Southern school news. (Nashville, Tenn.) 1954-1965, September 03, 1954, Image 9
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS —Sept. 3, 1954 —PAGE 9
Missouri
SHIFTS IN THE NEGRO POPULATION OF THE U. S.
1940 TO 1950
IkiMOnillkiMi
Oittribuhoft of Ntflro fopotolioo
RertofU.5. rn r - ]
28.0% ^ 137.5%
W 72.0% ■ ■ ^
TIm SArft to Urtoi Aroos
Distribution of Nogro Population
Rural Areas .
51.4% I
in
Urban Areas
48.6%
62.5%
1940 1950
SOME EXAMPLES OF THE SHIFT OUT OF THE SOUTH
Source.- U. S. Census of 1950
ST. LOUIS, Mo.
\TISSOURI is educating in its pub-
-L’A lie schools some 63,000 Negro pu
pils, slightly more than 9 per cent of
all pupils. The problem of conforming
to the United States Supreme Court
decision outlawing segregation is,
however, concentrated in a relatively
few areas.
St. Louis with 32,870 Negro pupils
(approximately 33 per cent of the
city’s school enrollment) and Kansas
City with 10,357 (a ratio of 16 per
cent) between them account for
two-thirds of the state’s Negro school
population.
St. Louis county adds 3,500 more,
six cotton belt counties in the south
west comer of the state 8,800, and
six smaller cities 2,300. Apart from
these areas, the entire balance of the
state counts only 5,300 Negro pupils.
Forty per cent of the counties have
none at all. As for school districts,
Negroes are enrolled in only 216 or
five per cent of the approximately
4,000 jurisdictions.
In 1952-53, Misouri spent 162 mil
lion dollars on its public schools, of
which 65 per cent came from local
taxation and 35 per cent from the
state. The expenditure per pupil was
$235, no breakdown being available
as between Negro and white pupils.
While the state spent more per pu
pil than any Southern state except
Kentucky, on a national comparison
Missouri is not among the leaders in
public school expenditures. In 1952,
out of a total income of $6,259,000,000,
Missouri citizens spent 2.5 per cent
on public schools. Per capita, school
expenditures amounted to $40 out of
an average income of $1,583.
To provide the local 65 per cent of
school support, the local districts
levy on the average $1 per $100
of property valuation for rural ele
mentary schools and $2 per $100 for
high school districts. Owing to dif
ferences in valuation, the degree of
local support varies widely. No an
swer has yet been found to the prob
lem posed by some districts using
state aid as a means of avoiding then-
fair share of school support.
STATE FUNDS HELP
The state’s contribution is fixed by
the constitution at a minimum of
one-fourth of its general revenue,
which is raised mainly by a 2 per
cent sales tax and a graduated in
come tax. For many years, however,
the General Assembly has appro
priated one-third of the general rev
enue to the schools. In recent years
it has supplemented this with extra
funds for particular purposes, such
as bus transportation and aid in the
construction of schools for newly
consolidated districts. In theory, the
state in exchange has power to in
spect and supervise standards of in
struction. In practice, the supervision
is nominal. Virtually complete au
thority rests, de facto, with the local
school board members and their
chosen school administrators.
State policy with respect to segre
gation is presently defined by a rul
ing issued July 1 by Atty. Gen. John
M. Dalton. He held that the Supreme
Court decision had immediately
voided all state constitutional and
statutory requirements for segrega
tion. Therefore local districts could
integrate at once if they so chose.
They could not, however, be required
to do so, the attorney general held,
and the state could take no positive
action, until the Supreme Court’s
ruling has been made final following
hearings this fall. Mr. Dalton an
nounced his intention to file a brief
with the Court suggesting procedure
for Missouri.
Under this permissive authority,
significant steps have been taken
with respect to both higher educa
tion and the elementary and second
ary schools.
Curators of the University of Mis
souri announced July 17 that here-
a fter qualified' applicants would be
without regard to race in
all the undergraduate divisions, in-
C u *ke engineering and mining
t ^°^ a - Graduate schools of
e University had been open to Ne-
Sroes since 1950. The decision to let
pwn the bars in undergraduate di
visions was made when the curators,
nder guidance of Attorney General
Dalton’s opinion, faced the question
of what to do with a Negro’s appli
cation for admission as an under
graduate. The University has an en
rollment of 8,000. It is too early to
say how many Negroes may apply or
be admitted this year.
Following the pattern set at Co
lumbia, two of the state’s five teach
ers’ colleges, at Warrensburg in the
central section and Springfield in the
southwest, have announced, upon re
ceiving applications from qualified
Negroes, that no racial restrictions
will be applied this year. The other
teachers’ colleges are at Kirksville, in
the northeast, Maryville, northwest,
and Cape Girardeau, southeast.
