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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS —Nov. 4, 1954 —PAGE 13 North Carolina RALEIGH, N. C. ■^orth Carolina’s still incomplete 1 ’ brief for the U. S. Supreme Court is expected to follow closely the brief which will be submitted by Florida. Atty. Gen. Harry McMullan told SERS that the brief, in general, will follow Florida’s and plead for time in which to integrate the schools. Ii also will ask that federal district judges be given broad discretionary powers to fix the deadline for inte gration in the various school dis tricts. As a basis for its plea of “gradual ism” in integration steps, the brief is expected to cite administrative and legislative problems plus the need for statutory revision. North Carolina will offer no plan for in tegrated schools. McMullan declined to discuss de tails of the brief. He said he hoped to have it completed and ready for distribution “three or four days” ahead of the Nov. 15 presentation to the court. MOTION VOTED DOWN School segregation, meanwhile, came in for discussion at the West ern North Carolina Conference of the Methodist Church. A motion to re affirm the principle that the church should be free of racial discrimina tion failed to win a majority vote. After two hours of debate, the dele gates, meeting in Asheville, approved this statement: That we reaffirm the position expressed by the Episcopal address of the 1952 General Conference that "to discriminate against a person solely upon the basis of his race is both unfair and unchristian. Every child of God is entitled to that place in society which he has won by his industry and character. "That the institutions of the church, lo cal churches, colleges, universities, theo logical schools, hospitals and home care fully restudy their policies and practices as they relate to race, making certain that these policies and practices are Christian.” have the problem we do. It’s rather a cheap gesture to condemn someone when you don’t have the problem he has. Be patient, and give us a little time.” Dr. Mays said the Supreme Court decision was not “revolutionary but evolutionary.” Today’s fears of the consequences, he said, will fade. “In 25 years, we will look and laugh, and laugh and laugh about how fearful we were about nothing.” He contin ued: “It (the decision) says to me that it is the genius of American democ racy that great social wrongs and great social injustices can be adjust ed and corrected without revolution and violence.” He said he was sorry court action had been necessary. “I wish that it could have been out of the magnanimity of our souls.” Dr. Mays said he believed there would be “enough justice on the part of the South and the nation” so that few, if any, Negro teachers will lose their jobs. “The thing that has hurt me most,” he said, “has been to see the emphasis placed on the social aspect of the decision when it ought to be on the opportunity to provide equal educational advantages for every American child. He will learn ultimately that our fears are not founded on fact. We are simply try ing to do what other sections of the country have done all the while.” Mitchell quoted Gen. Dean’s com ment when he was released by the Chinese Reds: “People in the Orient expect respect and rice, in that or der.” Mitchell said, “This demand for respect as it has swept throughout the world has been accompanied by strife, bloodshed, revolution, war and rebellion.” The South has the talent for work ing with Negroes, Mitchell said. He said he has urged white leaders at tempting to solve racial problems to invite Negro citizens in to help. To a question, he said: Ben L. Smith, Greensboro city schools superintendent, drew praise and applause for an impassioned plea for tolerance. He said the state was looking to the church for leadership. And he added, “no place exists for second class citizenship in deciding the church’s position.” The defeated motion on segrega tion would have expressed “sympa thy and interest” to public school administrators working on the prob lem. It also said, “We recognize the obligation of all citizens to obey the law of the land” and that the issue must be resolved “in the light of the teachings of Jesus Christ.” Debate on this motion was mainly between those who said the state ment was not strong enough and those who said no statement at all should be made. Opposition was ex pressed in a telegram sent to the church leaders by Harry P. Gamble, President of the Louisiana division of he Society for the Preservation of tate Government and Racial Inte grity. Gamble, a New Orleans attoi who lives in Bay St. Louis, N a Jd his organization opposes sc! j 1 " 34 *? 11 ’ A former state legisl d assistant attorney general ern 113 * 3113 ’ Gamble sa id many no: ers have received the wrong j 3 , ssi ° n °f the way southern Neg ii. a bout segregation because of unfortunate publicity” given ^ ty “a few people.” editors hear talks ^“ther Asheville meeti Rational Conference of E ' rs beard a panel discus ^egstion by Harry Ashmo of the Arkans df mt of \T Be ? iamin E ' Mays > G a ot Morehouse College, J tiveA ld George S - Mitchell, % c “>»3!Au»i So ' , "” rnI Ashl^ g pati ence “and a little man i*" 6 sa * d ’ ‘‘The Americai ^ericaifw WUUng to acce Ne^o f 11 ^ egro as his equal i less ” tt n ° ^ on £ er willing to t° *so said, “What w ^ ei ^Ocr S m ° st difficult t rights of Cy to do: prote Mshes ^biority and resp “Some « ma J° rit y- of you outlanders There isn’t but one thing in the world that will solve race prejudices. It’s kept in a very small bottle. The label on the bottle says: “For people of similar culture and educational background and different views to work together on a matter of common interest.” Two drops of that and any amount of prejudice disappears. GOVERNORS COMMENT Gov. Herman Talmadge of Geor gia and Gov. Robert B. Meyner of New Jersey also discussed the effect of the decision on the