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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS —Sept. 3, 1954 —PAGE II
Oklahoma
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.
HE Supreme Court has handed
Oklahoma white and Negro lead
ers a problem both groups consider
more financial than social. With no
overt opposition expressed, the ques
tion is not whether to merge state
schools, but how to get it done.
Settled in 1889, nearly 30 years after
the Civil War, Oklahoma never had
a slave culture. Her extensive Jim
Crow customs have been tempered
by frontier-rooted attitudes oriented
more to the West than to the South.
Open racial controversy has been a
comparative rarity.
Oklahomans also have an inter
racial precedent: Indians are ac
corded social equality and Indian
blood is a matter of commonplace ac
ceptance and often pride.
The school system, however, is en
tirely southern, under a constitution
requiring public schools to operate
“upon a complete plan of separation
between white and colored races
with impartial facilities for both
races.” Permitting mixed attendance
is a misdemeanor.
FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENT
Two entirely different tax bases
support the two systems and the ma
jority race school board in each dis
trict administers a dual budget (only
one district has a Negro majority).
White schools draw 20 operating
mills, mostly from their individual
districts. Negro, or “separate” schools
are supported by countywide three-
mill general fund levies plus one-mill
building levies. Negro school build
ing bond levies are also countywide.
To cushion the expected temporary
financial shock of budget merger,
educators are asking one year’s time
and a bigger share of a state per
capita income that ranks 11th from
the bottom nationally ($1,077 in 1950
when $87.6 millions, or 3.6% of the
total, was spent on public schools).
AUSTIN, Texas
T'he 1954 census showed Texas has
1,542,000 white and 228,000 Negro
children of school age.
Of 254 counties in the state, 146
provide complete education for Ne
groes. Thirty-six others provide only
elementary schools. Twenty-one
more offer some high school training
for Negroes, but not the full 12 years
of public schooling.
Fifty-one Texas counties lack any
Negro school. Five of these have no
Negro residents and the others have
too few Negro children to justify
separate schools, in the opinion of
local authorities. In such cases, the
pupils are transferred to other
districts.
The University of Texas has ad
mitted Negroes to its graduate school
for several years, since the United
States Supreme Court decision in the
Herman Marion Sweatt case. In all,
more than 300 Negroes have enrolled,
mostly in education.
Ruel C. Walker, Cleburne attorney,
heads a commission of laymen, ed
ucators, lawmakers and others study
ing reorganization of the college
system. He said in August that 133
Negroes were attending graduate
school at the state university during
the summer, while 2,506 Negroes
were taking graduate work at Prairie
View and Texas Southern University,
the two state Negro colleges. Said
Walker:
Now, all of those students could have
entered the University of Texas, without
question. Only five per cent chose to do
' , T ° me ' that proves beyond a doubt
at they (the Negroes) much prefer to
8 to their own schools, with their own
People.
'to not believe they are entirely sym-
f. Mi- w ‘th the complete objectives of
e National Association for the Advance
ment of Colored People.
_i i1 . c t ua t 1 y. it would be easier—though
wau mrnesirable—to mix Negroes and
mi' 1 ?? of eoilege age than it would be to
schooTag^^ cl ” 1<lren —°t elementary
Walker’s statement was made in a
eevision broadcast supporting Gov.
nan Shivers for re-election.
The Governor, who promised in the
Eventually, schoolmen believe the
combined system will be cheaper and
more effective. Each Negro student
cost $279.99 in 1953-54, compared to
$214.89 per white pupil, pushing the
joint average up to $219.42.
Negro students numbered 31,684 in
1952 (compared to 373,083 whites), or
7.8 per cent of the total. That was a
15.4 percentage loss since 1940.
But the 1954 school enumeration
indicated that the potential Negro
school population is stabilizing. Ne
groes between babyhood and 17 years
of age increased 922 over 1953 for a
total of 54,878, while white children
jumped 11,738 to a total of 475,953.
Approximately half the Negro in
crease came in the pre-school brack
et. Oklahoma county (Oklahoma
City) gained 588 of the 922 and Tulsa
county 141.
NEW LEVY RECOMMENDED
The budget system, unique in seg
regation annals, prompted the only
two moves made in direct expecta
tion of the Supreme Court ruling.
