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Kentucky
LOUISVILLE, Ky.
OUPT. Omer Carmichael of the
^ Louisville schools and his aides
began staff-level informal “explora
tory discussions” on integration al
most a year ago. Their consultants in
cluded educators in Pennsylvania and
New Jersey, where areas of segrega
tion existed until fairly recently, and
in New Albany and Jeffersonville, In
diana, across the Ohio River from
Louisville, where an integration pro
gram began six years ago and was
completed only two years ago, with a
reported minimum of friction.
(Note: Integration will affect
Louisville more than any other area
of Kentucky, in terms of numbers.
Of the state’s present population of
3,144,000 (est.), Negroes constitute
7 per cent. Nearly 38 per cent of the
state’s Negroes are in Louisville (pop
ulation 401,000), where they consti
tute about 16 per cent of the total.
Louisville’s school enrollment in
1953-54 totaled 46,465, including 10,-
294 Negroes. The state census of
school-age children for 1954-55 totals
698,052, of whom only 42,052 are
Negroes.
(In 30 of Kentucky’s 120 counties
and in 71 of its 224 school districts
there are no public schools for
Negroes—there being no school-age
Negroes in 39 of the districts in the
1952-53 school year, and fewer than
600 in the other 32. The latter were
sent to school in neighboring dis
tricts).
Directors of the Kentucky Educa
tion Association on April 21, 1954,
voted unanimously to appoint a com
mittee “to study what could be done
to ease the situation in Kentucky if
the Supreme Court rules to end seg
regation.” This committee was in
structed to work jointly with another
subsequently appointed by the Ken
tucky Teachers Association, state
wide Negro group. Neither commit
tee has issued any progress report
as yet, or any other public statement.
None is expected before October.
CONTROL DIVIDED
Kentucky divides the control of
public education between the State
Department of Education and the
state’s 224 local school districts. Board
policy, the setting of standards, su
pervision and enforcement belong to
the former. But the local districts are
responsible for the actual operation
and control of the program. They
have wide latitude in (1) determining
the nature of the educational pro
gram, (2) selection, retention, pro
motion, and remuneration of em
ployees, (3) determining the school
budget and the tax rate necessary to
produce the funds needed, (4) pro
viding the necessary physical facili-
ites such as buildings, equipment and
supplies, and in (5) the assignment
of pupils to particular schools in the
district.
A fact of fundamental importance,
however, is that the regulations of the
State Board of Education, in matters
not covered by existing law, have the
force of law itself. The board is com
posed of eight members: seven lay
men appointed by the governor, and,
ex officio, the superintendent of pub
lic instruction, an elected official,
currently Mr. Wendell P. Butler, who
serves as the board’s executive offi
cer. The board’s policies are admin
istered, of course, by the State De
partment of Education, headed by the
superintendent and a selected pro
fessional staff, and the sub-agencies
of which include, to date, a Division
of Negro Education.
STATE AUTHORITY
Specific state controls over local
units in Kentucky are considerable.
They include (1) power to remove
local board members for cause; (2)
power to decide controversies; (3)
power to call conferences of board
members and professional employees;
(4) power to discontinue independent
school districts when the census of
white pupils falls below 200; (5) ap
proval of school building plans, of
bonds of treasurers, of school budg
ets and salary schedules; (6) audit
ing of financial accounts; (7) require
ments of financial and statistical re
ports, and (8) the making of rules
and regulations for all schools on
minimum courses of study, care and
distribution of free textbooks, grad
ing and accreditation, sanitary and
protective construction of school fa
cilities, health, transportation (buses,
routes, protection), holidays, prepa
ration of budgets, uniform reports,
etc.
Kentucky’s per capita income in
1950 was $913. It spent on its public
schools (in millions) $2,688, or 2.4%
of its total income.
In 1952, average attendance of white
children in Kentucky schools was
446,909. Average attendance of Negro
children was 30,696. This was a de
crease of 2.4% for whites since 1940,
and a decrease of 13.3% in Negro at
tendance.
The announced per capita of State
support for 1954-55 is $37.51 for all
school-age children regardless of race
Maryland
Continued from Page 6
white and Negro members, in about the
same proportion as our total school pop
ulation. And this is working so well that
the viewers-with-alarm could not have
been more wrong.
But, some say, what about the parents?
