the

"The committee has held meetings, but they have been to the public since after the first sion. At that first meeting, voluble local citizens used a good bit. of the MrnmJitut•l~l... time explaining their own the subject of desegregation. bers of the group felt that they get along faster with their the doors were closed. Some of were also reported to feel that could express their own more freely if no newspaper were present.

"There is no question which us in this county more fraught implications than the one this group is contemplating. nAO .. nt'lrtW

action is based upon the the people. If the people are to intelligent decisions, they information. It is our hope will have the privilege of information on to the citizens Mnry"s."

~~ 'Clarendon Case' Figure COLUMBIA, S.C.

R ACIAL tension in South Carolina

during October focused on events receding and following a Florence ~unty episode involving the depar­ture of a Negro minister from the state after he bad fired upon a car carrying (our white men. The principal in that case was the Rev. J. A. DeLaine, an originatDr of the "Clarendon County sUit" which carried South Carolina's separate school poticy up to the United States Supreme Cout-t.

Meanwhile, on a less spectacular level various communities about the

~ state' notably in the Low-country ~ area:: oi heavy Negro population, con­··· tinued to organize Citizens Councils. h In some counties, a systematic organi-• zation of such councils on a school

'• district basis is being undertaken. On h _ the state level, the councils are in the ·• process of forming a statewide asso-

ciation. ~ October brought additional public ·~ statements from high state officials, t..._. including the governor, the lieutenant

governor, and a circuit judg~, attack­~.. ing efforts toward integration. Two " visiting newsmen, Mississippi's Hod­.. ding Carter and North Caroli~a's Jon­~~l athan Daniels, urged caul ton and

moderation in the segregation diffi-~ culties. ~ Additional Negro clergym~n made ~ l public pronouncements favonng con­:<~· tinuation of racial separation, and ~. thereby drew censu~e from the_ s~te ~ president of the National Assocaataon q for the Advancement of Colored Peo­'!11 pie. One of the ministers who spoke

:as up for segregation was suspe~~ed from his position by the presadmg

Pat bishop.

~~~~~~~~ %!:"' f c· · c il ~ The formation o 1tizens ounc s - ... continued at a relatively steady pace ; - in the state after a Hurry of organiza­.:3 o:ttion in August and September: Rep­,.. resentatives of some 30 councals met -:;~ in Columbia on Oct. 10, adop~ a :. . _ constitution and by-laws and latd the '""' groundwork for a state associa~io~ of

. Citizens Councils. The constttuUon ~'~ reads in part as follows: I ' th h . . • "Its purposes ore e gal enng, - · discussion, dissemination o( informa-~~ lion relative to the operation of con-

1:12 stitutional government and the pres­oc ervation of state sovereignty and a bi­~· racial society betterment of relations ,. :JS. , . ~ between the races; the mamtenancc ~,; of peace good order, and domestic t:tl '

d

A New Book ;:t::. (Continued From Page 2) 1!>' Press, Chapel Hill, N.C., 1954), White ::t~ And Negro Schools in the South has ; .. .., gone to 1952 for data to represent t.he

biracial education pattern. ~ Few new or startling statistics,

~ , therefore, emerge from the newer ·;;. work, though it does offer a series of ~ interesting and imaginative break­

downs of facts and figures. It looks at education in the South from the

C... standpoints of population, enrollment = ~ and attendance; revenue and "related

loo factors," patterns of expenditure, personnel, facilities, and the educa-

.:: tiona! programs. It does so against a 1 ,::":> frame of reference established in the :f!J"" introductory portion of the book ~>:~~ which is broken down into chapters j' · entitled "Public Education and the ~ "' American Society," "The Historical ~ · ~ Context of Biracial Education in the t South," and "The Organization and

it Administration of Biracial Ecluca­lion."

~ .., In this context, the problems posed by the Supreme Court's anti-segre­gation decisions are recognized as

lf. "the most critical of all current Lc;­sues," and are treated amon~ the

• "strong social, economic, political "'.,. and psycho1ogical factors ... which

will condition the future course of " education in the region:t to be re­

solved along with other critical edu-'1 cationaJ problems in a "unified and

comprehensive fashion." On the basis of the data set out,

tranquility in the community." Each of the individual Citizens

Councils is to select directors for the state association. The directors in tum will name an executive conunittee and that group will select the state officers. A number of local councils in recent days have voted to affiliate with the state association.

OBJECTIVES LISTED One of the local councils, the one at

Lake City, recently has bought ad­vertising space in the press to list these four objectives:

"1) To maintain the right of local self-government as preserved in our Federal and State Constitution.

"2) To maintain peaceful relations between the races as they have ex­isted for many years.

"3) To educate the people by lec­tures, periodicals and other means of the necessity of preserving and main­taining such rights and relations.

"4) We have adopted as a basic principle that segregation of the col­ored and white races in our public schools is for the best interest of all concerned. We seek to accomplish our aims by all peaceful means at our dis­posal."

In recent weeks, new Citizens Councils have been formed at Harts­ville, Beaufort, Lamar, Allendale, Mt. Pleasant and elsewhere. A number of existing councils, chiefly in Orange­burg County, have obtained charters as non-profit organizations through the office of the secretary of state of South Carolina. In Charleston and Darlington counties, preparations are being made for the organization or Citizens Councils on a community basis (in Charleston, that will be on a school district pattern).

LEADER EXPELLED The Darlington County States'

Rights League, in existence for some time, is contemplating changing its identity to that of a Citizens Council. One of the league's members, George W. Waring, who bas been very active in pro-segregation organizations and agitation, has been expelled from _the league "for the good of the orgaruza­tion."

After his ousting from the Darling­ton League, Waring issued a state.­ment attributing the ouster to hts opposition of the "inactivity and the inefficient handling of the affairs of the league."

In Horry County, the semi-week~y newspaper, The Field, reported m early October that more than 200 per­sons had signed and returned a state­ment printed in the paper ~y way of a pro-segregation expressiOn. The statement calls on members of the

Dr. Pierce and his associates reached the following major conclusions:

-The principal tasks lying ahead in the field of education are "first, equal­izing the scope and quality of educa­tional programs . · .; secondly, ex­lending the availability of p~esent educational programs to all children and you who can profit from th~; and third raising the level of quahty

' " of educational programs. -While substantial improvemen_ts

in Negro education have been made m recent years, the Supreme Court de­cisions "wiU accelerate the marked trend" toward further improvements.

REVENUES AVAll..ABLE -Substantial additional school rev­

enues are available for solving ~e educational problems of the region without undue burden on income.

-"Solution of the racial problems is possible without sacrificing the qual­ity in education."

-While "great progress' has been made in improving the competency and status of teachers, "man~ pro~­lems remain before the hm~ lS

reached when adequately trruned teachers are equitably distributed throughout the region in ~I types 0,~ schools and in all geographical areas.

-The adequacy of the education of­fered in the region as measured by various indices is increasing, ~ou~h Negroes still lag behind wha~ m most such measures. However • the numbers of Negroes who graduate from high school are rapidly increas­ing."

Quits S.C. Horry County legislative delegation and the South Carolina General As­sembly to take such steps as may be required to maintain separate schools.

The first note of violence to enter the South Carolina picture on segre­gation developed in October around the controversial figure of the Rev. J. A. DeLaine, pastor of the St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church at Lake City, in Florence County. His role in the segregation controversy, however, pre-dated his assignment to the Lake City Negro church, for he was one of the organizers of the Clarendon County lawsuit which was carried to the United Stales Supreme Court and which resulted in the court's decision barring racial separa­tion in public schools. At that time, DeLaine had a church at Summerton, focal point of the Clarendon litigation.

Early in October, while the minister was attending an AME conference in CharlestDn, his Lake City church was gutted by fire. Investigators from the office of the state insurance commis­sioner are still probing the occurrence to determine the cause of the blaze and whether or not arson was in­volved.

Meanwhile, a threatening letter bearing a Lake City post mark and addressed to the Negro minister was turned over to law enforcement agencies by DeLaine. The letter warned him to get out of Lake City within 10 days, stating "we have made plans to move you if it lakes dynamite to do so. This is final."

Nevertheless, DeLaine was reas­signed to the Lake City church by Bishop Frank Madison Reid and re­turned to his pastorate. Within the next night or so occurred the incident which resulted in DeLaine's leaving the state and which prompted con­flicting statements concerning the facts of the matter.

FIRED ON CAR It is admitted by all parties, includ­

ing DeLaine, that on the night of Oct. 10 the minister fired upon a passing automobile. He charges that be fired in order "to mark the car" after his house had been fired upon from the vehicle. The four white occupants of the car maintain that they had not fired any shots, and that they wer ' fired upon without cause. (A bullo• from a high-powered rille struck the vehicle in the top above the dri•·~ · seat and brought metal-splinter in­jury to two of the four white men h the vehicle).

A true bill of indictment on a charge of assault and battery with a deadly weapon was returned against the Rev. Delaine by the F1orence County Grand Jury on Oct. 25. Three days later, a bench warrant for his arrest was issued in the Court of General Sessions.

Early in the next week, three Caro­lina newspapers and a Charleston radio station received copies of a let­ter, postmarked Trenton, RJ., and bearing a J. A. DeLaine signature. That letter gave this version of the events leading up to the shooting inci­dent and stated he had left South Carolina because of the danger to his life. Excerpts from the letter follow:

"I feel like my life's career as a minister has wound up and also like my life is in danger because of the terrorism and my answer with gun­fire on Monday night about 12 o'clock. I don't know the results, but! am glad that I was able to do what the city policemen should have done, that is, mark the car or the men where the gunfire was coming from. With all of that shooting it didn't disturb the policemen of the town. I waited ap­proximately 45 minutes for the po­licemen but they did not show up. About 12:30 a.m. I left without telling anybody that I was going to put my­seii into the sheriff's protection. For­tunatelv I could not get him over the telephon'e. Since then I am conv~~ed that it was the hand of God gwding me.

