About Southern school news. (Nashville, Tenn.) 1954-1965 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 4, 1954)
I VOL I, NO. 3 NASHVILLE, TENN. NOVEMBER 4, 1954 Tension Eases As Court Hearing Nears * S October passed into November, bringing closer the Dec. 6 date for new arguments before the Supreme Court, the picture in the 17 states where segregated schools have been required by law was this: 1. Three areas of earlier tension— West Virginia, Baltimore and the District of Columbia—were calm. Only in Delaware was there evidence of continued unrest over desegrega tion. 2. Florida, North Carolina, Arkan sas and Texas were getting ready to intervene in the Supreme Court hear ings. 3. In Georgia and Louisiana, voters went to the polls to vote on “last re sort” amendments to their state con stitutions aimed at preserving segre gated schools. 4. In Florida, Maryland and Vir ginia, the race issue was the subject of widespread public debate, mostly in political campaigns. Otherwise the region was quiet, in cluding Missouri, where the begin nings of desegregation have so far produced no incidents whatsoever. Here is the state-by-state digest, with fuller details inside: ALABAMA — Despite increasing pressure from legislative sources, Gov. Gordon Persons declined in Oc tober to call a special session of the Alabama legislature to act on a re port by a special legislative commit tee urging the amendment of the state constitution to pave the way for possible abolition of public educa tion. ARKANSAS—As the state of Ar kansas moved ahead with the prep aration of its brief in the school seg regation cases, Education Commis sioner Arch W. Ford revealed that Arkansas’ position “will not be a radical approach or one of defiance • . . (but) a reasonable approach . . . (which) will try to point out the problems, financial and otherwise, brought on by the decision.” DELAWARE—After the State Su preme Court stayed a lower court order requiring the readmission of Negro students to Milford high school, an uneasy truce prevailed throughout the tension areas in ,! aware - Throughout the state, religious and other organizations be- gan to take positive stands for the Preservation of law and order. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA—The desegregation of the District of Co- unabia school system had proceeded smoothly for three weeks when, on ct 4, white students at Anacostia 'gh school began demonstrations against desegregation. The demon- f aR °ns spread to two other former ly all-white schools and six junior ■ ’ kut by the fourth day order a been restored and enrollment was normal once again. ar^° RIDA ~ Until Att V- Gen. Rich " rvin’s brief was made public, the gregation-desegregation issue re- arned fairly quiet. In October, how- DoPt- i O ues tion began to bob up in tical campaigns and was the sub- Trouble Spots ^Because con flict and tension of p' A ! aro ’ Baltimore and the Distr Gctob Urn ^' a mat ^ e fbe headlines spec' ? r ’ dlose three areas are giv m documentary treatment issue of Southern School Nev Wfittt of Columbia repo Pages 1 ! j „ Jearme Rogers, is bv wn. and "PR e Delaware repo and 7 ^ P ' Frank > is on Pages Edg ar V t 6 Rslhmore report, u J ones, is on Pages 8 and A Statement Of Policy By C. A. McKNIGHT Executive Director JN the many letters and postcards received by the South ern Education Reporting Service since the first issue of Southern School News was published, the question has often been asked: What are the objectives of the Re porting Service? The question had been anticipated, and it was answered in the September issue, but now that thousands of new readers have been added to the mailing list, it may be useful to restate the objectives of the Reporting Service. The Service grew out of the conviction of a group of southern editors and educators that there would be a need for a full, factual, objective and balanced reporting of developments arising from the May 17 Supreme Court decision declaring segregation in the public schools un constitutional. As stated by Chairman Virginius Dabney in his letter of July 5 to President Clarence H. Faust of the Fund for the Advancement of Education: “We are convinced that a major contribution can be made at this time to the advancement of education and to the general public interest by an impartial reporting service which provides accurate and unbiased informa tion concerning the adjustments which various communi ties in the southern region make as a result of the Su preme Court’s recent opinion and forthcoming decrees in the five cases involving segregation in the public schools. “We believe that the primary burden for making these adjustments rests with the school