Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

North Carolina RALEIGH, N. C. P ublic schools still were segregated as the new school year began in North Carolina without any direct challenges to the segregation policy adopted earlier for the 1954-55 ses sion by the State Board of Educa tion. Two incidents accompanied school openings, but neither one apparently was designed to test the validity of the state’s present segregation rule. In Greensboro, two teen-age girls who last year attended a Negro high school there applied for admission to the white rural high school of Colfax in the same county. The girls con tended they are not Negroes, but are of mixed Scotch - Irish - English - Indian extraction. Colfax Principal W. H. Dewar told the girls, when they applied, that they was not allowed to accept transfer students from Dudley High School, a Negro school. They appealed to Guil ford County Supt. E. D. Idol, who told them they could go to Colfax if they proved their claim of descent. “If the question is a question of their race,” said Idol, “that puts a different face on the matter. If they are Indians, and I see no reason why they cannot prove such if it is so, then they probably belong in a white school. “But if they should be Negroes and desire to enter Colfax only on the basis of the recent Supreme Court ruling that segregation is not lawful, then we would have to say, ‘No’.” North Carolina, he said, is continu ing segregation in the schools until the court decree is spelled out. Incident at Stanley The other incident occurred in Stanley, a small community in Gas ton County. Because of the condition of the three-room Negro school in Stanley, the State Board of Education condemned the building and ordered the students to attend school in Dal las, six miles away. On the first of September, school buses stopped in Stanley to pick up the approximately 100 Negro children. They waved to the bus drivers, but declined to get aboard. The boycott climaxed efforts of Ne gro parents in Stanley to get a new school building, rather than to yield to a school consolidation policy which has been in effect in the state for sev eral years. Parents of the elementary grade children asked for a building as good as that of the whites in Stan ley. School authorities contended it was not feasible to spend about $125,000 for a Negro school building for 100 students after two rooms had already been added to the Dallas school to care for Stanley students. A lawsuit seeking the structure was filed for the parents last year by Negro At torney Charles Bell of Charlotte. Gaston County School Supt. Hunter Huss said he thought Stanley Negroes actually were seeking to have their children integrated in the 22-teacher white elementary school in Stanley. None of the Negro parents—or At torney Bell—said publicly this was their purpose. None of the children have sought admittance to the white school. Most of the expressed sentiment formed a familiar pattern in North Carolina of opposition to the removal °t a school from a community by consolidation. A correspondent for he Charlotte News talked to some of he Negro parents. Typical comments: ome folks have the wrong idea. T1 eheve that we’re striking and not lett ers get on the bus because Thai *” em t° go to school with the whii i * ® n °t so. We don’t want that. lI?5 0I V t want them going out of < thL? lu l uty to school. We’d rather hi sphiTi , m our condemned three-ro oi here than send them away. . . inaa„“ U !' se ’ ’*■ (the school building) \ We - <1U 1 a i e ’ hut it was something tl the : .? U < ca U our own. We had one no trongeijt PTAs in the county, e 0 one can deny that. ]au UPt -i^ USS Sa ^ that state truancy th S iTi no ^ hufoked now to force ne children to goto the Dallas school, e indicated he believes the boycott w=° U ?P se its own weight. Three still - S a ' ter boycott began, it was bui m Pr0gress ' Each school day, the s continue to go into Stanley, a textile community, although the chil dren do not board them. In addition to the 100 elementary children, 50 high school students in Stanley are refusing transfer to a high school at Kings Mountain, in Cleveland County, until a new school for them is completed in Bessemer City, Gaston County. They had been attending Highland School in Gas tonia but the transfer was ordered by school authorities who said the move was due to overcrowding at Highland. Parochial School Plan Meanwhile, all Catholic high schools in the state have ended seg regation. The Most Rev. Vincent S. Waters, bishop of the Diocese of Ra leigh (which includes all of North Carolina except Gaston County), sent a letter on segregation to Catholic high schools: St. Joseph’s at New Bern, St. Patrick’s at Charlotte, Mother of Mercy at Washington, Cathedral at Raleigh, and St. John’s at Waynesville. Said the letter: Beginning with the fall semester of 1954 our Catholic parochial high schools of the Diocese of Raleigh will register and accept for class work all Catholic high school students no matter to what race they belong, provided that they are Catholics and qualified for high school work. At this time the mandate does not apply to the elementary schools or colleges but may be followed by any who wish to do so by special arrangement. Each parish is to provide its own elementary school as soon as possible, however. The stu dents of the different races accepted under this regulation are to be limited to Catholics only. The Rev. Bernard L. Rosswig, rec tor and headmaster of Belmont Ab bey College and Sacred Heart Acad emy in Belmont, Gaston County, also said those institutions have ended segregation. The