'CROWNING POINT' "I would have my friends and ene­

mies to know that 'having obtained help from God I continue until this day.' I feel that the two gunshots fired from my gun was the crowning_point of my life. The Citizens CounCil has stirred an unnecessary bad feeling

SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS-NOVEMBER 1955-PAGE II

Over Shooting Incident against the helpless Negro. If I was born into the white race I would have been an honorable citizen of S.C., but being born a Negro I was forced to do what the law enforcement officers could have and should have done. Now perhaps they will get a warrant for me and treat me as if I am a crimi­nal. It may be that my suffering will lodge in the hearts of the better class of citizens and will change the picture for many who have less faith in God than I have .... "

Publication of the DeLaine letter drew immediate response from Lake City Police Chief Maxie Hinds and Deputy Sheriff Heyward Myers. They said officers were dispatched to the scene immediately upon receiving a report of the incident from the driver of the car. DeLaine was gone and there was no evidence that the house had been fired upon, they said. Chief Hinds also reported that an investiga­tion had been made of every prior in­cident (fruit and rock throwing) which had been reported to the police.

The F1orence sheriff's office and the Lake City police depar1ment will seek to extradite DeLaine from New York, where he is now reported to be. An Associated Press dispatch of Oct. 20 reported that DeLaine had addressed a Harlem church gathering, describ­ing South Carolina as a land of terror.

Meanwhile, his wife (who had tem­porarily moved in with her brother in Columbia) was said to be prepar­ing to return to her teaching job at Lake City.

The 15-member, state-sponsored committee studying school segrega­tion has added an educational advisor to its staff. In August the group named six prominent South Carolina lawyers to assist it in legal matters, including the defense of school officials who may become involved in segregation litiga­tion. On October 6, state Sen. L. Marion Gressette, chairman of the committee, announced the appoint­ment of Dr. NewtDn Edwards, profes­sor of education at the University of South Carolina, as an educational consultant.

On Oct. 27, Sen. Gressette an­nounced that the special school com­mittee would prepare a third interim report for submission to the General Assembly when it convenes in Jan­uary.

In Greenville, the board of school trustees has announced plans to ap­point a special trustee committee to study the effects of the Supreme Court's anti-segregation ruling on the schools of Greenville County. Mem­bers of the committee are to be named at the board's next meeting, scheduled for November 1.

LEGAL ACTION

A petition has been filed in U. S. District Court at Charleston for the removal of nine additional names from the list of intervenors in the "Clarendon County case" involving school segregation in the Summerton district of that county (Briggs vs. Et­Uott). The petition was filed by Thur­good Marshall, chief counsel for the NAACP, and cites a letter requesting removal of the names from the liti­gation. A similar petition in behalf of nine other children was filed in Sep­tember.

The official board of the Kingstree Methodist Church adopted a resolu­tion charging that "too many leaders and ministers in our Methodist Church have been saturated with propaganda and even made to have a guilt complex with reference to the question of integration of the races ... "

The resolution added that public school segregation and related mat­ters are secular rather than church concerns. The Kingstree Methodists censured the annual Methodist con­ference for having adopted a resolu­tion critical of Citizens Councils.

A resolution favoring continued segregation in public schools was adopted on October 5 by five Protes­tant Episcopal women's auxiliaries, in annual meeting at Hagood, Sumter County. The resolution declared that integration was a plan of the Commu­nist Party, adding: "It is our duty to see that those in high offices in our government are not influenced by Communist doctrine. . . . Be it re­solved that we, the women of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Sum­ter District, do all in our power to continue segregation in both our schools and our churches.''

Gov. Marvin S. Griffin, of Georgia, at a Citizens Council rally in Charles­ton on October 4: "An all-out attack is being made on constitutional gov­ernment in this country. Let's fight it by legal and lawful means, let there be no mistake about that. ... You may depend on us in Georgia to help in this fight. Georgia will have separate public schools or no public schools. We finance the schools in Georgia, and by the Eternal, we will operate those schools.''

Hodding Carter, newspaper editor of Greenville, Miss., at the Coker Col­lege Literary Festival, October 6-7, in an interview: "I have never advo­cated integration of the public school system of the South .... Some degree of intewation is inevitable .... It is unrealistic to try to stop the entire trend. But I tlo not see complete inte­gration in the foreseeable future in areas where there is a large Negro population .... I do not, in any event, fear mongrelization of the race .... The development of a middle-class Negro element will be the greatest deterrent to mixed marriage.''

Jonathan Daniels, editor of the Ra­leigh (N.C.) News a.nd ObserveT, at the same Coker College festival: "The most tragic proposal ever made in a presumably intelligent land is that the South solve this great public problem (of school segregation) by putting an end to public education. ... Ignorance is no defense against integration or anything else.''

A'ITACKS NAACP Lt. Gov. E. F. Hollings, Charleston,

at a meeting of the Elloree Lions Club, October 10: "If there's one thing against our way of life in the South, it's the NAACP. And if the U. S. Su­preme Court can declare certain organizations as subversive, I believe South Carolina can declare the NAACP both subversive and illegal.''

At Mullins, in Lowcountry Marion County, the Women's Society of Christian Service of the Macedonia Methodist Church unan im ou s I y passed a resolution disapproving a pro-integration statement recently made by the National Executive Committee of the Methodist Women's organization.

In Charleston, Mrs. Cornelia Dab­ney Tucker (who led a fight against the late President Roosevelt's "Su­preme Court packing plan") is circu­lating this resolution:

"Be it enacted that the president shall appoint as members of the Su­preme Court of the United States only men of previous judicial ex­perience and that these appointments be selected from a list prepared by the American Bar Association.''

SCHOOL BOARDS AND SCHOOLMEN

South Carolina's Educational Fi­nance Commission has approved allo­cation of $2,500,000 more for the state's school equalization and expansion program. The new allotments will bring to more than $149 million the amounts approved for such construc­tion. Of that total, Negro projects have been awarded $81,500,000, as against $67,500,000 for white schools. 'This lat­est allotment grants $1,700,000 for white schools; $815,000 for Negro schools.

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PAGE 12-NOVEMBER 1955- SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS

Oklahom_a Notes Legal Contests; Citizens Council OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.

L EGAL skirmishing in Wagoner County featured an ofuerwise

quiet month on the integration front in Oklahoma, where white teachers opened fueir ranks to Negroes and fue Citizens Council movement made its first appearance.

Seven more schools reported while and Negro children attending classes together, one school district integrat­ing the races a month earlier than it had planned.

A few sore spots developed here and there during October. But none reached a degree posing any major alteration in the course of desegrega­tion which has placed the state among the forefront of those complying with the U. S. Supreme Court rulings.

In Wagoner County, already the scene of federal court litigation, an injunction suit was filed in district court seeking to halt use of funds from a $431,000 county bond issue for segregated school improvements. These included construction of a new Negro school at Wagoner and remod­eling of others fuere and at Coweta, Porter and Okay. Previously, resi­dents in the Negro district at Tulla­hassee sought to block the bonds, but their attempt was overruled by the state Supreme Court, which held the issue was voted before the U. S. Su­preme Court decisions against segre­gation.

The most recent district court suit CH. K. Riddle, et aL, v. Board of County Ccnnmissioners oj Wagoner County, et al) asks that the county be enjoined from delivering the bonds, voted in February, 1954, and from proceeding with construction work. Plaintiffs in the action are 10 Coweta white residents. Their at­torney, Mastin Geschwind. Oklahoma City, insisted segregation is not an issue in fue suil

"This is simply an effort to prevent the use of county bond money for schools," he explained. "Since fue Supreme Court ruling of May 31, 1955, the counties have lost all control over schools."

The defendants, who also include the attorney general and several in­vestment firms, have until Nov. 7 to file fueir answer. A hearing date has not been set.

Three Wagoner County school dis­tricts-Porter and Coweta and the all-Negro district at Red Bird-were still barred at month's end from state aid money as a result of a temporary restraining order issued Sept. 30 by Federal Judge W. R Wallace. It for­bade the state department of educa­tion to pay the money to the districts pending trial on the merits of an in­junction suit brought by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Earn.estine Bor­rough, eta!, v. Elmer Jenkins, Super­intendent of Red Bird Dep~ntdent School District 35, et al.)

The NAACP had accused Jenkins, a Negro superintendent, of discrimi­nating against 14 Negro students by refusing to transfer them to Porter and Coweta schools, thereby violating lhe Supreme Court desegregation ruling. The pupils, living in or near the two towns, had enrolled in the schools and attended classes but with­drew after Jenkins refused to grant the transfers.

DISCRlMINATION DENIED Answering the suit on behalf of the

state department of education, Atty. Gen. Mac Q. Williamson denied any racial discrimination was involved in the Red Bird case. He asserted neither the state board of education nor Dr. Oliver Hodge, state superintendent of public instruction, was threatenin~ to deprive the children of legal rights.

A three- judge federal court bas been appointed to bear the case on its merits, but a date has not been set. Members of the panel are U. S. District Judge Edgar V:aught, A. P. Murrah, a judge of the lOth circuit U. S. Court of Appeals, and Wallace.

Mopping up results of a question­naire study conducted the previous month by the state department of education, Dr. Hodge's office reported 126 elementary schools and 145 high schools in Oklahoma now have Negro and white pupils attending classes to­gether. The total, 271, is a gain of seven over the number previously re­polted. Desegregation was described as complete in 90 districts and par­tially accomplished in 60 others. Of the remainder of the 1,746 districts in the state, many do not have Negro resi­dents and, thus, are not affected by the dropping of the racial barriers in the public schools.

At the same time integration has brought about the closing of 22 Negro high schools. The superintendent's staff pointed out students formerly transported to a centralized Negro school are now "spread out," attend­ing white schools in their own dis­tricts.

Among schoolmen the big news was the disclosure that the influential Oklahoma Education Association had quietly opened its doors to the state's 1,350 Negro teachers. The action was

taken at a board of directors meetin~ in August but not publicized. Fer­man Phillips, executive secretary, said fue OEA constitution had never prohibited Negro membership, since it states that any person engaged in education in Oklahoma is eligible by paying the annual dues. However, it was always understood Negro teach­ers were not eligible. The directors' vote, reported to be unanimous among the 120 present, merely placed a new interpretation on the membership clause of the constitution, Phillips said.

The Oklahoma Association of Ne­gro Teachers voted in annual session to merge with the Oklahoma Educa­tion Association but left up to its leaders the decision when the action should be taken. The Negro delegates accepted the plan by a narrow mar­gin over two alternate proposals­continuing their own association un­der a new name (to admit whites on racially mixed faculties) and dis­banding the OANT immediately.