Anticipating that the four-mill levy
for separate schools might be wiped
out, both the Oklahoma Association
of Negro Teachers and the Oklahoma
Education Association recommended
a constitutional change providing for
a new five-mill countywide levy.
In early spring announcements,
though, the two groups differed on
distribution suggestions. The OANT
integration committee asked that rev
enue be allocated to Negro students
on a per capita basis. The OEA legis
lative committee is calling for state
wide distribution on a straight aver
age daily attendance basis without
regard to race.
School leaders’ reaction May 17 was
“We’ll follow the law but it would be
disastrous to do it right now.” Dr.
Oliver Hodge, state superintendent of
public instruction said, “If we don’t
have to do anything about it until
campaign to work for continued seg
regation, said: “I am going to see
that our local schools are run by local
people.” He repeated during the cam
paign:
We don’t need the help of any night-
riders or moonlighters or cross-burners
roving about with bedsheets over their
heads, attempting to hide their faces from
God and man while they take the law
into their own hands. Texas saw an era
of that at one time, and as long as Allan
Shivers is Governor we are not going to
have another.
Gov. Shivers handily won an un
precedented third term nomination in
the Aug. 28 Democratic primary,
cinching his election in November.
SEGREGATION MINOR ISSUE
While Mr. Shivers endorsed con
tinued segregation, the subject never
directly became an issue. After a
silence, segregation also was ap
proved by Ralph W. Yarborough,
Austin attorney and liberal Demo
crat who ran against Governor
Shivers.
Mr. Yarborough’s final utterance
came just before the election, op
posing “forced commingling of races
in our public schools.” He added that
buildings and equipment for Negro
citizens should be made equal to
those for whites.
Thus both major candidates favored
continued segregation. But there is no
doubt that Candidate Yarborough
benefitted greatly by the largest
turnout of Negro voters in a Texas
Democratic primary. Precincts of
Negro voters went eight and ten to
one for Mr. Yarborough. He also
carried East Texas, where racial pre
judice is supposedly strongest.
The Dallas Morning News, support
ing Shivers, commented editorially:
It was not until Yarborough extended
his campaign to East Texas, where a large
Negro population makes the segregation
issue important, that he elected to take a
stand. He then announced that he favored
segregation. This was comparatively late
in the race and it seems to have had the
odd effect of convincing East Texans in
large numbers in urban centers that he is
against it.
a year after September 1, it will be
all right.”
As inquiries flooded his office,
Hodge issued a May 28 memorandum
letter to all superintendents suggest
ing no “substantial” changes be made
until after the Supreme Court’s Oc
tober hearings produce definite in
structions.
“Your board of education should
plan your budget program and poli
cies for 1954-55 according to our
present law and constitution,” he ad
vised. So far as the state department
and OEA had been advised by mid-
August, no district planned to try in
tegration this autumn.
Dr. Hodge’s letter was a policy
guide, not an order, but on this and
any other question regarding state
education his office has broad powers
of supervision and enforcement.
District school boards are corporate
bodies elected by their own com
munities to operate schools under
specific state school code standards.
The county superintendent, adminis
trative officer for dependent rural
districts, is also elected.
DEGREE OF STATE CONTROL
The state education department
controls teacher qualifications, pupil
eligibility, attendance boundaries,
transportation and transfer policies,
financial practices, and similar basic
operation factors. Leeway is allowed
to meet local situations in many cases.
For example, teacher sick leave is
required, but time periods and pay
involved are left to local boards.
State financial aid is contingent on
maximum local tax support and com
pliance with other key requirements,
and may be withdrawn when a dis
trict defies state regulations. Every
district receives a basic $12.50 per
pupil on an average daily attendance
basis.
Fate of Negro teachers is the sec
ond problem drawing public com
ment. Their association has asked that
Negro instructors be integrated on a
pro rata basis with Negro pupils. The
OEA has unofficially indicated it
wants them to “take their chances
... As a practical matter, the only way
in which the next governor of Texas can
deal with the segregation question is in
legislative leadership, with the legisla
ture’s course sharply restricted by the Su
preme Court decision which becomes con
stitutional law.
The presidents of both Texas Negro
colleges recently urged their expan
sion, rather than integration into the
white system.