South. Tal madge said the court overstepped its constitutional bounds and set itself up “as a glorified board of educa tion.” Meyner disagreed, and said New Jersey has solved the problems of segregation. Talmadge said the end of school segregation will mean, in Georgia, the end of tax-supported schools. He asked editors “to tell the truth about the South” and said misleading books and articles had caused other sections to regard the region “as one of tobacco roads, chain gangs and race baiting.” Meyner said the people of New Jersey had the same problem as the South when his state in 1947 adopted a new constitution. Segregation, which he said existed in more than 50 localities, has since been complet- ly eliminated. He added that he does not expect the South to change its social pattern “overnight.” Commenting editorially on the Asheville conference, The Charlotte Observer said, in part: “The most rewarding part.... was the calmness with which segregation was dis cussed by southern editors and the sympathetic attitude of northern editors toward the South’s problem.” ... In one discussion group, for exam ple, a northern editor remarked, "I real ize that segregation is a tradition in the South . . .” He was quickly corrected by a southern editor who said, "Segregation is much more than a tradition in the South. It is an integral part of a social system. What we are being asked to do is not merely to transfer a few pupils from one school to another. If that were all, we would have no problem. But we are asked to perform a major operation on a social system. We in the South have had one experience with uprooting a so cial system by violence, and we don’t want it done that way again.” The weekly Chapel Hill News Leader, commenting on disorders in Delaware and Maryland, advocated the establishment of local interracial councils to consider the segregation question. “No one wishes to see the situation degenerate into ill feeling,” said the paper. “But matters must not be allowed to drift. Let Chapel Hill’s citizens, white and colored, come together and take the lead in study for light and progress.” NAACP FILES PETITIONS Charlotte’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People petitioned the city school board (and later the boards in Mecklenburg, Harnett, Montgom ery and Vance counties) for the end of segregation “at the earliest pos sible moment, and in no case later than September 1955.” The NAACP also asked for a hear ing on the petition and signers pledged assistance in “devising and implementing a program of desegre gation in accordance with the... decision.” In Catawba County, the board of education was presented a similar petition and decided to grant the NAACP a hearing on it in November. W. E. Turner, president of Cataw ba’s chapter of NAACP, told the board in a covering letter that the petition was not “a threat or an ef fort to use force in the implementa tion of the desegregation program, but a desire to get together in a Christian way on the situation we face.” Segregation was about the only subject for discussion at a state NAACP convention in Lumberton, at which the featured speaker was Thurgood Marshall, national counsel for NAACP. He said southern gover nors who vow integration will not be allowed in their states “said the same thing when we were fighting to get Negroes into ‘lily white’ prima ries. It did happen and no one got hurt.” “There is no problem about this thing called integration,” Marshall said. “If the old folks—both colored and white—would leave it alone, the children would settle it themselves.” He said recent incidents in Dela ware, Maryland and West Virginia proved that the children managed well until their parents interfered. “The only effective way to accom plish desegregation is to do it at once and firmly,” Marshall said. He said Negroes should not expect “miracles” to place them in integrated schools “without effort or even some degree of discomfort.” Marshall added that “No Negro church ever turned anyone away who professed Christianity. Other churches should open up and admit God and the Negro at the same time.” Kelly M. Alexander, state NAACP president, said “Segregation is the greatest barrier towards better race relations in North Carolina, the South, and the nation. Today it has become a world issue.” He said the press is not giving a true picture of integration because it has played up violence and ignored successful in tegration experiments. GRAHAM STATEMENT Dr. Frank P. Graham, former president of the University of North Carolint and U. S. Senator and now a United Nations mediator, told a group in Washington that the segre gation decision must be “accepted in good faith and wisdom” by every body. He said such an attitude is a “moral imperative of a dynamic pro gram” to “prevent a precarious co existence from drifting either into appeasement or into a third world war.” October passed without a meeting of a special advisory committee set up by Gov. William B. Umstead to help him formulate state policy “to preserve and strengthen the public school system.” Two meetings have been held so far. The last scheduled session was cancelled by Chairman Thomas J. Pearsall of Rocky Mount because, he said, there was nothing to discuss at the time. Originally, the committee was sup posed to help the governor, who only recently spent three weeks in the hospital with a heart condition, draft recommendations for submission to the General Assembly when it con venes in January. The committee’s inaction has been interpreted to mean that the coming session of the As sembly may not be asked to take any specific steps along this line, pending the implementation decree. Oklahoma OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. WO legal attacks on higher edu cation barriers were October’s only publicized developments on the Oklahoma desegregation front. In the background were integration “preparedness” meetings at state and local