In another development, the state board of education agreed to work out regulations for integration in the public schools next year by Febru­ary. Dr. Oliver Hodge, state superin­tendent, explained regulations for this year were adopted hastily alter the U. S. Supreme Court decision and "there may be need of changes."

NEGRO MADE SUPERINTENDENT While the latest count-a more up­

to-date figure was expected to be ready by the late October OANT ses­sion-indicated 143 Negro teachers

have lost their jobs in the integration proCOGS, one man appeared to have gained. B. D. Holbert, a Negro who served as a high school principal 18!fl years, is now superintend~nt . of . a newly created high school distnct m McCurtain County. Included under his supervision is a white elementary school with two teachers and 32 pu­pils. Yet McCurtain County is in the southeast "Little Dixie" belt in which virtually no actual integration of white and Negro youngsters has taken place in the classroom.

Across the state, in Greer County, integt·ation got an earlier start than planned. About 25 Negro pupils in the sixth grade and up were transferred from Booker T. Washington school to the white junior and senior high school in Mangum. The Washington elementary grades were retained with about 55 pupils. The transfer was scheduled first for Nov. 15, after the cotton harvest recess in the Washing­ton school. The board decided, bow­ever, to merge the schools earlier so the Washington students could adjust to the new schedule before the harvest vacation. Officials said combining the white and Negro schools was the only solution to a surplus teacher problem, but., at that, three of the Washington faculty had to be released.

Cotton picking time brought some rumblings around Porter in Wagoner County. The NAACP complained Negro youngsters were held out for the harvest while white children at­tended school. But the organization's w1·ath appeared to be directed prin-

cipally at the Negro parents, who portedly requested that their be allowed to stay out of school to cotton.

CRITICISM AT NORMAN Criticism was also leveled at

man school authorities for ... w ...... n. ..

refusing to enroll three or high school students from nearby rural community. As a they entered schools in other counties but are expected to make a new at. tempt to enroll at Nonnan at mid. year. The state board of ed-~··-v .. w1111

granted emergency Stella Negroes in spokesman for the Nonnan board said it was willing to them, provided they were brought six miles from Stella to the edge Norman's legal transportation area be picked up by bus.

"This was not a matter of color rather of transportation," said spokesman. "They were force us to run a bus up to While the board of education man, home of the University of homa, has never announced an gration policy, the school official it is understood Negroes would accepted in white classes if they ..,_,.,..l ... -legal residents or legal transfers.

In Oklahoma City, where414 pupils enrolled in nine white schools at the beginning semester, integration took anew Three white children entered man elementary school, until

(Sec OKLAHOI\tA, Page 16)

Doubt Cast on Special Assembly Session in Vir RICHMOND, Va.

A SPECIAL SESSION of the Vir­ginia General Assembly this fall

-which a month ago appeared a cer­tainty-may not be held after all.

A few weeks ago, Gov. Thomas B. Stanley made it plain he planned to call the legislators together to take steps aimed at preventing enforced integration in the public schools of the state. He indicated that fue con­vening date probably would be in November.

But during October the picture changed, and as the month ended there was considerable uncertainty as to whether a special session would be called.

Principal reason for the change was that the state's segregation study commission had not completed its report. The commission planned to meet again early in November, and it was still possible that the report could be completed and a special ses­sion of the assembly called for later in the month.

Meanwhile, the Virginia state con­ference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peo­ple made news on two fronts in the city of Charlottesville.

The NAACP filed a petition with the school board of that city asking an end to racial segregation in the schools. It was the sixth such petition filed in Virginia.

The Virginia NAACP also held its 20th annual convention in Charlottes­ville Oct. 7-9, during which it was an­nounced that federal court suits for desegregation in the schools will be filed against several Virginia locali­ties by the end of the year.

Four arguments were being ad­vanced by Virginians who opposed calling of a special "segregation ses­sion" of the General Assembly this iall;

(1} The 32 legislators who comprise the Commission on Public Education (the segregation study group) had not made their report as soon as had been anticipated, and there would not be enough time to study the re­port prior to the convening of a spe­cial assembly session this fall.

(2) The Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals had not yet acted in a case

The Anxioub Pareut

- Rlchmontl Tlmes-Dlspntch

which may have a great effect on the whole school segregation situation in this state. The case (J. Lindsa.y Almond Jr., Attorney G~nteraL of Virginia, vs. Sidney C. Day, Comp­troller of Virginia) concerns the con­stitutionality of a law under which state funds are used for the educa­tion of "war orphans" in private col­leges. The principle involved is con­sidered the same fuat would be in­volved in any plan under which the state, instead of supporting public schools, paid tuition for pupils who wanted to attend segTegated schools.

'LAME-DUCK' REASON (3) A session held prior to January

would be attended by a number of "lame-duck" legislators, men de­feated for re-election in November. The newly-elected legislators will take office in January when the reg­ular biennial session of the General Assembly convenes. State Sen. Harry Byrd Jr. of Winchester put it this way: "The issues involved in the segregation problem are the most momentous Virginians have faced during this century. A federal court in Washington has decreed the abo­lition of customs and traditions dat­ing back 300 years. The issue should be met. in my judgment, by legisla­tors elected after the issue arose."

(4) The segregation question could be handled during the early days of the regular session in January if the lawmakers would get down to work immediately instead of "fooling around doing nothing'' the first two or three weeks.

On the other side of the fence, how­ever, there were those Vit·ginians who

continued to argue that the segrega­tion issue merited a session devoted entirely to that one problem, and that the session should be held prior to the convening of the regular session in January.

In June, the Virginia NAACP an­nounced that its policy would be to petition school boards for desegrega­tion, wait a reasonable time, then go into court if nothing was done to com­ply with the Supreme Court ruling.

"The reasonable time has passed," Richmond Attorney Oliver W. Hill. chairman of the state NAACP's le­gal staff, declared in Charlottesville rluring the association's annual con­vention last month.

Petitions for desegregation have been filed in six Vrrginia counties and cities, as follows (the figures in each case show the approximate percent­age of school children who are Ne­groes in each locality): Norfolk, 37; Newport News, 50; Alexandria, 13; Charlottesville, 22; Arlington Coun­ty, &, and Isle of Wight County, 54. Hill said similar petitions would be filed in other localities soon.

He would not say in which loeali­ties the federal suits would be filed.

PETITION FOR 43 The petition to the Charlottesville

school board on Oct. G was sent in the name of 43 Negro children from Jef­ferson elementary school, which is operated by the city, and the Jack­~o~-Burley high school, operated ]Cnntly by the city and Albemarle County.

In its answer on Oct. 13 the board said it previously had fo;,ed itself into a committee of the whole to study the segregation problem and that the study is under way.

The board said further it believes: '' .. It was not the intent of the Su­preme Court's decision of May, 1954, and subsequent decree of May 31 1955. to disrupt a system of publi~ education. Therefore, fue problem con_frontin~ fue board is to find a so­lution whtch will confonn to the Supreme Court's interpretation of the law and be acceptable to parents and taxp?yers who use and support thC' pubhc schools."

"This brainwashing, if will not only remove from our ing fue need for protection ol rights of Negroes," he said, "but not avoid at the same time s t.ruction of our deep-rooted u,.,.,...,,.., ... ,....., of individual rights for all cans."

Delay in desegregation will do good. Marshall declared. "It will just as difficult 20 years from lodl'l '•l• .. ~ ... and you might as well do it and get it over with." Actually, said, the real purpose of those say they oppose integration now not to delay integration but to vent it altogether.

Roy Wilkins, executive secr$1!

of the NAACP, told the conventil that groups which oppose integratill have, in efTeet, declared war on United States.

"It is a war against the right of tition, against legal redress of ances, against the exercise franchise and against equality the law.

'TARGET IS U.S.' "The immediate and highly

target of this warfare is the but the real target is the States, its Declaration of ence, its philosophy, and Its tution, all based upon ctizenship. 'I11e dissenters wUI none of this equality if it Is brought, as the Supreme Court ion brings it, to actual practice everyday life. .

"Here we have our 30-day tracts for teachers, a suave but ardly maneuver. Here we have attorney-general who slanders whole people as bcinst immoral. eased and criminal. Here we pillar o£ journalism crying in but meaningful sentences r~ion will never accede to a of the nation's highest court. we have the Defenders of Statt ereignty and Individual knocking down once more that tC'red old straw man, intermarriJ"

(See VlRGINlA, Next Pate)

SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS-NOVEMBER 1955-PAGE 13

Fo~~. c. !

Governor Suggests 'Local Option' Plan for Schools RALEIGH, N.C.

.t N offhand press conference re­~ mark by Gov. Luther H. Hodges hat North Carolinians may some day 18ve to decide whether they will op­!l"ate their schools on a "local option" >&Sis precipitated much discussion in he state. At first, newspapers speculated that

oca1 option meant schools would be ulowed to integrate or not integrate,

~ ICCOrding to local sentiment. The !ovemor on Oct. 13 issued a state­nent on the subject:

"Local option with respect to 11:1 ~ehools as I see it now would sim­

>ly put into local communiti~s the 1uthority to run their schools the ~ay they wanted to or not to run .hem at all if they choose. Just wh.lt vould be the details of the s•J,_zges-

:r jon I am not prepared to say. "It is being studied by the Ad-

11 ' rlsory Committee on Education, and nasmuch as it appears that there

•S no immediate need for haste in the "'" natter, I hope the committee Hill

.ake sufficient time to constdc<· it :horoughly along with all other su,:­{estlons that have been made before 'UlY final evaluation or detalied rec­)llllDendation is made."

~ ·roUND ENCOURAGEMENT :r :.

Gov. Hodges, the first time be in-•G: !(roduced the subject at his press c ~~erence, prefaced his remarks by ;::;, ->aying he was encouraged hy his :.:: oluntary school segregation pro­::...-e ~. Failure of the volunto~ry plan, fl ... 1e added, might result in some form !l!Otl '->f local option.

No details ,,f t~e med•anics of lh<:! · , ocaloption idea have been advanced.

11'~1

e newness of the ide:l makes it ikely none wUI be put lorwad in he near future.

Gov. Hodges, who once saJd aboli­ion of the public schools woulri lead o results that would ''be appalling in gnorance, poverty, and bitterness,"

r.o.. ~lid not say what his views nre on ~ ~ ocal option.