Dr. R. O’Hara Lanier of Texas
Southern told the Commission on
Higher Education:
“It would be a narrow position for
the state to get rid of Negro schools.”
State Sen. A. M. Aikin Jr. of Paris
then asked him:
“You mean if the Negroes are given
equal facilities, there is nothing to
worry about from segregation?”
Dr. Lanier said that is correct, and
added that he disagrees with some
Negroes who felt that the U.S. Su
preme Court decision had ended all
social problems.
Texas Southern’s formal report
said:
For many years to come there will be
shown a great desire and preference on
the part of the Negro student to attend
an institution, equal in every respect,
where there will exist many opportuni
ties for development of qualities of lead
ership and where full participation in ev
ery phase of college life will be assured.
Because of human behavior and social
backgrounds and patterns, long existent,
the large majority of such students will
come to us because they prefer to do so.
Such students will very likely prefer to
continue to study with homogeneous
groups and will feel strongly that more
sympathetic attention will be given to
them ... in our institutions than in some
other schools.
Convenience of the two colleges to
centers of Negro population and
economic factors also were cited by
Dr. Lanier to support his plea for
expansion.
ENROLLMENT UP
Dr. E. B. Evans, president, said
Prairie View’s enrollment increased
seven per cent to 2,627 in 1953, a year
which saw registration decline at
many U.S. colleges. He predicted that
by 1960, Prairie View will be turning
away applicants unless its facilities
are increased.
North Texas State College at Den
ton this summer accepted its first
Negro student, Principal A. Tennyson
with everybody else” on a completely
non-racial basis.
The Oklahoma City board, serving
the state’s largest Negro school en
rollment (4,900), has taken no action
beyond approving separate budgets
through June, 1955, and continuing
plans for two new grade schools in
all-Negro residential areas.
WHITE SCHOOL TRANSFERRED
The board also transferred a white
grade school to the Negro system be
cause population shifts have left only
65 white children within the bound
aries compared to 450 Negro young
sters. The move was made over pro
tests of the Northeast Chamber of
Commerce, whose spokesmen said
they feared establishing the Negro
district would jeopardize property
values in bordering neighborhoods.
Dr. J. Chester Swanson, city super
intendent, explains the switch was es
sential in any case, but might have
been delayed a year to prove con
cretely the disappearance of poten
tial white students if desegregation
were not just around the comer.
Unofficially, Swanson says his
board will follow an interim policy
of “doing anything we can in small
ways to ease the desegregation pro
cess.” Example: the fall general
teachers’ meeting was planned Au
gust 30 at the newly-opening $2,000,-
000 Negro high school for the an
nounced purpose of using the city’s
largest school auditorium and show
ing off the ultramodern Douglass
plant. Incidentally, and not as a policy
change, Negro teachers would na
turally be included. White and Negro
teachers have traditionally had sep
arate pre-school orientation meetings.
OTHER EVENTS
Outside educational circles, the
May 17 order drew this response:
Gov. Johnston Murray talked in
terms of a “liberal transfer policy”
for the benefit of both races. He de
clined to call a special meeting of the
Southern Governors conference, of
which he is chairman, but sent an
executive assistant to the Richmond,
Va., governors’ parley as an observer.
Miller, 41, of a Port Arthur high
school. He is working toward a doctor
of education degree.
The president of North Texas State,
Dr. J. C. Matthews, announced that
only white students are being ac
cepted for bachelor and master degree
courses.
Four municipal junior colleges—
Amarillo, San Angelo, Big Spring and
Corpus Christi—voluntarily started
admitting Negro students in 1953 or
earlier rather than attempt to comply
with the “separate but equal” doc
trine.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1954
ordered Hardin Junior College at
Wichita Falls to do likewise. A pend
ing case concerns Texarkana Junior
College, where separate facilities are
planned to be built alongside the main
campus.
When the May 17 court decision
held segregation to be unconstitution
al, after consultation with the Texas
attorney general, Texas Commis
sioner of Education J. W. Edgar noti
fied all schools to prepare for 1954-55
operation on the regular segregated
basis. He pointed out that the Su
preme Court had not written its de
cree and that the state constitution
and laws require segregation.