new policy applies only to Negroes who are residents of Gaston County and are Catholics. Three Negro girls enrolled in Ca thedral, Raleigh, in the ninth grade. Three enrolled in high school and 12 in elementary grades of the Catholic schools in Charlotte. Church officials said the students in all instances were absorbed readily into the classes. Mixed Teacher Meeting In the eastern county of Harnett (Negroes comprise 25.41 per cent of the total population) white and Negro primary grade teachers held the first unsegregated meeting in county his tory. Bessie Massengill, a primary supervisor, said the meeting was one of “perfect harmony” and had better- than-average attendance. It was so successful, she said, “chances are good combined meetings will be held in the future.” Two white teachers and one Negro teacher were program speakers. In Raleigh, the City Planning De partment is making a survey “to pro vide documentation of the educa tional and sociological problems which may be expected to follow implementation of the court’s non segregation decision.” City School Supt. James O. Sanderson said the survey is for the guiadance of the Raleigh School Board. Three studies are planned: a sur vey and forecast of school member ship, the distribution of school pop ulation and the location of new schools and districts. School mem bership is the only survey which has been started. The survey reports Raleigh’s white and Negro population in 1950 was 73,— 398 and estimates the population in 1960 will be 98,900. Of the 1950 pop ulation, 54,807 are whites and 19,301 (26%) are Negroes. Migration of Ne groes from the city, it is forecast, will reduce the Negro percentage in 1960 to 22 per cent. City Planning Director H. W. Ste vens said the additional studies will show the residential districts occu pied primarily for Negroes. He said they also will show the way white school districts overlap the Negro districts, and vice versa. He said, “We can show what the school districts could be . . . and what the official policy could be in regard to school in borderline areas.” The Institute of Government in Chapel Hill, in the statewide report made at the request of Gov. William SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS —Oct. I, 1954—PAGE II N.C. LEADERS PONDER PROBLEM—The U.S. Supreme Court order outlawing school segregation was the subject of study by of this North Carolina group, shown with Gov. William B. Umstead, seated. Left to right: Victor Bryant, Durham, chairman of the Commission on Higher Educa tion; Thomas J. Pearsall of Rocky Mount, former Speaker of the State House and chairman of a segregation advisory committee appointed by the governor to help him for mulate state policy; J. A. Pritchett, Windsor, chairman of a State Board of Education committee looking into seg regation matters; Lt. Gov. Luther Hodges, chairman of the State Board of Education; Fred Folger, Mount Airy, chairman of a commission studying school laws; W. Frank Taylor of Goldsboro. Gov. XJmstead’s legislative aide, and Atty-Gen. Harry McMullan. North Carolina plans to file a brief with the Supreme Court. B. Umstead, has advised that such local studies may be useful to state authorities attempting to chart pol icies under the court decision. “Realistic local appraisal of these problems and ways of meeting them,” said the Institute,” . . . might inform and illuminate the deliberations of our leaders, and strengthen the arm of the attorney general in giving the court the sources of light it needs and wants and ought to have before for mulating decrees affecting North Carolina.” State to File Brief The State of North Carolina fol lowed the Institute’s advice in an other area, too. Gov. Umstead and Atty. Gen. Harry McMullan conferred with members of a special advisory committee named by the Governor to help him formulate policy, and then announced that the state would file a brief with the Supreme Court this fall. Committee members who helped reach the decision were Attorneys Fred B. Helms of Charlotte, L. R. Varsar (former member of the State Supreme Court) and Col. W. T. Joy ner of Raleigh. Later, Atty. Gen. McMullan said North Carolina also will present oral arguments in addition to the brief, although the state is not a party to any of the segregation suits on which the court ruled. The attorney general said the briefs—outlining the state’s views on how the decision should be implemented—will be prepared by him and his staff. The Governor’s Advisory Commit tee, with Thomas J. Pearsall of Rocky Mount as chairman, postponed its scheduled September meeting. Pear sall said the postponement of the sec ond planned meeting came because the committee is “still doing some studying” and has not reached the stage where it had anything to dis cuss. The next meeting of the group, formed to help the governor draft a legislative program for the 1955 Gen eral Assembly, will be held in Octo ber. (A special appropriation of $2,500 was given the committee for secre tarial help.) In the latter part of August, Meth odist youth from Eastern North Car olina recorded their belief that “seg regation is un-Christian” at a meet ing at Duke University. They voted to present resolution urging support of the decision on school segregation. The occasion was the annual con ference of the N. C. Methodist Youth Fellowship. By a vote of 191 to 89 (some of the 400 delegates abstained) the group voted to present identical resolutions on the subject to the North Carolina Methodist Conference and the Governor’s Advisory Com mittee. The resolutions say that seg regation “is un-Christian” and urge the recipients to “uphold the Su preme Court decision of May 17, 1954, in the school segregation cases.” The Rev. W. T. Thompson of Rich mond, Va., was appointed chairman of an interim committee of the Pres byterian Synod of North Carolina to study segregation policy at synod- supported schools. Other members in addition to the Rev. Mr. Thompson, a professor at Union Theological Seminary, are: the Rev. R. Murphey Williams, Wilson; E. H. Evans, Lau- rinburg; the Rev. Kelsey Regen, Dur ham; W. E. Price, Charlotte; J. H. Clark Sr., Elizabethtown, and the Rev. Julian Lake, Winston-Salem. The committee will study action to be taken by the synod following the recommendation of the Presbyterian General Assembly that synods and presbyteries follow its decision in eliminating segregation at church- supported schools. On Sept. 22, a 19-member delega tion from Pender County, an east ern county in which Negroes com prise 48.29 per cent of the total pop ulation, called on Gov. Umstead and presented him with a petition urging that segregated schools be continued in the state. Heading the delegation were State Sen. J. V. Whitfield and State Rep. Ashley Murphy, both of Burgaw. The petition was presented by Lynn Corbett of Burgaw, attorney for the Pender County Association for the Continuation of Segregation. It said that segregation “should be continued at ail costs” and asked that the state “take a definite stand for the preservation of segregation in our public schools and that our peo ple be given assurance of this fact by our state officials.” The Supreme Court decision, said the petition, is a violation of “the doctrine of states’ rights.” It added: “North Carolina should take its place along beside the other Southern States in resisting this movement to the uttermost even if it means the abolition of our public school sys tem.” The governor was told the petition contained 4,537 signatures, 3,716 those of whites, 299 those of Negroes, and 522 those of non-residents. Rep. Murphy said the association was formed this summer “to help ease the tension” resulting from the decision. “We do want to maintain segregation, and we understand the colored people in our county do, to a certain extent.” Sen. Whitfield, farmer and attor ney who presented the speakers, said, “We know that Pender County can not stand alone successfully against the law. However, Governor, there comes a time when a people must de clare themselves on decisions that affect their destiny.” Sen. Whitfield said the May 17 de cision was “just as wrong as the Dred Scott decision of 1847 compounding slavery, so to speak, in any state” and “is more devastating because it can and will destroy both the Negro and white races. To deliberately take the path everyone knows will lead to a mongrel race is a sorry heritage to leave to the future generations of this land.” He said he hoped “a legal formula” can be found “by which the racial integrity of the Negro and white race will be protected.” The Rev. K. D. Brown of Burgaw, a free Will Baptist minister, predict ed during the conference with the Governor that integration in the schools would “eventually work into intermarriage.” Umstead’s Reply In reply, Gov. Umstead chose his words carefully. “We all know,” he said, that the ultimate action (de termining what the state will do) is up the General Assembly. I can tell you that the State Board of Educa tion, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the attorney general and the special Governor’s Advisory Committee are all studying this question. What the recommendations of this group will be, I cannot tell. . . . The problems are many, and not of easy solution, as I think all of you recognize.” The governor then posed for pic tures with the group. He said two other delegations, one from Duplin County, had called on him but the Pender Group was the largest. After ward, the governor told reporters that he would not pose for any more pictures with protesting groups, and that subsequent meetings along a similar vein will be closed to the press. Any publicity will have to come from the delegations, and not from him, Gov. Umstead said. His position is that anything that is said on the subject will serve only to agi tate people. In Durham, meanwhile, a non stock corporation has been formed called “The North Carolina Associa tion for Preservation of the White Race, Inc.” R. T. Pitts, a loom fixer in a textile mill and one of the in corporators, said, “We feel that if schools, dances and social gatherings are thrown open to both races, it will eventually lead to very serious trou ble and possibly bloodshed. ... I would like to make it very plain that this is not intended to be harm ful to anyone. We want harmony.” District Continued from Page 5 according to a survey of 25 private institutions in the Washington area. This survey did not include Wash ington’s Catholic parochial schools which have had integrated classes for several years. Some of the school administrators interviewed reported a “flurry of in quiries” which they attributed to the Supreme Court segregation ruling. Said one official: “When you are faced with $500 tuition, plus trans portation, you find your prejudice isn’t so great.” In the field of higher education, George Washington University will drop all restrictions on Negro admis sions when the new term opens. Last July, the University announced it would drop race bars “to meet the changing needs of the American com munity.” George Washington already had accepted Negro students in its Col lege of General Studies (night classes), its Graduate Council pro gram and in the medical school’s post-graduate course.