enrul!i Also on Oct. 13, the day he issued ~~Us statement, Gov. Hodges told a <J ....

Virginia (Continued From Page 12)

l'P. --,.a .;llo. The Debate Council at the state-·~= rupported College of William and ~-~·Mary at Williamsburg scheduled a . ';.. •debate on school segregation, but it ;:. turned out to be almost entirely a

)ne-sided affair-all anti-segrega-~ ;ion. tC.. • Each side was to have been repre­s~.~JetJted by a faculty member and a l~1 •rtudent. The faculty member on the .:. • !)l"O-segregalion side dropped out on ~ lhe eve of the debate, citing a con­..,~ Bict in schedules. The student pre­p..' sented pro-segregation arguments,

but said he was taking the position IJlo 'only lor the sake o£ debate." t .. A crowd o£ about 100 students and 1. £acuity members heard the debate. 1(-o ... One of those present was Dr. Dudley

Woodbridge, dean of the college': law school, who said he foresaw in-

• legration soon on the undergraduate • level at William and Mary. He called , attention to a U. S. circuit court de­

cision to end segregation at the Uni­versity of North Carolina, and he pointed out that William and Mary

: ~ "'is in the same judicial circuit. (;.'!'~ 1-' ~ t!'-• The Virginia State Grange, con­~ eluding its annual convention in :10 Richmond on Oct. 22, adopted a res­r:' olution urging the General Assem-

bly to prohibit the use of public [unds for mixed schools in any coun­ty unless integration is first approved by the board o£ supervisors and the school board. Alter such approval,

; the resolution said, an appropriate , court should call a referendum to

determine whether the voters favor • ~· integration. ~ Two Virginia congressmen from

the so-called "Black Belt" of the state have proposed that public

· financial support be denied the

"". schools of any locality which puts Tacial integration into effect without

statewide meeting here-held in preparation for the national White House Conference on Education­to "think on the assumption always that North Carolina will have a great and good system of public education."

The Advisory Committee on Ed­ucation, established by the 1955 Gen­eral Assembly to study and advise on the school segregation problem, met here. In a report to the gov­ernor, it said it "is pleased with the present operation of our schools and the growing acceptance of the thought that racial pride and racial integrity make most probable the substantial success of voluntary ra­cial separation in our schools." The report added:

"We are giving study to steps to take to implement voluntary racial scpnration and implement the 1955 statute relative to the assignment of pupils to schools by local authorities. We arc giving study to alternative plans for any community where vol­untary separation and merit assigrt­ment may not result in a situation which can be tolerated in the com­munity.

"Among other things, we are giv­ing study to what we regard as the final and last step, if all else fails to produce a tolerable situation; namely, the abolition of public schools and the organization of pri­vate schools by local option in spe­cially troubled communities.

"We see no need or occasion for additional legislation at this time. We are working on a more detailed report and will submit it at an early date."

A month after the local option pro­posal was advanced, there was still confusion about exactly what it in­volves.

approval of the people in a referen­dum.

Fonner Gov. William M. Tuck and Rep. Watkins M. Abbitt, both from Southside Virginia, recommended the local referendum idea in a letter to the state's segregation study commis­sion.

Tuck said he thought the plan would be constitutional. If it isn't, he said, the state constitution should be amended to validate it.

"It is apparent," they wrote, "that a program of legislation which per­mits integration in the schools ... against the will and the conviction of the mejority ... must result in the destruction of the public schools."

IDEA COI\DIENDED Both Richmond daily papers car­

ried editorials commenting favorably on the Tuck-Abbitt proposal.

Said The Times-Dispatch: "Whether this plan is feasible

would seem to depend entirely on the willingness of the high court to rec­ognize the constitutionalit~ of. th_e democratic premise on which 1t IS

based- namely, the right of a state's citizens to exercise autonomy in the administration of school systems financed exclusively by the taxpayers of that state's subdivisions ... Mr. Tuck and Mr. Abbitt have, by im­pllcation, informed the court that its refusal to recognize the right of local autonomy would wreck the state's public school system."

The News Leader declared: "When they (Tuck and Abbitt)

speak up, out of a lifelong knowledge of Virginia and her people, they_ ~re speaking from an informed pos1tion that few others share. And when they talk of 'the revulsion of the people to forced integration,' they are ta!Jt­ing (rom thousands of homely, m­dividual conversations over the past year and a half ... (The) propo~al for local referendums has substanllal merit."

A crowd estimated at from 2,300 to 2,500 persons attended a mass meet­ing of the Halifax County De~e~ders of State Sovereignty and Indtv1dual Liberties in the county high school auditorium on the night of Oct. 24.

A meeting here on Oct. 21 made it virtually certain no special session of the General Assembly will be called to deal with the school problem. A group of top-ranking legislators, in­cluding Sen. Luther Barnhardt of Cabarrus, president of the Senate, and House Speaker Larry L Moore, Jr., of Wilson, endorsed Gov. Hodges' handling of the problem and agreed with him that no special session seems necessary.

LEGAL ACTION 0 ·-

Federal District Judge Johnson J. Hayes has received a motion to en­large the scope of the Montgomery County school desegregation cases so the decision will affect the schools of the entire state. Arguments remain to be heard and Judge Hayes' de­cision is not expected before Novem­ber.

Originally, Negro parents filed suit against the county board, seeking to break down school segregation. No specific mention was made in the suit of the claim that school officials were state officers. The motion before Judge Hayes is in the fonn of an amendment to the original complaint which contends they are state offi­cers.

REJECTED REQUEST Earlier, Judge Hayes turned down

the request of counsel for the Negro plaintiffs that a three-judge court be constituted. He ruled that the school officials were being sued in their ca­pacity as local school officers and that the matter was not one which questioned state regulations or Jaw, but local regulations.

If the school board members are held to be state officials by Judge Haye.,_because they are acting for the state in their locality-a special

(Negroes constitute a little over half of the county's school popula­tion.)

Fonner Gov. William M. Tuck, who now represents Halifax in the U. S. House of Representatives, told the crowd:

"I intend to resist with all the might I have this effort to distort the minds, to pollute the education and to defile and make putrid the pure Anglo-Saxon blood that courses through the innocent veins of our helpless children."

He said that churches are not inte­grated and should nol be, and he added:

"U I have to believe in the mixing of the races in our churches to be a Christian, then I do not have that kind of re.ligion."

Collins Denny Jr., of Richmond, counsel for the Defenders, told the gathering that if the NAACP makes it impossible to have segregated schools in Virginia, then "we will educate our own and leave it to them to educate their own."

The Virginia Education Associa­tion, the organization of white teach­ers and other school personnel, has rejected a proposal that it merge with its Negro counterpart, the Virginia Teachers Association.

At its annual meeting in Richmond in late October, the VEA adopted, by what appeared to be a unanimous voice vote, a committee report which said:

"Since the Virginia Education As­sociation has operated within the gen­eral framework of state policy in educational matters, and since con­ditions in the state relative to inte­gration cannot be adequately pre­dicted at this time, we recommend that the Virginia Education Associa­tion continue currently its organiza­tion as now constituted."

Meanwhile, the Virginia Teachers Association (the Negro group) passed resolutions reaffirming its be­lief that the anti-segregation de­cision is "entirely consistent with the democratic ideal established by our national constitution." The group also reaffirmed its support of the NAACP.

three-judge tribunal is required by federal law. Judge Hayes termed it, "a real close legal question" and said the matter is "highly important."

Without entering fonnal orders, Judge Hayes permitted two of the Negro plaintiffs-Elsie Home and Jennie Nicholson-to withdraw from the case. Elsie Home contended she was not aware of what she was sign­ing when she entered the case.

C. 0. Pearson of Durham, Negro attorney on the NAACP staff, said the 13 Negro plaintiffs "are being intimi­dated" and he is expected to offer testimony at the next hearing of the issue.

HELD 11\JPROPER Judge Hayes likewise ordered

stricken from the record some pas­sages of the defendant board's an­swer to the original suit. One passage said the suit was brought to "stir up trouble, disrupt the operation of the public schools" and to abuse the courts. "I don't think that's proper at all," said Judges Hayes .

Meanwhile, Kelly M. Alexander of Charlotte was unanimously elected to his eighth consecutive term as president of the state chapter of the NAACP at a meeting on Oct. 22 in Durham. He asked for test cases against enforced segregation rules in public housing units in North Car­olina.

"If t.he public housing is segregated either by project, building or Boors," Alexander said, "we want Negroes to apply for apartments, indicating that t.hey want to live there on the basis of integration." He said similar steps should be taken in housing develop­ments receiving federal aid, includ­ing units financed by Veterans Ad­ministration loans.

Alexander advocated complete in­tegration for all parks, playgrounds and houses erected through loans or grants from the federal government.

As another major project for his organization, Alexander set an im­mediate goal of at least 500,000 regis­tered Negro voters. He said every congressional district in the state is being organized.

Atty. Gen. William B. Rodman, on the public school system: "It has produced magnificent results. To shatter it, to break it up, would be as tragic a thing as could ever come to North Carolina, and each race can go on and maintain a race pride with separate schools as we have had in the past."

Dr. James M. Hinton of Columbia, S. C., president of the S. C. chapter of NAACP, in a speech to the North Carolina chapter in Durham: "There are only six states who have done nothing about the Supreme Court's decision and of these only three­South Carolina, Georgia and Missis­sippi-are acting like jackasses."

Hinton told of alleged economic reprisals by white businessmen in Orangeburg, S. C., against Negroes who petitioned against segregation and he t~ld of a subsequent Negro boycott of the businessmen and their products. "The white man's god is money," he said, "and you take away his god from him and he will crum­ble .... If economic reprisals against those seeking redress under the due process of law is the American way of life, then take me back to Af-. .. nca ....

OBJECTS UNCHANGED Mrs. John W. Crawford, president

of theN. C. Parent-Teacher Associa­tion, in a speech in Hampstead: "We must preserve and strengthen our public school system ... I would like to remind you that the Supreme Court decision does not alter the ob­jects ol our great organization."

LeRoy Martin, vice president of Wachovia Bank and Trust Co., and

longtime member of the Raleigh school board, in a speech in the Al­bemarle Schoolmasters Club in Eliz­abeth City, said he did not consider segregation the number one school problem of the state. "The paramount problem facing the state today," he said, "is the development of an ex­panded school program for the future that will meet the needs of our peo­ple. . . . In the heat and passion of the discussions of this age-old prob­lem, Jet us not forget that the wel­fare of the individual child-white or Negr·o - the man of tomorrow­should always be our first consid­eration."

