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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