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PAGE 14 —Oct. I, 1954—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS Virginia RICHMOND, Va. tate Sen. Garland Gray of Wav- erly has been elected chairman of the 32-member Virginia Commis sion on Public Education appointed by Gov. Thomas B. Stanley to study school problems posed by the Su preme Court’s anti-segregation de cision. Sen. Gray, an outspoken opponent of integration, has set up an execu tive committee consisting of 11 mem bers of the commission, in accordance with instructions from the parent body. Serving on the executive committee are Chairman Gray and Vice-Chair man Harry B. Davis, of Princess Anne County, as ex-officio members, with four State Senators and five mem bers of the House of Delegates. They are: From the Senate: Sens. Robert F. Baldwin Jr. of Norfolk; A. S. Harri son Jr., of Lawrenceville; Dr. J. D. Hagood of Halifax, and Currey Car ter of Staunton. From the House: Delegates J. Ran dolph Tucker Jr. of Richmond; W. Tayloe Murphy of Warsaw; Joseph E. Blackburn of Lynchburg; J. May nard Magruder of Arlington, and Russell M. Carneal of Williamsburg. One Meeting Held The executive committee held its first session at the State Capitol in Richmond on Sept. 22. The meeting was closed to the press. After the meeting, Sen. Gray released the fol lowing statement: The full membership of the executive committee of the Public Education Com mission met Sept. 22, 1954. It is preparing a plan for submission to the full com mission whereby the views of the public on the matters under study may be ob tained The full commission will make an announcement on this in the near future. In answer to a question from re porters, Senator Gray expressed doubt that the commission would have any report ready in time to be used by the attorney general in pre paring the brief which Virginia will submit to the Supreme Court prior to the court’s December 6 hearing on the decree to carry out the anti segregation decision. (Atty. Gen. J. Lindsay Almond, Jr., and T. Justin Moore, attorney for the Prince Ed ward County School Board, which is involved in one of the segregation cases before the court, said they ex pected to file a brief by Nov. 15.) The executive committee’s refer ence to obtaining the views of the public was taken to mean that a series of public hearings was being planned in accordance with a sug gestion made by Gov. Stanley when he addressed the full commission at its first session on Sept. 13. He sug gested at that time that such hear ings be held in various parts of the state “to ascertain the wishes of the people of Virginia.” Sen. Gray, who heads the commis sion, also served as chairman and spokesman for a group of approxi mately 20 Southside Virginia state legislators who met in mid-June and adopted resolutions recording their “unalterable opposition to the prin ciple of integration of the races in the schools” and expressing their “determined purpose to evolve some legal method whereby political sub divisions of the state may continue to maintain separate facilities for white and Negro students in schools.” At its first meeting, the full com mission adopted a rule which said: “All meetings of the commission shall be executive and its deliberations confidential, except when the meet ing consists of a public hearing or it is otherwise expressly decided by the commission.” That rule, and the general makeup of the commission itself, have come in for criticism from various quarters in the state. Delegate Robert Whitehead of Liv ingston, who is considered a leader of Democratic Party forces which frequently oppose the dominant Democratic faction in Virginia poli tics, criticized Gov. Stanley for ap pointing an all-white commission. Sen. Dalton, unsuccessful Republi can candidate for governor against Mr. Stanley last year, was also criti cal of the absence of Negroes on the commission. Newspaper editorial comment in cluded the following: Lynchburg News: There were those, “The News” among them, who believed that the governor’s commission should be bi-partisan and bi- racial. Another view, that of Governor Stanley among others, was that while the desirability of that could be accepted, it was more important that the commission be a legislative one, composed altogether of members of the body that would have to meet the problem in the end. Since there are no Negroes in the General As sembly, that made it impossible for the governor to find any compromise. . . . That the governor made the better decision will be disputed. Negroes of the State will re sent their exclusion and it is going to be difficult to explain to them the reasons. Norfolk Virginian-Pilot: The original mistake was Gov. Stanley’s decision—contrary to his original excel lent announcement—to confine the com mission entirely to legislators. That elim inated Negroes. It eliminated women (there is only one in the General As sembly). It confined the membership to politicians or at best to men surrounded in the Legislature by the atmosphere of politics. . . . The legislative commission, in adition, has struck an ominous note of secrecy. ... To start off with the an nouncement that all commission sessions are to be closed ... is to erect a barrier that is wrong in principle and will prove increasingly difficult to defend. . . . On the other hand, the Richmond, News Leader endorsed the gover nor’s action, in an editorial which said, in part: Governor Stanley was on the right track yesterday, when he created a commission to study problems of school segregation and confined its membership to legisla tors only. Like the governor, this news paper earlier had fetlt that if a study commission were to be named at all, a bi-racial citizens’ group would be helpful; but like the governor, we also have come