How will they react? Since 1947 when our
Coordinating Council of Parent-Teacher
Organizations was formed, it has been a
unified group. Established on the basis of
councilmanic districts, the executive
board of the Council has included every
year men and women of both races. Has
it worked? The record of the Council’s ac
complishments is proof enough of success.
Will it work? Review, if you please, ev
ery activity of our school system for the
past 15 or more years in which Negro and
white children, adult students, or staff
members have been associated. You will
discover that, without exception, every
one has succeeded.
talk well received
Ur. Fischer’s talk was well received
by both the Sunpapers and Afro-
American. A few teachers, he reports,
wrote him letters of praise, and a few
others wrote him letters expressing
anxiety over the new bi-racial com
petition for administrative and su
pervisory jobs. As for public reaction,
he estimates that his department re
ceived about 100 phone calls and let
ters of protest after the Supreme
Court decision, and a few letters of
praise. Many of the protests, he says,
were from people who either didn’t
understand the function of the Su-
!? eme ^ ourt an d complained that
e y were given “no chance to vote”
°r who believed that “blood would
run down the stairs” if school integra
tion were carried out.
One immediate result of the school
board’s decision to end segregation
was the canceling of plans to install
expensive printing equipment in
Carver Vocational School, then under
construction, to duplicate the equip
ment in the formerly all-white Mer-
genthaler Vocational School. Negro
students the previous year had sought
admittance to Mergenthaler and had
been turned down on the ground that
separate but equal facilities would be
provided at Carver. The Negroes had
then sued the city for admittance to
Mergenthaler this fall. The suit was
still pending when the integration
course was adopted and it became
possible to drop the plans for a Carver
printing course and to admit the
Negro applicants to Mergenthaler.
The evening adult summer courses
in subjects ranging from literacy and
citizenship classes through high
school academic and commercial
studies were Baltimore’s first large-
scale integration attempt following
the segregation decision, but had been
planned before the decision was made.
About 1,000 students, 16 years of age
or older and one-third of them
Negroes, attended mixed classes three
and four times a week under both
white and Negro teachers. Dr. Fischer
reports that “not one single incident
of unpleasantness” took place in the
classes, which lasted through July,
and that nobody dropped out because
the classes were mixed, as far as
school officials know.
FUTURE STILL UNCERTAIN
Since the school board’s desegrega
tion policy was enunciated at the very
(Kentucky has made no differentia
tion on the basis of race since 1882.)
It is worth nothing that this figure is
based not on average attendance or
enrollment (average attendance in
1952-53 was only 477,605) but on the
total number of school-age children,
which for 1954-55 is 698,759, and that,
in addition to the per capital allot
ment for these, the state later will
distribute $8,573,000 to its poorest
school districts as the beginning of its
new “minimum-foundation” program.
The state’s per capita total, exclud
ing the minimum-foundation grants,
is $26,212,500. This fund is earmarked
specifically for teachers’ salaries, to
which the state’s 224 local school dis
tricts will add another 24 million dol
lars.
EVENTS SINCE MAY
The story since May 17 in brief:
Kentucky has quietly accepted the
implications of the Supreme Court’s
ruling of May 17, and will implement
it in whatever manner the Court sub
sequently decrees. But there will be
no integration in 1954.
Kentucky’s official reaction was
promptly established by Gov. Law
rence Wetherby with the announce
ment on May 17 that “Kentucky will
do whatever is necessary to comply
with the law.” On the same day Atty.
Gen. J. D. Buckman said that the
ruling (a) knocks out Kentucky’s
famous Day Law, which made it il
legal for whites and Negroes to attend
public or private schools together,
and (b) nullifies a portion of Section
187 of Kentucky’s constitution, which
required that separate schools be
maintained for whites and Negroes.
Kentucky’s senior Senator, Earle
C. Clements (Democrat), said he
anticipated that “orderly steps will
be taken” to implement the Court’s
decision. Senator John Sherman
Cooper (Republican) said the deci
sion “is a logical result under the
Constitution.” The only member of
the state’s congressional delegation
to criticize the decision as “most un
fortunate” (Democratic Rep. Frank
L. Chelf) nevertheless concluded “be
that as it may, the Court has decided,
and that is final.”
On June 17 the State Board of Edu
cation advised local boards that,
pending a finalydecree on desegrega
tion by the Supreme Court, they
should plan their 1954-55 term under
Kentucky laws requiring segregated
classes. The advisory statement,
which has the effect of law, was ap
proved by the board on a motion by
its only Negro member, A. E. Mezeek
of Louisville, who said: “I think it is
the only thing we can do.”