BOARD RESOLUTION
The 21-member elective State
Board of Education then supported
the commissioner’s directive with this
resolution:
Since the recent United States Supreme
Court’s decisions on segregation in pub
lic schools are not final, the State Board
of Education of Texas is of the unani
mous opinion that it is obligated to ad
here to and comply with all of our pres
ent state laws and policies providing for
segregation in our public school system
and to continue to follow these present
laws and policies until such time as they
may be changed by a duly constituted au
thority of this state.
If in the future, the Texas laws should
be changed then each local district should
have sufficient time to work the problem
out.
The board earnestly hopes that the calm
attitude which has been evidenced gen
erally by the people of Texas since the
recent pronouncement on segregation by
the United States Supreme Court may be
continued and that the effort to seek a
satisfactory solution may be accorded in
telligent, sober and dispassionate sup
port by all of our citizens, white and
Negro alike.
Upon adoption of the resolution, W.
Mac Q. Williamson, state attorney
general, elected not to attend the At
lanta conference called by Georgia
Atty. Gen. Eugene Cook. Both he and
Murray took the position the con
ferences were premature. Williamson
is preparing a brief for submission at
the October hearings.
The desegregation question did
not figure as an issue, directly or in
directly, in the Oklahoma Democratic
primary race for gubernatorial nomi
nation (16 candidates) or in the run
off primary campaign.
Oklahoma members of the Associa
tion for Advancement of Colored
People did not officially endorse the
one-year wait, but indicated they
would not try to force integration this
autumn.
Roscoe Dunjee, Oklahoma City
newspaperman, a national NAACP
director and chairman of the Okla
homa conference executive commit
tee, commented, “There will be no
attempt to enforce any conception of
the ruling that individuals might
have, before the Supreme Court de
cides the details.”
NAACP officials also have been
watching treatment of the few Negro
undergraduates quietly admitted to
Oklahoma A & M College and the
University of Oklahoma last year. The
NAACP reports no slights or difficul
ties on either campus, but was disap
pointed when A&M set up a town
residence for Negro students. Both
A&M and OU administrators have
indicated they will await supreme
court clarification before announcing
new undergraduate admission poli
cies.
The NAACP and Oklahoma City
City Urban League (1,200 members
in equal racial proportion) led in
public information efforts, sponsor
ing open meetings for discussion of
the ruling. The league booked Dr.
Harold Gear, Phoenix, Ariz., super
intendent, in June for an intensive
two-day series of private and public
reports on his city’s gradual de-segre-
gation plan. An NAACP public forum
series and an Urban League weekly
television program are in the plan
ning stage.
Astor Kirk, Negro professor at Hus-
ton-Tillotson College in Austin, com
mended the board for “the work it is
doing in the field of public education.”
Kirk said he represented NAACP and
that the organization favors a “states
manlike, constructive approach” to
desegregation.
He declared that responsibility for
running the public schools rests
largely with local boards but that the
state board’s action “will to a certain
extent set the tone for local boards.”
Kirk recommended that the state
board set up an advisory committee
to help work out the problem. Chair
man Thomas B. Ramey of Tyler said
this proposal would be taken under
advisement.
NAACP REPLIES
Kirk’s commendation of the state
board drew quick criticism from the
executive committee, Texas branch,
NAACP. Meeting in Dallas a few days
after the board adopted its resolution,
the committee said:
This action is ill-advised and incorrect
so far as the law is concerned. The Su
preme Court has effectively and clearly
declared that segregation in public edu
cation is in violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
While we recognize that school officials
will have certain administrative problems
in transferring from a segregated to a
non-segregated system, we will resist the
use of any tactics contrived for the sole
purpose of delaying desegregation. . . .”
Dr. H. Boyd Hall of Corpus Christi,
state NAACP president, added that
Professor Kirk “was not authorized to
represent NAACP before the board
or make any statement in its behalf.”
Kirk then contended that he had
been misquoted by the Associated
Press, although a stenographic report
of his remarks supported its account
on the disputed point. Kirk’s follow
up statement said that “segregation
in the schools ought to be ended right
now” although he did not make such
comment to the state board.
The professor said that he had
been asked to attend the board meet
ing by U. Simpson Tate of Dallas,
attorney for the Texas Conference,
Southwest region, NAACP.
PETITIONS TABLED
In Austin and several other places,
delegations of Negro citizens have
petitioned for an immediate end of
See TEXAS On Page 15
Texas