around to thinking that because this prob lem finally will be the General Assembly’s to resolve, it is best to let the Assembly do its own investigating. Other Developments In other developments in Virginia: (1) Local school boards and county boards of supervisors from various sections of the state have been adopt ing resolutions, forwarded to the governor, urging continuation of seg regated schools. The governor’s office reported that such resolutions had been received from approximately 25 of the state’s 98 counties. (2) Delegate Armistead L. Boothe of Alexandria sent out a question naire on school segregation to the 140 members of the General Assembly and received replies from about one- third. He reported that by more than 10 to 1, the legislators “feel that no child of either race should be com pelled to attend a school for children of the other race”; that by 7 to 1 they “seem to wish to retain Section 129 of the Constitution (requiring a pub lic school system),” and that more than 10 to 1 feel that no white teach ers should be assigned to colored schools and no colored teachers to white schools. He reported also that “the answers voted 3 to 1 for segre gation between the sexes (that is, separate schools for boys and girls) if we cannot have segregation be tween the races.” (3) W. Lester Banks, executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peo ple Virginia State Conference, and David E. Longley, executive board chairman of the Richmond branch, charged that Atty. Gen. J. Lindsay Almond Jr., had expressed “contempt of the highest court of the land” in his comments on the court decision. West Virginia in West Virginia Integrated Completely Partially No Action Taken Yet Delayed by Protest CHARLESTON, W. Va. W/est Virginia, which split with ** the South during the Civil War over the slavery issue, appeared to hold the dubious distinction of being a “test” state on segregation within its schools and colleges after almost a month of the 1954-55 term. In 25 of its 55 counties, Negro and white children went to school togeth er for the first time during Septem ber. But in two of these—Greenbrier and Boone—near-violence occurred and student picket lines were formed. Integration appeared to be pro ceeding on a “voluntary” basis in Greenbrier County, which borders on Virginia, until the second week of the school year. The board of educa tion had decided to permit those Ne gro pupils who wished to attend white schools to make their own choice. Then suddenly students appeared with crudely-painted signs reading: “No Negroes Wanted in Our Schools.” Some 300 of 440 White Sulphur Springs High school students struck on Monday, Sept. 13. Negro children were threatened with bodily harm if they returned to “white” classrooms. Board Reverses Action So Greenbrier’s board of education, after a session which lasted more than 12 hours and with threatening parents standing outside their meet ing room, reversed its previous ac tion and called off partial integration. Negro students were ordered to re turn to the schools they attended last year. At last count all but a few had obeyed. There is no doubt but that the dis turbance was inspired by the par ents of the striking students—and other adults—who haven’t accepted the U. S. Supreme Court ruling that compulsory segregation is unconsti tutional. Press and magazine writers who visited Greenbrier were solidly of this opinion after interviewing a number of persons. Greenbrier has 444 Negro pupils, amounting to 4.68 per cent of the to tal school population of 9,489, and only 23 of these were enrolled at White Sulphur Springs High and about 14 at Rupert High, where 100 students out of an enrollment of 900 dropped out of classes. How It Started The trouble at Rupert actually started on Thursday, Sept. 9, when Principal E. V. Core reported that about 20 automobiles filled with adults drove to the school ground and told the children arriving for classes to return home. Until that time he said that “white students accepted Negroes and tried to help them.” At White Sulphur, Principal Robert J. Nickel said “it was somewhat notice able that the colored children grouped to themselves, but that is a normal tendency for any new stu dents.” Reports that two colored football players had replaced two white play ers on the White Sulphur High team were found to be untrue, as were a lot of other rumors. One of these was a story circulated that a Negro boy had passed a note to a white girl. Boone County, where the more re cent trouble occurred, apparently had worked out its difficulties only to have plans upset. At first, the inte gration of 18 Negroes into afternoon classes at Madison’s Scott High School because of the lack of equal facilities caused 11 white students to complain to County Supt. C. D. Tamplin. So Tamplin and Scott High Principal E. C. Brown decided to work it out “in a democratic way,” calling a special assembly of the stu dent body where it was explained that the Negroes were being admitted for courses they couldn’t obtain at Carver High, the local Negro school. Luther Jones, editor of the local weekly Coal Valley News, analyzed the Supreme Court decision for the students. The result was “unanimous en dorsement” by the student council of the board’s action in sending the 18 Carver students to Scott. Further more, white shop students voted in favor of bringing in a Negro instruc tor when certain vocational classes faced curtailment because of over loading. No sooner had Principal Brown’s statement that “this is a fine way to handle it” appeared in the state press than anti-integration demonstrations flared up in both Madison and nearby Seth, also in Boone County. Sudden ly, too, a few students appeared in a picket fine in Madison with signs reading “Out with the Black Gigs” and “Down