Dr. Glenn E. Snow of the National Education Association, speaking in Charlotte, said the great hope of the public schools is that attacks by spe­cial interest organizations will bal­ance each other off and leave the teaching profession free. ''There is great pressure on to build the schools in the image of the pressure groups," he said. "We must maintain our freedom in the face of those pres­sures."

Dr. Charles F. Carroll, state super­intendent of public instruction, in a speech in Greenville: "We are cer­tainly going to have to progress in education, else we regress. We can­not shunt aside the decision ... of the court as we attempt to make progress, for many of us Jive with that decision and the problems it poses both night and day."

A resolution which praises the University of North Carolina admin­istration for its action in complying with federal court directives on in­tegration (SSN, October) and admit­ling three Negroes as undergraduates is now before the faculty of Woman's College in Greensboro, a branch of UNC. The resolution was prepared by unnamed members of the faculty. Similar resolutions soon will be placed before the faculties of the two other branches of t.he university in Chapel Hill and Raleigh. Action on it is expected at the November faculty meeting.

The resolution says, in part, " ... we believe that students should be admitted to the University solely on the basis of educational qualifications and that qualified students of any race can be incorporated satisfac­torily into the University; we concur in the actions of the federal courts in eliminating racial discrimination in the admission of students to the un­dergraduate and graduate schools of the University. . .. " Then it com­mends the administration for its "pos­itive steps."

Between 50 and 60 Negroes of Nash County in a meeting in Nashville adopted a resolution rejecting Gov. Hodges' plan for voluntary school segregation. The resolution said the Negroes are ready "to join other cit­izens interested in creating a climate of good will, tolerance and under­standing to effectuate the program o£ integration as speedily as possible."

The marketing of $2 million in school bonds voted in Harnett County was delayed because bond attorneys would not approve them pending clarification of some segregation suits, now in court.

Malcolm A. McLeod, superinten­dent of Sanford schools (Lee Coun­ty), predicted the county would be able to dispose of $1,200,000 in school bonds because the county at­torney who drew up th.e bond res­olution "did not specify that the bond money would be spent for particular schools ... I think his skillful word­ing will prevent the bond attorneys £rom raising any objections as to the validity of the bonds."

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PAGE 14-NOVEMBER 1955-SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS

• Dover School Athletic Plan Gets Attention Ill Delaware GeO

WILMINGTON, Del. D OVER, the picturesque capital

and midway point in the small and slender shaped state of Delaware, held the segregation-desegregation spotlight during October when the principal issue concerned inter-high school football games and the grow­ing attitude in Delaware that local communities or local school districts should be permitted to make their own decisions on the issue without outside interference.

In the meantime, the General As­sembly was still struggling with the problems of providing a multi-million dollar bond issue for school construc­tion on a segregated basis.

Bryant Bowles, a resident of southern Delaware and president of the National Association for the Ad­vancement of White People, was em­broiled in an argument over a radio speech in Wilmington.

And in Wilmington, integration has been accepted to the point where a Negro student was elected president of the junior class of the Pierre S. DuPont high school which up until this year was a 100 per cent white high school, peopled by children from middle class and upper middle class citizens.

YEARS CONTRASTED This time last year, the state was

in an upheaval over the controversy in the town of Milford because 11 Negro children were admitted to the Milford (white) high school. Milford -a good-sized community in south­em Delaware-was excited and re­porters from all parts of the east were swarming over the town and the countryside reporting the mass meetings of the NAA WP and Bowles.

Milford became a symbol of resist­ance to the U. S. Supreme Court de­cision. The "Milford Story" also in­fluenced the outcome of the elections in the state and the Republican Party, then in control of the state government, came out of the election with a terrible shellacking.

October, 1955 finds the NAA WP very quiet. And Dover has taken the headlines.

Up until a few years ago, Dover was just another Delaware commun­ity, the center of state government. It was here that Delaware gained its fame of being "the first state.'' for on Dec. 7, 1787, a convention of 30 Dela­wareans ratified the federal constitu­tion and thus Delaware became the first state of the original 13 to accept the new basic law of the land.

AIR FORCE BASE But Dover began to feel the impact

of expansion when the Air Force established a military air transport base just outside its boundaries. Thousands of men and women are stationed there. The annual payroll is something like $16 million. The base is the hub of an Air Force shipping center for all parts of the world.

Ordinarily, Dover would be con­sidered a typical southern Delaware community.

But- last year, the board of educa­tion of Dover startled the state when it announced that Negroes would be

accepted in the Dover high school, provided they met certain academic qualifications. These are said to be the same academic qualifications re­quired of white students who wish to go to high school.

The idea seems to be this: A stu­dent should be screened in order to find out if he is suited for academic schooling rather than vocational edu­cation.

However, if a Negro student is graduated from the Dover Negro grade school (the Booker T. Wash­ington school) and doesn't want to go to the Dover high school, he or she can elect to go to the William Henry comprehensive high school which is an aU-Negro school in Dover and which is more modem, in many respects, than a lot of white schools in the state.

4,200 IN SCHOOLS At present, there are about 4,200

children attending school in the Dover area, including parochial Ne­gro and white schools.

The William Henry school (Negro) has an enrollment of 220. The Booker T. Washington school (Negro) has 421. The Dover (white) elementary school has 1,229 and the Dover high school, 808.

The remainder of the children are in other smaller schools in the Dover area but in schools that have other names and are not within the cor­porate boundaries of the state capital.

Of the 808 students in the Dover high school, there are 17 Negroes. Three of them are on the football squad, but none made the first team.

The first time this year Dover burst into headlines was when the NAA WP president, Bowles, said he was going

Missouri Settles into Second Year ST. LOllS, Mo.

W JITH 85 PER CENT of its Negro W school children attending schools

at which integration has begun, Mis­souri is settling into the second year ol compliance with the Supreme Court decision against school segrega­tion. Since school opened, not a single incident of any kind has been report­ed anywhere in the state. The whole subject has virtually disappeared from the newspapers. Many commu­nities now regard integration not as a controversy but as an accomplished fact.

Missouri thus has entered upon the stage of studying and coping with the problems arising out of integration. Some of the first findings are these: (1) integration can make possible a sharp reduction in the average size of elementary classes; (2) integration in a large city system can mean mixed classes for only 10 per cent of the students though the Negro popu­lation may be more than 33 per cent; and (3) when optional integration takes place in high schools, as many as one-third ol the Negroes eligible to transfer to a mixed school may choose to remain at their old school instead.

St. Louis, which integrated high schools last February and elementary schools this September, is finding that elementary classes are getting small­er as a result of integration and of the hiring of more teachers, made possi­ble by better use of school facilities. For many years the system operated with an average of 42 children per class. Last year the average was 36.8 at the end. This year the average is down to 35.9 and, even more impor­tant, pupils are distributed more evenly among the schools than at any time in recent years, only six of 122 schools having an average class of more than 40.

LINES ABANDONED Primary reason for the improve­

ment is the abandonment of school district lines based on race, which had caused high enrollments in the Negro areas and in some cases partly empty schools in white areas. Inte­grated districting makes possible the fullest use of all school facilities. The Board of Education now intends to reduce average class siz.es by one pupil a year until an average of 32 is reached-30 in the first three grades and 34 above that.

Meanwhile, St. Louisans who ex-

pected integration to mean racial mixing of the bulk of the school pop­ulation are learning that they were mistaken. Residential concentration of Negroes still exists, though Negro residential areas are expanding. This fact limits the actual mixing to about 10 per cent of the students in St. Louis.

Prior to this year, St. Louis had 73 white elementary schools and 37 Ne­gro schools. Now it has 61 white schools, 37 Negro and 12 mixed. The mixed schools-approximately 10 per cent of the total-are those on the borderline between white and Negro residential areas. Thus of the 24,000 Negro pupils in elementary schools some 2,400 are attending mixed schools, and of the 48,000 white pu­pils some 4,800 can be estimated as attending mixed schools.

NO STATEWIDE DATA There are no statewide statistics to

show whether this pattern holds good for the state as a whole. Missouri has 67,000 Negro pupils and about 630,000 whites, but nearly half of the school districts have no Negroes at all while the bulk of the Negro pupils are con­centrated in St. Louis, Kansas City and a few rural areas. State Commis­sioner of Education Hubert Wheeler reports that 57,000 of the Negroes are in districts which have begun racial integration.

In St. Louis, sociologists are begin­ning to put their microscopes on the transition to integration. One of the first studies to be made, by Harry Jennings Crockett Jr., a graduate student in the department of soci­ology and anthropology at Washing­ton University, sought to explore the motives of Negro students who trans­ferred to mixed schools and of those who did not.

When high school segregation was ended last February, the Board of Education ruled that all new students must attend the school nearest their homes without regard to race, but that students already enrolled could choose for themselves whether to transfer or not. A sizable number of Negroes who were eligible to transfer did not take advantage of the option. Crockett was not permitted to inter­view students as to their reasons, but he made an elaborate statistical study based upon school records which en­abled him to draw some tentative conclusions-mostly negative.

His study showed that a total of 541

Negro students in one Negro high school (approximately one-fourth of the total enrollment) were eligible to transfer to mixed schools, formerly all-white. Of these, 340 transferred and 192 elected to remain at the Ne­gro school. Thus more than one-third of those eligible to transfer did not do so. Why not?

THEORIES TESTED Crockett first studied maps show­

ing the home addresses of the stu­dents, to determine whether those who stayed at the Negro school were students who lived close to the school. He found that this was not so. He then set up and tested several othe1· theories.

Prevailing sociological thinking led Crockett to suppose that social strat­ification might have had something to do with the Negro students' decision. Assuming that the formerly all-white schools would generally have served higher economic and social groups than the all-Negro schools, he theor­ized that perhaps Negro students of the upper groups would be quickest to transfer to mixed schools, and those in lower brackets would tend to stay behind.

This theory, however, he found to be false. By means of a detailed sta­tistical study based on the social and economic standing of the two groups of students, be concluded that the group which transferred showed no conspicuous superiority, in terms of social- economic status, over the group which did not transfer.