What will happen to Lincoln Uni
versity, the state-supported institu
tion for Negroes at Jefferson City,
32 miles from the University of Mis
souri at Columbia, remains to be de
termined. Lincoln University, with
an average enrollment of 800, has al
ready announced that its law school
in St. Louis will not be closed until
after the 1954-55 school year, though
the school last year had only 18 stu
dents. Lincoln University proper, 88
years old, announced August 2 that
it will open its doors to white stu
dents this fall—a gesture and little
more. The curators say they will
study the advisability of eliminating
all graduate courses and confining
undergraduate work to arts and sci
ences courses. But the final decision
on whether Lincoln University sur
vives will rest with the General As
sembly.
GRADUAL INTEGRATION
At the high school and elementary
school level, St. Louis and Kansas
City have adopted similar plans for a
stage-by-stage transition to an in
tegrated system.
St. Louis acted June 23 with an
nouncement of its Board of Educa
tion that the first stage would open
in September, with unification of the
two teachers’ colleges operated by
the pubic school system, one white
and one Negro. Special schools for
handicapped children, which serve a
city-wide constituency, will also be
integrated when the schools open in
September.
The second stage will begin next
Feb. 1, with the second semester of
the school year. At that time the high
schools, of which there are now 3
Negro and 8 white, will be integrated,
affecting some 5,300 Negro students.
The new high school district bounda
ries will be made public by Novem
ber 15, to allow plenty of time for dis
cussion and explanation.
By and large, the Board of Educa
tion announced, students will be re
quired to attend the high school in
the district where they live, trans
ferring where necessary. Exceptions
will be allowed on request in two
situations: (1) if the student’s local
school is overcrowded; (2) if he can
continue until graduation at his pres
ent school without causing over
crowding there. Teachers will retain
their present assignment as far as
possible, and their tenure and rights
will be preserved without racial dis
crimination, according to the Board’s
formally declared policy.
The third and final stage of inte
gration is scheduled to be achieved
at the start of the school year in
September, 1955. This will include in
tegration of the two technical high
schools and—biggest task of all—of
the elementary schools, which now
have some 26,500 Negro pupils in 36
of a total of 121 schools. The new
districts for the elementary schools
are to be made public next Feb. 1.
NO OPEN OPPOSITION
The St. Louis board’s plans have
been received by the community with
no visible signs of organized or sig
nificant opposition.
In St. Louis county, with a popu
lation of 400,000, more than a third
of the Negro pupils are concentrated
in the Negro community of Kinloch
and presumably will continue to at
tend that community’s schools.
Webster Groves, which has the sec
ond largest group of Negro pupils
(710), had not taken action on inte
gration at the time of this report.
Two other suburbs plan to get started
this fall.
The Clayton school board, with
only 19 Negro pupils in a total en
rollment of 2,200, voted to close its
Negro elementary school and to dis
tribute its enrollment among the oth
er schools. Kirkwood, with 447 Ne
gro pupils, decided by a 3-2 vote of
its school board to integrate the ele
mentary schools at once and the jun
ior and senior high schools next Jan
uary, when a new building is sched
uled to be completed.
Kirkwood has been operating a
Negro elementary school with an en
rollment of 383. With the adoption of
geographical districts for both white
and Negro pupils, 75 Negro pupils
will transfer to the nearest white
school, and 63 white pupils will
transfer to the Negro school. Thus
there will be a substantial white
minority in one school and a Negro
minority in the other.
ELECTION CALLED
This plan was objected to by 34
white residents in a new subdivision
which would send its children to the
Negro school. They filed a petition
proposing to transfer their subdi
vision from Kirkwood to an adjacent
school district which has no Negro
pupils. Their spokesman argued that
future development of subdivisions
in the area would be impossible if
children were required to attend
non-segregated schools. A special
election is to be held at which the
transfer must be approved by a ma
jority of the whole district. The
school board opposes the separation.
Kansas City, which has the state’s
second largest concentration of Ne
gro pupils, announced July 30 adop
tion of a two-phase program of inte
gration. Its Board of Education at the
beginning of the summer had voted
to conduct mixed classes at the sum
mer session classes in two high
schools and the junior college. For
the regular term beginning in Sep
tember, it voted to transfer Negro
pupils from Lincoln junior college
to the Kansas City junior college,
and at the same time to integrate
the two vocational high schools by
transferring Negro pupils to the
white school. The building thus va
cated is to become a junior high
school.
Regular high schools and the ele
mentary schools will be integrated
in 1955, according to the board’s plan.
Reason for the delay is to gain time
for the solution of administrative
problems, according to Superintend
ent Mark W. Bills. He said that if
integration became effective imme
diately, 47 per cent of all Negro pu
pils would have to transfer to another
school.
Missouri’s “South,” insofar as pub
lic schools are concerned, comprises
six counties in the “bootheel” and
adjoining areas of southeast Missouri.
Some 8,800 Negro pupils attend pub
lic schools in these six counties. None
of the counties has as heavy a con
centration of Negro pupils as St.