On July 2 Gov. Wetherby appointed
a seven-member committee, includ
ing two Negroes, to advise the state
on problems of ending segregation in
the public schools. No report is ex
end of the school year, school officials
will not know how much integration
will actually take place until the fall
registration is completed. At the mo
ment Dr. Fischer can only say that
“a number of schools will have Negro
pupils,” with the heaviest Negro en
rollment coming in the formerly
white elementary schools serving
borderline Negro-white neighbor
hoods. On the secondary level, in
addition to Mergenthaler, it is also
known that about 20 Negro girls will
be attending the all-girl, formerly all-
white Western High School. A lawsuit
had been pending to admit Negro girls
to this academically high ranking
girls’ high school which has an ac
celerated pre-college course of na
tional renonwn.
In mid-July Dr. Fischer reported to
the school board that a complete
teaching staff had been assembled for
the fall term—the first time in several
years that the city had not found Sep
tember approaching with not enough
teachers to go around. At that time,
with the no-vacancy sign out, no
Negro teachers had been assigned to
white or mixed classes. That phase of
integration, Dr. Fischer said, would
be slow to develop, but the break may
come in secondary schools, where the
shortage of white teachers is most
troublesome. The supply of Negro
teachers is relatively strong.
On June 4, just 24 hours after the
decision to end segregation in Balti
more public schools, the Rev. Dr. Leo
J. McCormick, superintendent of
schools in the Catholic Department of
Education, Archdiocese of Baltimore,
SOUTHERN SCHOOL
pected from this committee before
October.
Negro groups on July 10 elected a
special committee of lawyers and
educators to study the problem of
desegregation. Represented on it are
branches of the NAACP, the Ken
tucky Teachers Association, and vari
ous PTA units. The chairman is James
A. Crumlin of Louisville, president of
the Kentucky state conference of
NAACP branches.
At its first meeting the committee
heard a State Department of Educa
tion spokesman, Sam Taylor, director
of the department’s division of edu
cational supervision, explain that the
state has said it will abide by the de
cision of the Supreme Court, that the
department has no definite plans as
to how and when desegregation will
be accomplished, that the state is
waiting for the court to say how its
decision should be implemented.
Bishops of the A.M.E. Zion Church
at their national convention in Louis
ville on Aug. 7 urged Negro leaders
not to “enter into any collusion or
compromise” on desegregation and
resolved that “by no means should
we in any place permit ourselves to
become adjusted to voluntary segre
gation, professing that we think it
necessary to keep the peace.”
In a related field, Louisville’s Mayor
Andrew Broaddus announced this
summer that henceforth all city jobs
would be open to Negroes. Louisville
has 2,182 civil service jobs, about an
equal number of others not under
civil service. But the Mayor stuck to
his June 1 announcement that he in
tends to continue the present prac
tice of segregation in city parks and
swimming pools. He made this state
ment to a five-man delegation f>-
the Louisville branch of the NAACP,
headed by President George T. Cord-
ery. (The delegation had sought but
failed to obtain an appointment with
the Mayor on May 17 in order “to
strike while the iron is hot.”)
‘PRESSURE’ CHARGED
Mr. Cordery said that Negroes are
“increasingly perturbed” over seg
regation in the parks. Mayor Broad
dus said that the group was bringing
“undue pressure,” that Louisville had
done “a good job” in improving race
relations, and that “we are marking
time until the Supreme Court cases
(on various segregation issues) are
settled.” An NAACP spokesman said
that a suit now pending before the
State Court of Appeals might settle
the park issue.
A public opinion survey subse
quently made for Mayor Broaddus
reported that 73 per cent of the
whites and Negroes interviewed
wanted park segregation to continue,
but that slightly more than 70 per
cent of the Negroes interviewed op
posed continuation.
announced that “we will certainly
abide by the decision of the Supreme
Court.” His announcement concerned
the extensive Roman Catholic school
system in the Baltimore area, consist
ing of 66 elementary schools, one
special school, 9 high schools and 11
commercial schools in the city and 44
elementary schools and 16 high
schools in the counties, with a total
enrollment of about 56,000 students.
College-level Catholic schools were
already on a nonsegregated basis.