with the Negroes.” Board Calls Meeting The Boone County Board of Edu cation agreed to a meeting that eve ning (Sept. 20) in the county court house. About 150 gathered, including the curious, and an elderly man wearing overalls and describing him self as “a minister of the gospel” took charge. He did not otherwise identify himself, and a few people in the audience referred to him as “the gentleman from Alabama.” After stating that the purpose of the meeting was to protest whites “going to school with Negroes,” the self-made chairman introduced an other whom he identified as a “a min ister” from nearby Danville, a Mr. Kessinger. Kessinger, according to Reporter William Keenan of The Charleston Gazette, exclaimed: Map Courtesy Charleston Gazette They can put me in jail if they want to, but my child will not go to school un til they chase the colored children out. A check by newspapermen did not reveal a Rev. Kessinger residing at Danville, but County Supt. Tamplin said he had heard he was a former resident of the Madison area who had recently returned to the Madison area. Fifteen or 20 male students began picketing at Sherman High School in Seth, also in Boone County, on Fri day, Sept. 17. Principal Curtis P. Smith said the strike was started by “four trouble-makers” and that at least one of the ringleaders will be dismissed from school for academic deficiencies after “things cool down.” He added the four were poor scho lastic pupils who had “never been interested in education.” Smith also said the trouble began shortly after the Greenbrier County incident was widely reported. Story ‘Played Down’ Because of this reaction, newspa pers in the capital city of Charleston decided to “play down” the Boone County difficulties. The Gazette did not publish a photograph it had taken of the Sherman High pickets, who asked to be identified but weren’t, and the Charleston Daily Mail skipped the story except to report an appeal to Gov. William C. Marland by “We are shocked to realize the close parallel between your statements and thinking and those of the late Adolph Hitler,” they said. They said they were referring to newspaper reports of a speech in which Mr. Almond was reported to have said that the court decision was “a clear and un equivocal violation” of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. (4) The Presbyterian Synod of Virginia, meeting at Staunton, adopted a statement that racial seg regation “is discrimination which is out of harmony with Christian the ology and ethics.” Among other things, the Synod urged trustees of institutions of higher education re lated to the Synod to adopt a policy of opening the doors of those schools to all races. (5) President Robert P. Daniel of Virginia State College, Petersburg, a State-supported institution, said that the school had rejected “more than a dozen” enrollment applica tions submitted by white persons. He said the applications were turned down because the state segregation law prohibits Negro institutions from accepting white students. (6) Racial integration, which began on a limited scale in Virginia’s Cath olic parochial schools this Fall, thus far “has worked out magnificently, without a ripple of discontent,” ac cording to the Rev. J. L. Flaherty, superintendent of schools for the Richmond Diocese, which includes all but six of Virginia’s 98 counties. Msgr. Flaherty did say, however, that several white children did not return to the schools this fall because of the presence of Negro pupils. Negroes are enrolled in 10 schools (four high and six elementary schools) which formerly accepted only white students. They constitute a fraction of the overall enrollment- 39 out of a total of 3,527 pupils in the 10 schools. The largest ratio of Ne groes to whites in any of the schools is six in a student body of 138. a delegation from the NAACP that he issue a statement denouncing insti gators of school strikes. As this was written, Gov. Marland was understood to be planning a statement, but otherwise neither his office nor that of State Supt. of Schools W. W. Trent—both of which had said West Virginia would abide by the law when the Supreme Court handed down its ruling—was taking any action. Supt. Trent refused to interfere, saying, “At the present time boards of education are free to act. I shall take no action.” And the office of the state attorney general, telephoned by the Green brier board at the height of its con troversy, was reliably reported as re fusing to be quoted. Elsewhere in State Yet despite this clouded picture, 12 counties have completely integrated their white and Negro pupils, 13 have partially desegregated, 18 are wait ing, 11 have no Negro pupils. Green brier is the only county out of the 55 which has actually delayed inte gration, but even there most observ ers expect integration by the fall of 1955. The others are without Negro pu pils. The state department of education says there are 25,646 Negro students in the total school population of 451,- 999. More than three-fifths of the Ne gro school population is centered in the six southern counties of McDow ell, Raleigh, Kanawha, Fayette, Mer cer and Logan—all of which delayed action until 1955. Six or seven Ne gro students applied for admission to two Bluefield elementary schools, but were directed to enroll at Negro schools, Asst. Supt. Brooks Hardy said. Barbour County, where first re sentment to integration was report ed, now appears to be working out integration without further difficulty- In fact, Supt. of Schools Bretsel Har ris said newspaper reports of parental protest in mid-August “were grossly exaggerated.” He added that “Vf e have almost complete integration” al though the county’s nine Negr° teachers still “are at six predonU' nantly colored schools.” About eight Continued on next Page