J.Q. SCORES Next Crockett studied the I .Q.

scores, reading test scores and aver­age grades of the students to deter­mine whether the Negroes who transferred were those with the bet­ter scholastic records. Again he found no significant difference between the two groups.

Neither did the sex of the students appear to have anything to do with the decision to transfer or not to transfer, so far as the group as a whole was concerned. Thus about four out of ten transferees were boys, and four and one-half out of ten who stayed behind were boys. However, when the seniors were eliminated Crockett did find that among the un­derclassmen girls seemed somewhat readier to enter mixed schools than boys. He suggested that boys might anticipate greater hostility from

to hold a mass rally in Dover to pro­test the integration program of the town.

Almost immediately, a statement was issued and signed by leading citizens of the town, to the effect that they thought the integration pro­gram of the Dover board of educa­tion was good and that they were backing it.

This was signed by clergymen, bankers, lawyers, businessmen and professional men.

HELD NO RALLY Bowles never held his mass rally.

The excuse he gave was that he couldn't find a suitable meeting place.

Next, came the flurry on the Dover football field. Dover high school was playing Millsboro high school (a school that adheres strictly to a seg­regated policy). The Millsboro team walked off the field when Dover put a Negro into the game during the last quarter.

This was followed by conflicting statements, but when the furore died down, it appeared that perhaps there had been an honest mistake. Mills­boro officials said they definitely understood that Dover would not send a Negro into the game.

However, the Dover school board later issued a written statement of policy:

For the remainder of the 1955-56 season, Dover will meet high school teams in "away" games on a segre­gated basis, where this is required. provided those same schools will agree to play in Dover on an inte­grated basis.

FOR YEAR ONLY This deviation, the Dover school

board said, is only for the remainder

Con1pliance whites than girls, and so would be more reluctant to transfer, but added that more study would be necessary to test this hypothesis.

The one significant variable was that of grade level. As has been gen­erally observed, seniors tend to be more reluctant to transfer, while the underclassmen are more willing. Among the transferees studied by Crockett, 25 per cent were freshmen 45 per cent sophomores, 27 per cent juniors and only 3 per cent seniors. Among those who stayed behind only 5 per cent were freshmen, whil~ 21 pe; c~nt were sophomores, 15 per cent JUmors and 58 per cent seniors.

DECISIVE FACTOR The conclusion of Crockett's study

is that Negroes did not bear out some prevailing sociological theories in making their choice of schools. In some respects, sociologists say, Ne­groes have been found to act more lik.e whites of the same social and e~nomic status than lik.e Negroes of different status. But in high school integration the decisive factor seems to be, not social and economic status but simply the !riendships emotionai ties and other bonds formed in school.

The longer a student had been in the Negro high school, the more re­luctant he was to transfer. Those who transferred, on the other hand, had fewer attachments to break and at the same time were aware of 'a strong desire for equality of treatment and opport~nity. Hence they acted, not accordmg to social or economic standing, but as Negroes anxious to improve their lot.

High school integration in St. Louis has now gone into its second semes­ter, and the two Negro high schools have lost enrollment of 949 since this lime last year, before integration. The seven formerly white schools have probably gained about 1,200 or 1,300 Negroes, but since no student's race is now recorded this must be an esti­mate only. Only one of the former white high schools has as much as 35 per cent of its enrollment Negro, though Negroes account for 35 per cent of the total population. One oth­er formerly white school has 19 per cent Negroes, a third has 16 per cent three have less than five per cent and one has none. The two Negro high schools remain virtually 100 per cent Negro.

of the current school year. After tltt the Dover school "will build athletic program on an basis."

The Dover school board also saa1 "Unless rival schools agree

Dover's present policy, the schedules not only will be "u'-t.a-••' in football but also in baseball and track for the rest of school year."

The southe1·n Delaware high sch~ in Laurel has ah·eady cancelled lb Dovel" game.

Other high schools in Delaware have yet to make their cisions.

The Dover school board statem1er.!l also explained:

"Dover ... is the only school of New Castle County trying to comply with the aPt••a~-•~ ol the U. S. Supreme finds itself faced with the JLK•eunoacl of numerous cancellations and chance, at this point, of filling dates."

COMMUNITY REACTION This attitude of the Dover

board was applauded and Dover. Some thought Dover even agree to play on a sej;tregal .. ! .. !! basis for the remainder of the SCllCJIIf~l!!!ll year; others said Dover's school oo;•·'ft.st had taken "a realistic stand."

And then came another of the Dover story.

On Oct. 18, the Dover chapter the National Conference of tians and Jews was awarded a C1!rtl.ll!OPI

ficate of recognition for having tered "amity, justice and cO~)DC·ratJinrll among P1·otestants, J ews olics" and for having e I i m in a t e intergroup which disfigure and distort business, social and polilical lions."

The Dover chapter of the National Conference of Christians and had taken the lead against NAAWP in Dover.

The certificate of recognition wa._. .• _ . accepted by Dr. J ohn Shilling, man of the Dover chapter and mer state superintendent of instruction in charge of schools.

After much squabbling and merous continued meetings, House of Representatives of ware finally passed a $44 issue for school construction in ware but with certain schools signated by the letter "C" in the

The letter "C"-traditionaJ in Delaware school legislation-has ways been regarded as "Colored."

But hoping to meet possible obj«­tions from bond market who say the proposed bond ~..., ....... ,.._ with segregation, wiJJ not meet wilh success, the House of Representatilll states in this new bill that "C' m"'llllll•••,., ''wholly state supported schools."

Negro schools in Delaware are per cent state supported, their building programs. school construction is paid for on 60 per cent state and 40 per local participation basis.

Every member of the House for this measure, though Republicans reportedly warned Democratic colleagues it was aU 1

subterfuge. The Democrats who coo­lrol the House say they are foUowU. the advice of Richmond lawyers IIIII are ignoring New York lawyers. 'l'1w bill now goes to the state Senate it is uncertain what Gov. Caleb BoiP will do when it reaches his desk.

The $260,000 libel suit, filed Bryant Bowles, president of NAA WP, against a Dover hUJcintillliF11 man, Lee Layton, is still Bowles claims Layton through a letter to the editor of lhl Deleware State News of Dover.

Layton's attorney, Edmund ~ (See DELAWARE, Next page)

SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS-NOVEMBER 1955-PAGE 15

Official Says NAACP 'Subversive;' Charge Denied MACON, Ga.

J""HARGF.S hurled against the Na­\..1 tional Association for the Ad­vancement of Colored People by Atty. Gen. Eugene Cook and coun­tercharges from the NAACP against Qeorgia officials erupted into a rash of headlines to take the news spot­light in this state during October.

Cook, in a talk to the. Peace Officers .AssOCiation of Georgta, called the NAACP "subversive." Roy Wilkins, NAACP executive secretary, said Cook's speech was apparently part of a conspiracy by some Southern state officials to combat desegt·ega­tion by accusing the organization of being subversive.

These developments came in a month which saw a sixth local school system presented with a desegrega­

~ tlon petition and which saw contin­:a • uing efforts to expand the States

Rights Council on a statewide basis. • On Oct. 26, the state of Georgia ~l.filed suit to prevent the city of Val­

dosta from spending any tax funds on operation of mixed schools, an ac-

:zta tion which Atty. Gen. Cook said )). would speed up a showdown on the

.., school segregation issue in this ~ state.

't

:ct liQ Judge George R. Lilly issued a ~lltemporary injunction and scheduled l'~a hearing for Nov. 22 after the state ~~of Georgia filed suit in Lowndes !lttc'County Superior Court to prohibit ~-the spending of any public money for ~ ;J!'coperation of integrated schools by il10." the city of Valdosta. ;t._ The suit was filed by Atty. Gen. i Cook for Gov. Marvin Griffin. Cook

:2 ~d its purpose was to obtain a ~'" Georgia Supreme Court ruling on the

.;::validity of state statutes which make illegal the use of city, county or state

!C'.i::::hmds to run schools in which white ~ and Negro students sit in the same ':1:: classrooms. ...

Delaware (Continued From Page 14)

Carpenter, II, has filed an answer, contending that Layton's remarks are "fair and honest comment on a mat­ter of public interest and concerning a public figure and were made in good

t.:l l faith and with proper motives." ~

i::st~ In the meantime, Bowles appeared i • # in a Wilmington restaurant one night

late in October where Joe Pyne con­~ ducts a free-for-all live public com­~-ment radio program. People call in on ~ :111 lhe phone and Pyne repeats their • :c.·· statements, argues with them and ~cajoles them or praises them. ~ · Pyne has been one of the sharpest ~~ critics of Bowles in the state. Bowles ir' asked for the opportunity to have -:"' , his say. So a "debate" was arranged. ~ Bowles and Pyne had a set-to on the ;;oll" air in the crowded restaurant. It de­~~ 1 veloped into a name-calling, charge if. and counter- charge argument.

!ir~~~· When Bowles left the restaut·ant, ~· a Negro broke through the police line

•4 and punched Bowles. The man was :;,.. arrested and later fined $50 and costs · in the Municipal Court of Wilming­.:,. ton by Judge Thomas Herlihy Jr.

r. ~ Judge Herlihy, a pro-integrationist, 1' ~ said that regardless of one's personal :.. .l feelings, it was still against the law ~ .:,. for anyone to attack another person ~' on the street.

"' Almost on top of the decision of Ute , , Dover board of education regarding ~ inter-high school athletics, the Wil­·~ mington public schools through M. ~ Channing Wagner, superintendent in

'"'''

. Upon rec~ipt of an NAACP peti­tion requesting integration, the Val­dosta Board o~ Education had adopt­ed two resolutions. One permitted the superintendent of schools wide dis­cretionary powers in assigning pupils to schools on various grounds other than race, and the other directed the superintendent and a special boat·d committee to proceed with a study of the integration issue .

The attorney general said the suit does not mean that the Valdosta board is on the verge of integrating the •·aces in the schools there, but he said creation of the study com­mittee provided a "justifiable issue."

Cook said he may lose but added, "I'm confident of winning, or I wouldn't have filed the suit." He said a showdown on segregation in Georgia would be hastened by the suit and subsequent court ruling.