“We must give due consideration,”
Dr. McCormick said, “to the means
and methods of making the (desegre
gation) decision effective,” indicating
that it had not yet been determined
how integration was to be carried out
in the Catholic schools, which on the
elementary level are districted by
parishes. But the fact that the Cath
olic educational leader had spoken out
promptly on the segregation issue was
believed by public school officials to
enhance the chances of having a quiet,
orderly change-over in the city’s
schools in September.
UNIVERSITY ADMITS NEGROES
On June 25 the Board of Regents of
the University of Maryland voted to
admit qualified Maryland Negroes to
all levels of college work. Previously
Negroes had been accepted only in
the graduate schools and, in rare
cases, in undergraduate courses not
offered elsewhere in Maryland.
The new policy is limited to quali
fied students who are “residents of
Maryland” is believed to exclude
Negroes who are residents of the Dis-
NEWS —Sept. 3, 1954 —PAGE 7
Here are some relevant background
facts on the Louisville situation:
There already is no segregation on
public transportation, in the city li
braries, at the University of Louis
ville, at three Catholic colleges, at
the Baptist and Presbyterian theo
logical seminaries. Negro firemen
work and live in the same stations as
white firemen. The city’s General
Hospital is open to Negro nurse
trainees. The city employs Negro po
licemen.
As of August, 1954, Louisville’s
Supt. Carmichael reports that: Staff-
level discussions and exploration of
the problem of desegregation, begun
last year, are continuing. We are
moving slowly and cautiously. No
definite plans will be announced until
after the Supreme Court speaks, but
we are working on them in fine with
the May 17 instructions of the Louis
ville Board of Education.
MILD REACTION
Public reaction in Kentucky to the
court’s decision has been mild, save
for the burning of a cross on the lawn
of Lexington’s Supt. John M. Ridg-
way on the night of May 18 after he
had said that the decision would
make “relatively little difference” to
the Lexington system where schools
are located in relation to the pupils
they serve (Mr. Ridgway condemned
the burning as “a crime ... of ig
norance”). The flow of letters to
newspaper editors has been a trickle
compared with that excited by other
controversial matters; few have been
extreme in tone.
Louisville’s Supt. Carmichael had
received only six letters of protest
(only two “extreme,” but all anony
mous) by mid-August. Said he: “Our
community is already past the shock
period.”
The Rt. Rev. Felix Pitt, secretary
of the Louisville Catholic School
Board, predicted that integration
would be accomplished without seri
ous trouble.
John Kenna, local secretary of the
National Conference of Christians
and Jews, deemed Louisville “an ideal
testing place,” doubted “if we will
have much trouble.”
Charles Steele, secretary of the Ur
ban League in Louisville, said:
“Frankly, there’s resentment on the
part of some people. The people in
positions of leadership in the neigh
borhoods are going to have to be
given some sort of indoctrination. A
lot is going to depend on school
boundaries. In all probability they
will have to be changed.”
And Mrs. Herbert Zimmerman,
president of the Louisville PTA
Council, put it this way: “There has
been a great deal of quiet discussion
about the matter and I think that
once we get used to the idea, inte
gration will be fairly orderly.”
trict of Columbia. The university is
close to the District line and presum
ably would be as attractive to Wash
ington Negroes, if open to them, as it
now is to white Washingtonians.
Baltimore Negroes have Morgan
State College close at hand and are,
therefore, less likely to be drawn to
the College Park campus.
The admittance of Maryland Ne
groes to the College Park campus of
the University of Maryland “auto
matically” closes out the out-of-state
scholarship fund for Negroes, in the
opinion of the attorney general’s of
fice. The scholarship program, estab
lished in 1933, was Maryland’s answer
to the need either to open College
Park facilities fully to Negroes or to
build extensive duplicate facilities
elsewhere for them. In the last fiscal
year, ending June 30, the State de
frayed the added expenses incurred
by some 1,000 Negroes taking courses
in colleges and universities outside of
Maryland which were not available
to them at home, at a total cost of
$244,000.
The principals, supervisors and
presidents of the Negro schools and
colleges in Maryland met in a con
ference at Morgan State College on
June 19 to consider “how they might
contribute to a smooth and orderly
adjustment of our public school sys
tem to the recent decision of the Su
preme Court of the United States.”
The conference, under the chairman
ship of Dr. Martin D. Jenkins, presi
dent of Morgan, commended the edu-
See MARYLAND On Page 15