administrators and other leaders, both public and private, of each individual community, and that the appropriate program for any one community must be tailored to fit the particular cir cumstances. We believe also, however, that communi ties can learn useful lessons from the experiences of one another. “The Southern Education Reporting Service has there fore been established with the aim of assisting responsible local and state leaders, and particularly school adminis trators, in developing practical and constructive solutions to their own particular school problems by supplying them with objective facts about the developments in other communities. It is our resolve to report the facts as we find them, and to refrain from taking sides on any con troversial issues or advocating any particular point of view.” In sum, the Reporting Service is not an advocate in the segregation-desegregation issue. It is neither pro-segre gation nor anti-segregation. It expresses no opinions of its own on what is good and bad or wise and unwise. It adheres scrupulously to the accurate and objective re port of the facts as it finds them, state by state. ject of increasing newspaper com ment. Florida States Rights Inc., a group opposing desegregation, was chartered in Dade County. GEORGIA—Just as the November issue of Southern School News went to press, the people of Georgia were going to the polls to decide whether to approve an amendment to their state constitution which would per mit the substitution of a private school system for a desegregated pub lic school system. The entire Georgia report in this issue is given over to a complete explanation of the amend ment, and the arguments advanced by proponents and opponents. KENTUCKY—With Republicans and Democrats alike accepting the Supreme Court decision when it was announced, the segregation-desegre gation issue was kept out of Kentucky politics in this election year. The “go- slow” policy of waiting for the Su preme Court to spell out its decrees appears to have satisfied most every one. LOUISIAN A—The people of Louisiana, like those in Georgia, were also voting on a constitutional amend ment as this issue of Southern School News went to press. Unlike the Geor gia amendment, however, the Louis iana proposal would give legal sanc tion to segregation in the schools un der the inherent police powers of the state. MARYLAND—As October opened, Baltimore made the nation’s front pages with stories and pictures of picketing and rioting. This issue of Southern School News carries a de tailed, documentary account of the Baltimore unrest including this pic ture in retrospect: not more than a half dozen of 52 schools with mixed How They Voted At press time for this issue, the voting on the Georgia “private school” amendment, with 1,058 of the state’s 1,810 precincts reporting, stood: for, 153,576; against, 148,317. The voting on the Louisiana “police power” amendment, with 599 of 2,029 precincts reporting, stood: for, 71,161; against, 15,046. For complete analyses of the two proposals, see the Georgia report on Page 10 and the Louisiana re port on Page 3. attendance were involved, and none of the schools with large percentages of Negro students; 97 per cent of Bal timore’s public school students were not involved in any way. MISSISSIPPI—Although a state wide election is still some weeks off, a strong campaign in favor of a pro posed “last resort” constitutional amendment authorizing the abolition of the public school system began to pick up steam in Mississippi in Oct- ber. An advisory committee issued a question-answer brochure explaining the amendment. MISSOURI—With reports in from 466 of Missouri’s school districts, the pattern of desegregation comes into sharper focus. The full details will be found elsewhere in this issue, but in capsule form, here are the facts: 289 of the 466 districts have no Negro pupils; of the remaining 177 with Negro pupils, 110 have begun some form of desegregation. In no case has desegration caused any incident. NORTH CAROLINA — Although he has not yet made public the de tails, Atty. Gen. Harry McMullen says that the North Carolina brief will fol low the line taken by Florida and ask the Supreme Court (1) to give ade- Williams-Ryan Book Slated (On Nov. 20, the University of North Carolina Press at Chapel Hill, N. C., will publish a significant new book, Schools in Transition, by Robin M. Williams Jr. and Margaret W. Ryan. It will be priced at $3.00. The book carries the following intro duction by Harry S. Ashmore, author of “The Negro and the Schools.”) * * * QN May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States wrote an end to an era in American educa tion. Before that date