Atty. Gen. Cook's Oct. 19 speech in Atlanta had been well publicized as an ''exposure" of the "ugly truth" about the NAACP. Sheriffs, chiefs of police and other law enforcement officers were in the audience as Cook declared the ultimate result of the NAACP's program "can only result in conflict, bloodshed and internal rev­olution, delivering this nation into the hands of international commun­ism."

The attorney general said he planned to turn over "evidence" of what he termed "subversive activi­ties" of "the NAACP and its local fronts" to the Georgia General As­sembly in January "for appropriate action."

Tracing the organization and goals of the NAACP since its founding in 1909, Cook attacked practically every top name in the association. "The ugly truth about the NAACP and its or1gm, aims and manipulations so shocking as to stagger the imag-

charge of secondary education, came out with a policy on the subject.

In a letter to other high schools in the state, Wagner said, "The citizens of Wilmington would be incensed if the public high schools in the city were to discriminate against Negroes playing on the high school athletic teams."

Brown Vocational School of Wil­mington was to have played the Mil­ford high school football team but the game was cancelled because the Brown Vocation.al team has Negroes on its team. Milford's is an all-white team.

Wagner's statement also said: "The four senior high schools in

Wilmington are integrated high schools and we feel that all students have the same rights and privileges and responsibilities."

Wagner asked all secondary schools in Delaware who have athletic con­tests scheduled with Wilmington high schools to let him know if the inte­grated agreement is acceptable to them. If not-then those games will have to be cancelled. Wilmington schools will not eliminate Negroes from their teams in order to play on a segregated basis.

MISCELLANEOUS

A new group has come upon the Delaware scene-the "We, the Peo­ple" organization.

An organization meeting was pre­sided over by George Truitt of Georgetown, Del., formerly a member of the board of the NAA WP who re­signed because he said he could not exercise control of the policies.

One of the objectives of "We, the People" is to get a new state board of education, and the overall stated ob­jective is to encourage states rights and local community rights.

Nationally, it is said, "We, the Peo­ple" which held a meeting in Chi­cago on Sept. 17 and 18 is not in~er­ested in integration v. segregatton, holding that it is a local problem.

wee: runs attnv gcn off Jtt 4:5

Roy V. llarris ( left) of Augusta and former Gov. Derman Talmadge were among the pt·omoters of a statewide organization of the States Rights Council, Inc., which met last month in Atlanta Another leader of Ute movement, not shown here, is Hugh Grant of Augusta, former U. S. minister to Albania and Siam.

ination," he said, adding a charge that the NAACP has always been directed and subsidized by "South­hating white people with long records or affinity for, affiliation with and participation in Communist, Commu­nist-front, fellow- traveling and sub­versive organizations, activities and causes."

He said the NAACP "has never had the welfare of the Negro people at heart," and it was "neither founded nor is presently directed by colored people."

NAACP OFFICIALS CITED Cook cited the files of the House

Un-American Activities Committee on the NAACP president, chairman of the board, "honorary chairman," treasurer, 11 of 28 vice-presidents, 28 of 47 directors, the chairman of the National Legal Committee, ex­ecutive secretary, special counsel, as­sistant special counsel, Southeast re­gional secretary, West Coast secre­tary, director of the Washington bu­reau, director of public relations and two field secretaries.

"The NAACP is being aided and abetted in its agitation by three ' front' organizations on the South­ern scene," Cook said, listing the Southern Conference Education Fund, the Southern Regional Coun­cil and the Georgia Committee on Interracial Cooperation, an SRC af­filiate.

The Georgia Committee on Inter­racial Cooperation, the attorney gen­eral said, "is a perfect example of an organization formed for the purpose of exploiting the names, reputations and services of well-intentioned do­gooders." Its members, he said, "have been duped into doing the bid­ding of the more sinister elements manipulating the Southern Regional Council."

WILKJNS FIRES BACK Simultaneously with the release of

Cook's attack on the NAACP, the press was supplied with a statement in reply from Roy Wilkins, executive secretary.

Wilkins accused Cook of "conspir­acy" with some other state officials in the South to oppose the U. S. Su­preme Court's order to desegregate in the public schools by charging the NAACP is "subversive."

The NAACP executive secretary cited speeches by three other South­ern public officials-Beverly Lake, then assistant attorney general of North Carolina; Lt. Gov. Ernest Hodges of South Carolina and Sen. Eastland of Mississippi-as being of the same general import as Cook's ad-dress.

Wilkins said that "the NAACP is not a Communist organization or a Communist-front organization . . . Neither the attorney general of the United States, the House Un-Amer­ican Committee, nor any other offi­cial federal body has ever branded the NAACP as a Communist or Com­munist-front organization." He said Cook cannot show anywhere to any­one a listing of the NAACP as sub-

versive by any responsible body. J. Edgar Hoover, Wilkins said, had

written the NAACP: "Equality, free­dom and tolerance are essential in a democratic government. The NAACP has done much to preserve these principles and to perpetuate the de­sires of our founding fathers."

'DISTORTION, UNTRUTHS' HIT Cook's speech, the NAACP official

said, was "full of distortions, word­juggling, free translations and un­truths."

Wllkins added: "This string of in­accuracies suggests the whole speech is a concoction. . . . "

"Mr. Cook labors mightily," Wil­kins said, "to tie the Communist party program to the NAACP. We began our labors in 1909, long before the Cornmuist party appeared on the American scene. The Russian revolu­tion did not occur until 1917. In the NAACP third annual report in 1913 is t.he statement: 'We intend to push vigorously the fight against segrega­tion in all its forms.' We stand today on the same general platform and work for the same objectives."

At all times, Wilkins said, the NAACP has worked "within the framework and with the tools of democratic government. The great religious faiths have been with us in our general crusade. On the very question of desegt·egalion, all three faiths and all major denominations have officially called for compliance with the Supreme Court ruling on public schools."

GEORGE REVEALS STAND Meanwhile, Sen. Walter F. George

of Georgia revealed that he once had considered intervening, personally, in the segregation suits before the U. S. Supreme Court. However, the sen­ator said, he decided not to intervene when he saw that the state of Geor­gia was not a party to the suits and when the state leaders didn't choose to intervene.

Sen. George said: "I was, and am, in basic disagreement with the phil­osophy of the court in reaching its de­cision. I have always felt that the problem must be handled at the state level by the good people of both races. n is to the best interest of both races that separate schools be maintained."

In Atlanta, Dr. Rufus E. Clement, president of Atlanta University and Negro member of the city board of education, told a Butler Street YMCA audience that church organ­izations should take the lead in bring­ing white and Negro leaders together to find a solution to the segregation problem.

The Macon Baptist Association adopted a report which recommended an "acceptance of the fact" of the desegregation decision. The author of the report, the Rev. Edwin Cliburn, educational director of the First Bap­tist Church, said the report recom­mended "a Christian course of pc­tion" in dealing with problems cre­ated by the court's decision.

LEGISLATIVE ACTION

Richard Felts of Atlanta, an efficiency consultant employed by a special Legislative Economy Com­mittee, included in proposed econ­omy recommendations a suggestion that white teachers at the State School for the Deaf at Cave Springs teach both white and Negro students. Use was recommended in cases where the Negroes did not already get instruction in such courses and would have taken place in separate buildings at differen t times.

Dr. M. D. Collins, state superin­tendent of schools, objected. He said state law prohibits such a practice and "it won't happen while I am su­perintendent of schools."

Rep. Denmark Groover Jr. of Ma­con, chairman of the committee, said state law does not prevent a white person from teaching a Negro class but merely forbids the teaching of "mixed classes." Groover added, however, that he agreed with Dr. Collins in principle, and Felts, the efficiency consultant, later said he "slipped a cog" in making the rec­ommendation.

A petition, signed by 44 Negro par­ents of school children and asking "immediate steps" to comply with the desegregation decision, was filed with the Waycross Board of Educa­tion.

Ware County, in which Waycross is located, had 72.3 per cent white and 27.7 per cent non-white school age population, according to the latest available figures.

The board notified E. E. Moore, president of the NAACP Waycross chapter who presented the petition, that it would be taken under advise­ment. Board President J. M. Solomon cited Georgia's segregation laws governing the operation of schools and asked that parents who signed the petition submit the names of their children, their ages and the names of the schools they attend for further study.

Five of the parents signing the pe­tition later requested removal of their names, saying they did not read it or had misunderstood it.

Waycross is the sixth school sys­tem in Georgia to be presented such a petition, the others being Atlanta, Bibb County (Macon), Valdosta, Chatham County (Savannah) , and Muscogee County (Columbus).

The Bibb board had earlier re­ceived a demand from an NAACP committee for a yes-or-no answer by Oct. 15 on whether the board would concern itself with plans for racially­integrated schools during the next nine months. Meeting on Oct. 13, the board said it could not commit itself on the integration request until com­pletion of a study, the extent of which it cannot now assess.

A special committee will make further study of the petition asking integration.

LEGAL CONFLICT CITED The Georgia School Boards Asso­

ciation, in annual meeting in Ath­ens, resolved that the "legal conflict between federal and state authority must be resolved before local school boards can do anything more than study the question of racial integra­tion in our schools."

State laws governing separation of the schools require clarification, the resolution stated, but "as long as the state can withhold funds for the op­eration of integrated schools, our schools must continue to be segre­gated if they are to remain open."

MISCELLANEOUS

Statewide organization efforts of the States Rights Council of Geor­gia, Inc., continued. The group, ded­icated to preservation of racial seg-

(See GEORGIA, Page 16)

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PAGE 16-NOVEMBER 1955-SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEW S

Kentucky Awaits Ruling • lD Adair County Case month earlier the Kentucky E?uca­tion Association had announced 1t was accepting Negro applicatio~ for membership this fall). Mrs. Arline B. Allen president of the 300-member Louis~ille Teachers Association (Ne­gro) commended:

LOUISVILLE, Ky. WITH 24 of Kentucky's 224 school

districts desegregated thls fall, a federal court ruling expected in No­vember will probably determine whether action from any other dis­tricts can be expected before the be­ginning of the 1956 school year.

Background of the Adair County case (Willis v. Walker) was reported in October's SoUTRERN ScHOOL NEws. It stemmed from a Negro demand for an immediate end to segregation, first to be filed in Kentucky.

Another ruling in a Louisville park­segregation suit also is pending.