Louis. With their principal towns
and the ratio of Negro pupils to the
total, they are:
Mississippi (Charleston) 23%
Pemiscot (Hayti) 21.8%
New Madrid (New Madrid) 17%
Scott (Sikeston) 9%
Butler (Poplar Bluff) 8%
Stoddard (Bloomfield) 6.3%
School districts in this area have
been slow to take action on the Su
preme Court opinion. The school
board of Poplar Bluff (pop. 15,000)
announced in July that it would con
tinue to operate its Negro elemen
tary and high school, enrollment 353,
on a segregated basis this year, since
the teachers were already under con
tract. No action was taken setting a
date for the end of segregation.
Clarkton (pop. 1,000), which is in
Dunklin county in the “bootheel,”
made a try at integration which
failed. When the schools opened late
in July, the Board of Education an
nounced that 12 Negro children who
in past years had been transported to
a segregated school at nearby Mal
den would be accepted in Clarkton’s
elementary schools. Two weeks later,
on August 2, the board held another
meeting attended by 250 parents of
white children who had protested.
The board, declaring that the district
“is not ready for integration,” re
versed itself and announced that Ne
gro children would again be sent to
Maldin. Board President Charles E.
James and Superintendent R. H.
Hensen explained the Supreme
Court decision and told the parents,
according to the Associated Press,
they would have to accept it “sooner
or later.”
SIX OTHER CITIES
Six cities in other sections of the
state account for 2,300 additional Ne
gro pupils, with relatively low con
centrations in each case. With the city
population and the number of Ne
gro pupils in each, these cities are:
Mexico (11,600), 312.
Columbia (32,000), 501.
St. Joseph (78,000), 432.
Springfield (72,000), 342.
Hannibal (20,000), 304.
Sedalia (20,000), 413.
Mexico’s Board of Education voted
unanimously August 6 to end segre
gation this fall in the three top grades
of the high school. The committee
which suggested this step after a
study of the problem also recom
mended no integration of other
grades at this time. Mexico is in north
central Missouri, 115 miles west of St.
Louis.
St. Joseph, in the northwest section
upriver from Kansas City, abolished
segregation in the summer sessions
of its elementary and high schools,
and the junior college. Superintend
ent George Blackwell was instructed
by the Board of Education to study
integration in the regular term.
Hannibal, Mark Twain’s home town
on the Mississippi 100 miles above
St. Louis, announced July 21 that
segregation would be retained for the
current school year because of over
crowding and because contracts with
the 14 Negro teachers in the Negro
elementary and high school had al
ready been signed.
Springfield, western capital of the
Ozarks, has taken no action on the
public school system although cura
tors of Southwest Missouri State
College there announced the end of
racial restrictions on admission.
Seventy miles southwest of Spring-
field at Neosho, the civil war capital
of Confederate Missouri, the school
board voted to close its Lincoln
school this fall and to absorb at once
22 Negroes in elementary grades and
3 in the high school. Neosho has a
population of 6,000.
Scattered action has been taken
elsewhere. A large consolidated dis
trict at Clarksville, a few miles down
the Mississippi from Hannibal, an
nounced the end of segregation in
both high schools and elementary
schools with the start of the new
term Sept. 7. Heretofore 22 Negro
high school pupils had been trans
ported to Louisiana, 10 miles north.
Louisiana is continuing to operate its
segregation for its own students this
year. The Clarksville district, how
ever, estimated it would save $8,600
by integrating its high school pupils
alone. It will also close its Negro ele
mentary schools. At three elementary
schools operated by the district, the
ratio of Negro to total pupils under
integration will be 16 per cent, 19 per
cent and 10 per cent. In the junior
and senior high schools it will be 12
per cent.
Lexington, a town of 5,000 on the
Missouri river 35 miles east of Kan
sas City, decided not to integrate
this year, and to continue operating
a separate Negro school.
In the north central section, two
towns which had been sending Ne
groes to a separate high school at
Moberly decided to keep them home
this year. For Macon (pop. 4,000) this
will mean integrating 16 high school
pupils, for Madison (pop. 571), four
elementary and two high school pu
pils.
In the same general area, Fulton
(pop. 10,000) will end high school
segregation this fall but will retain its
separate Negro elementary school for
another year. The decision involves
keeping in Fulton 50 Negroes who
had been transported to Jefferson
City, 32 miles away. Queried as to
their preferences, 37 out of 42 Ne
gro pupils voted to go to school at
home.
As for Jefferson City itself, the
state capital (pop. 25,000), the Board
of Education voted July 16 to end
segregation but fixed no time. Presi
dent E. H. Mueller said action will
not be taken until information has
been received on the procedure de
sired by the Supreme Court. The
capital city has 120 Negroes in a sep
arate elementary school, and its older
Negro children attend the high school
maintained by Lincoln University.
Plans for a new high school building
are being held up until the final de
cision on segregation is made.
St. Charles (pop. 14,000), imme
diately west of St. Louis on the Mis
souri, decided to end segregation this
fall in the elementary schools, while
postponing the junior and senior high
school adjustment until September
1955, when a new junior high school
building will be completed. The town
has been operating a combined ele
mentary and high school for Negroes,
which was attended by 80 non-resi
dents sent in from other communi
ties. The non-residents have been
notified that they will not be accepted
under the integrated system.