the Court had interpreted the Fourteenth Amend ment to the Constitution to mean that the several states could educate whites and Negroes separately, pro vided the facilities made available for the purpose were substantially equal —and 17 of the 48 states, including all those where Negroes were largely concentrated, had required or per mitted racial segregation in their pub lic schools. But from May 17 forward, the Court proclaimed, no American could be denied admission to a pub lic educational institution solely be cause of his race. There could be no doubt that the Court’s unanimous decision removed legal sanction from the practice of segregation in education or that it cleared the way for massive social change. Yet the nature of that change remains clouded with uncertainty. The Court itself recognized that it had left vital questions unanswered when it called for re-argument on the specific decrees to be entered in the five test cases upon which it based the new precedent. Many of these questions, however, are not legal in character. Many forces have been at work reshaping the character of bi-racial education in the United States—indeed, reshap ing the whole of the complex rela tionship between the majority and minority races. The charting of those forces has been largely left to social scientists, and it is to them the public now must look for guides to the fu ture. Intensive social studies in the spe cific field of bi-racial education were already well under way when the Su preme Court handed down its his toric decision. They had been under taken under a grant from the Ford Foundation’s Fund for the Advance ment of Education, which in the spring of 1953 had recognized the need for a new and comprehensive look at the public school system which had served the two races throughout the nation’s history. As a key part of that project, research teams were sent into 25 communities which had lately experienced the transition from segregated to integrated schools. See NEW BOOK on Page 16 quate time to work out a desegrega tion program, and (2) to give federal district judges broad discretionary powers to fix deadlines in the various school districts. OKLAHOMA—Two legal attacks on racial barriers in higher education —one suit seeking admittance to a municipal junior college and the oth er challenging restrictions in Okla homa College for Women—were the chief developments in Oklahoma in October. There was still no open op position to ultimate compliance with the forthcoming Supreme Court de crees. SOUTH CAROLINA—The Su preme Court decision and pending decrees prompted more talk than ac tion in South Carolina last month. Both the outgoing and incoming gov ernors voiced grave concern over the probability of trouble if desegrega tion of the schools is attempted. South Carolina’s white teachers urged the continuance of a system of free pub lic schools, but did not take any defi nite stand on the question of segrega tion. TENNESSEE — There was no change in Tennessee’s policy of “watchful waiting” during October, and at month’s end it appeared that the state would not file a brief before the Supreme Court. About the only action on the segregation-desegrega tion issue came late in October when the Tennessee conference of the Na tional Association for the Advance ment of Colored People met in Nash ville and adopted a three-point program calling for implementation of the May 17 Supreme Court opinion. TEXAS—Atty. Gen. John Ben Shepperd had a staff of six assistants at work on the brief that Texas will file with the U.S. Supreme Court, but otherwise October produced no new developments growing out of the May 17 decision. VIRGINIA—Under the leadership of State Sen. Garland Gray, the Vir ginia Commission on Public Educa tion announced plans for a public hearing on Nov. 15—its first since ap pointment by Gov. Thomas B. Stan ley to study problems growing out of the court decision. But Chairman Gray came in for some published crit icism because of a speech he made. WEST VIRGINIA—As the end of October approached, it appeared that the unrest in three West Virginia counties where desegregation was tried had about run its course. Par ents who were picketing the schools at Four States, near Fairmont, re turned to their homes after a stern warning from a Marion County cir cuit judge. In Greenbrier County and Boone County, where demonstrations were reported in the October issue, things were quiet. Index State Page Alabama 2 Arkansas 2 Delaware 6-7 District of Columbia 4-5 Florida 3 Georgia 10 Kentucky 16 Louisiana 3 Maryland 8-9 Mississippi 11 Missouri 12 North Carolina 13 Oklahoma 13 South Carolina 14 Tennessee ..... v 16 Texas 16 Virginia 15 West Virginia 15