Meantime no incidents were report­ed in the 24 districts where some 300 of Kentucky's 43,361 school-age Ne­groes are attending classes with white children, and about 50 school boards had appointed committees to study desegregation problems.

On Sept. ll, Adair County school officials filed an answer to the NAACP demand for immediate integration. It said that inadequate transportation facilities and overcrowded classrooms were the main reasons for delay, and that the school board is proceeding

with plans to permit complete de­segregation by the beginning of the 1957-58 school year.

This was amplified by County Supt. Herbert Walker and other witnesses at a hearing before a three-judge fed­eral court in Louisville on Sept. 29. Various witnesses testified to the "in­adequacy" of Negro school facilities in Adair County ( 4,141 white and 241 Negro school-age pupils), and James A. Crumlin, NAACP attorney, sought by questioning to show that segrega­tion in Adair County was being main­tained with the support of state seg­regation laws (already invalidated, in the published opinion of the state attorney general, by the Supreme Court).

The court instructed attorneys for both sides to file briefs on the merits of the case and the question of wheth­er three judges or one should decide the case. Presiding J udge Shackelford Miller, of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, told attorneys "the court feels an early decision is advisable." Attorney Crumlin said later that the NAACP had prepared other suits to end segregation elsewhere in the state but would await the outcome of the Adair County case before filing them.

In the Louisville park-segregation case, filed last May, Federal J udge Roy M. Shelboume on Sept. 31 turned down the city's motion to dismiss the suit and told the city to file an answer. This, filed on Oct. 10, denied that seg­regation in the parks is unconstitu­tional and held that the su it so con­tending, filed on behalf of ll Negroes with children in the public schools,

Louisiana CaiDpaign to NEW ORLEANS. La.

L EGAL battles between segrega-tion and integration forces took a

holiday over the past month in Louis­iana, with continuances being granted in both cases now pending.

However, the now a-building gu­bernatorial campaign is expected to bring the issue into sharp focus.

Louisiana votes in January for its Democratic nominee for governor­tantamount to election in this peren­ially Democratic state--and as yet none of the five announced candi­dates for governor has made any statement in favor of integration.

Hearing on a petition attacking a $100,000 state appropriation to fight integration suits on the local level has been continued to Nov. 21.

The petition (1ft. Willam R. Adams et al v. Fred S. LeBlanc, attorney generaL of Louisiana, Andrew P. Tugwell, sw.te treasurer, and Allison Kolb, state auditor) was to have been heard Oct. 24.

The three state officials have been ordered by District Judge Lindsey Coleman of Baton Rouge, to show cause why they should not be barred from spending any portion of the money.

The petition claims that the $100,-000 appropriation is "unconstitutional and illegal." The appropriation was passed by the State Board of Liqui­dation of the State Debt, a body em­powered to pass emergency appro­priations when the state legislature is not in session.

It later received an overwhelming approval in a mail ballot of the state's legislators.

ASK DISMISSAL In one other suit, the St. Helena

Parish (County) School Board has filed a motion to dismiss a suit (Hall v. St. Helena School Board) because of lack of jurisdiction.

Federal Judge Herbert Christen­berry took the plea under advisement and has not yet delivered his ruling.

Attorneys for the St. Helena School Board contend that Judge Christen­berry has no right in hearing the case since a suit against a school board is in reality a suit against the state. And, they continue, the state cannot be sued until it grants its per­mission to be sued.

Meanwhile, Federal District J udge J. Skelly Wright has re-set a sched­uled hearing on a preliminary in­junction filed against the Orleans Parish School Board (Bush v. Orleans Pamh School Board) for Nov. 14.

The suit was filed in 1952 and re­quested admittance of students to all schools in New Orleans withou t re­gard to color or race of student.

Since that time, however, the suit has been amended and attacks two of Louisiana's three legislative acts which embody the state's stand on continued segretation (SSN, Sep­tember).

WHAT THEY SAY

John Sheppard of the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, speaking before a convention of The Southern Gentlemen, a secret pro-segregation group, in Baton Rouge, Oct. 23, pledged opposition to any move for mixing the races in the classroom. He criticized the U. S. Supreme Court for its integration decrees, saying the courts had no right to "change our laws" and had "left our people ina muddle."

J . B. Easterly of Baton &uge, first president of The Southern Gentle­men, branded the NAACP "the Na­tional Association for the Agitation of Colored People." He added that Louis.iana is a white man's state and there is no room for the NAACP.

"We want to keep our organization above reproach and stain. We have nothing against the Negro race . . . we're willing to help the Negro race, but not a bunch of mulattoes.

"The white people built the schools the Negroes are going to, and we want to maintain segregation from the colleges down."

'IMPRACTICAL' The Rev. Guy Lemieux, S.J ., pro­

fessor of philosophy at Loyola Uni­versity at New Orleans, speaking on "Exemptions from Desegregation" before the Commission on Human Rights in New Orleans Oct. 21:

"I find segregation both in princi­ple and practice . . . impractical, and I mean segregation as we have it in the state of Louisiana."

He said he could find no moral, physical or intellectual basis for segregation.

He also charged that some 8,000 students in New Orleans are forced k> attend school by the platoon sys­tem, despite improvements of Negro schools, improvements began "when

Constructio n Boom

~f ( .

-Louisville Times

failed to specify instances wherein Negroes had been denied privileges.

MISCELLANEOUS

The white Louisville Education As­sociation, with a membership of 1,214, voted 246 to 18 on Sept. 29 to strike from its constitution a racial require­ment for membership. They did so after turning down a motion to bar the press and public from the meeting, majority spokesmen declaring that "we have nothing to hide."

G. Charlton Hummel, LEA presi­dent, said that the percentage of members voting was more than neces­sary to make the action effective. (A

"We'll be happy to see our group dissolve once integration takes effect in the city schools. We won't ~-ind at all if some of our members JOin the LEA."

The Louisville Board of Education nnnounced months ago that it woull begin desegregation next fall.

Said the Louisville Courier- Jour­naL of the LEA action :

"Nothing but common sense, of course .... But since common sense is so rare in the field of racial rela­tions, it merits a bouquet of public appreciation."

A special integration committee ap­pointed by the Henderson school board recommended late in Septem­ber that desegregation begin next year with first-grade students only, with the first-grade experience to serve "as a guide to speed of inte­gration of upper grades."

The committee recommended also that once integration begins, white and Negro teachers be considered for employment solely on the basis of educational qualifications.

(Henderson's current school census lists 21 Negro teachers, 3,034 school­nge white pupils and 514 Negroes).

Highlight School Issue it became obvious that such facil­ities might influence Supreme Court decisions."

Following an announcement from Archbishop Joseph F rancis Rummel that integration of the Catholic schools in his diocese might begin in 1956, a closed meeting of the Council of Catholic School Cooperative Clubs met and passed a motion that mem­bers of the council "be allowed to express their views on the integra­tion of Negro and white children" in 1956.

Unnamed spokesmen for the gt·oup said that purpose of the motion was to present to the archbishop definite opposition to any integration plan.

The Catholic School Cooperative Clubs are the equivalent of Parent­Teacher Associations, and some 73 units belong to the council.

According to various unnamed sources, presidents from 44 of the 73 organizations were present for the meeting, and there were only four dissenting votes on the motion.

. . .

~ MISCELLANEOUS

Paul Butler, chairman of the Na­tional Democratic Committee, was in

Southern Education Re porting Se rvice P.O. Box 6156, Acklen Station Nashville, Tenn.

New Orleans in early October, en route to a fund-raising dinner in Baton Rouge.

While in New Orleans he met with a special session of the Citizens' Organization for Political Action, a Negro group where he was ques­tioned on the possibility that the Democratic Party would be inte­grated in Louisiana.

Butler implied that the policy of the state is created by that particular state and added: "It is my thinking that we are all Americans and we must always work together for a common cause."

Butler also said he was certain that in 1956 the Democratic Party would adopt a platform of civil rights, al­though it was impossible for him to speak for the party.

' 'However, a platform is not enough. The implemen tation of the platfonn is the important thing," he added.

Earl J . Amedee, Negro attorney £rom New Orleans, has announced his candidacy for state attorney gen­eral in the January Democratic pri­mary.

He is the lone Negro to file for state office.

His announcement said that his candidacy "will give the independent, liberal-thinking voters of both races an opportunity to decide on aU of the issues when they go to the polls .... "

He will oppose Fred J. LeBlanc, the incumbent, who has already been endorsed by four of the five guberna­torial candidates.

6-~0 ... 56 - - -4 759 T£ NNESS ££ S TAJ [ l i 8R A~y & ARCH I Vt, S TA T£ l l ~A~Y O I VI S I ON NASHV I LLr ~ . TtNN .

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Georgia (Continued From PagelS)

regation by lawful means, named fleers at an organizational in September and members State Executive Committee, senting each of the 10 COJI\IO'essi;....J

districts, have also been named. Plans call for a central offict

a paid executive director and members paying $5 dues according to Roy V. Harris gusw. who, with former Gov. man Talmadge and Hugh G. of Augusta, was instrumental in moting the organization.

R. Carter Pitman of Dalton, president of the council, told s titute for City and County neys, meeting in Athens, that South has no racial problem and had none for a half-century. Its cial problems were solved by gation."

TALMADGE BOOK DUE Plans for publication of a

entitled, You-A1td Segregation former Gov. Herman Talmadge announced. The book, due Nov. being published by the Vulcan of Birmingham, Ala.

A charter was granted a new Klux Klan organization in

E. L. Edwt~rds, M. Weley gan and William A. Daniel, all o( lanta, were granted the charter the U. S. Klans, Knights of the Klux Klan, by Judge Claude D. in Fulton County Superior attorney for the charter appl was Samuel Green J r., son of the Dr. Samuel Green of Atlanta, perial Wizard of the Association Georgia Klans.

The charter for the Association Georgia K lans was revoked years ago by Atty. Gen. Cook, Cook said he would adopt a wait see attitude now.

Oklahoma (Continued From Page 12)

an all-Negro building on the east side. The trio, two boys a girl, came from a family which recently moved into the district another part of town. A white was also reported attending with Negroes at the La!n~ts;t.on

f~ /

versity extension center at IJoul!lad-­taking night-school work leading ward a college degree.

BULK RATE U. S. Posta ge

PAID Permit No. 928 N ashville, Tenn.