levels. The first legal move since the U. S. Supreme Court’s May decision came Sept. 24 in the western district fed eral court at Oklahoma City. The National Association for the Ad vancement of Colored People filed a mandamus suit seeking admittance to El Reno (municipal) Junior Col lege for three Negro youths. Named defendants were Paul Tay lor, superintendent of both the El Reno public school district and the junior college, and Steve Lucas, board of regents president. The college al legedly had turned down all three of the plaintiffs, Ulysses S. Grant, Ray mond Johnson and Joshua White, all high school graduates living in El Reno. Filed as a class action, the suit asked an immediate injunction against race barriers at the junior college and requested that a three- judge court sit in the case. The suit was assigned to U. S. District Judge W. R. Wallace, who has not yet set an injunction hearing date. Sitting with him will be his western district colleague, Judge Stephen Chandler, and Judge A. P. Murrah, Oklahoma member of the U. S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. RESIDENCE TESTED For the first time, the suit tests residence as an issue of educational equality. The three youths contended the college is supported by public funds and offers advanced education to all white students of the commun ity, while no other institution in their home county provides the college level business administration courses they wish to study. U. S. Tate, Dallas, regional NAACP attorney who helped prepare the case, told state NAACP leaders he had fought and won five such actions against junior colleges in Texas. Sponsors saw the case as a possible precedent-setter for other home town junior colleges in Oklahoma. The state has nine other independent and municipal junior colleges (in cluding one Catholic seminary al ready open to Negroes under a paro chial desegregation program) and seven state-supported junior colleges. All have followed the general Okla homa plan of admitting Negro under graduates only for courses not pro vided at Langston Negro university. No two-year college existts for Ne groes. A counter-action developed Oct. 11, when the El Reno independent school district filed a motion to dismiss the injunction suit. State Sen. James A. Rinehart, counsel for the school ad ministration, advanced these grounds for dismissal: The Supreme Court has restored the segregation cases to its docket, with oral argument scheduled the week of Dec. 6, fosestalling jurisdiction by federal dis trict courts at this time; and the suit was filed prematurely because the high court’s ruling is not enforceable until “the form ulation and entering therein of a decree." Date for a hearing on the dismissal motion was also pending, while Judge Wallace completed a two-week term of court at Tulsa. WOMEN’S COLLEGE SUED Oklahoma College for Women, a four-year state-supported institution at Chickasha, figured in the second suit, based on the same residential principle. The NAACP filed the mandamus suit in eastern district federal court at Muskogee on behalf of Mrs. Clydia E. Troullier, Chicka sha Negro wife and mother. Mrs. Troullier contended she has a home and two small children to care for and cannot move to Langston some 100 miles distant to attend the Negro college. She alleges she is denied the rights open to all qualified white girls to gain a college educa tion without leaving home. The class action petition asks relief for Mrs. Troullier and “for the bene fit of all other qualified Negro per sons similarly situated within Grady county and the state of Oklahoma.” (The 1954 spring school census lists 13 Negro girls age 17 in Grady coun ty, and 1,070 Negro girls of that age in the state). Canadian County, including El Reno, listed 18 Negro boys and girls age 17. Freshman-age Negroes in other counties where junior colleges are located were tallied as follows: INDEPENDENT AND MUNIC IPAL: Altus Junior College (Jackson County) 14; Muskogee Junior Col lege and Bacone Junior College (Muskogee County) 212; Poteau Jun ior College (LeFlore) 19; Sayre Jun ior College (Beckham) 6; Seminole Junior College, (Seminole) 50; Cen tral Christian at Bartlesville (Wash ington) 20; and St. Gregory’s at Shawnee (Pottawatomie) 18. STATE-SUPPORTED: Cameron at Lawton (Comanche) 45; Connors at Warner (Muskogee County) 212; Eastern Oklahoma A & M at Wilbur- ton (Latimer) 2; Murray at Tisho mingo (Johnston) 8; Northwestern A & M at Miami (Ottawa) none; Northern Oklahoma at Tonkawa (Kay) 9, and Oklahoma Military Academy at Claremore (Rogers) 9. Action was deferred Oct. 21 when the Oklahoma City school board re ceived the NAACP’s standard peti tion for immediate integration, along with a request for a joint meeting in which Negro leaders might offer rec ommendations. The board indicated suggestions would be welcome, but did not respond with the immediate cooperative planning invitation for which the NAACP branch had hoped. One board member pointed out it might be “discrimination” to rely on one segment of opinion in mapping plans for the entire city system. This stung NAACP leader Roscoe Dunjee, state executive committee chairman, into pointing out that an all-white school board itself might be termed one-sided and discriminatory. Meanwhile, a white group was re versed in its efforts to open a church- supported four-year college to undergraduate Negroes. On Oct. 11, trustees of Phillips University at Enid (Disciples of Christ) announced they will stick by the college’s original policy of admitting only undergrad uate Negroes who could not obtain desired training at Langston, along with Negro graduate students. NO POLITICAL ISSUE Rounding out the sixth month since the Supreme Court decision, Okla homa still had not heard any overt objection voiced to complying with the integration order by September 1955. School desegregation did not figure, directly or by inference, in the gubernatorial campaign leading to the Nov. 2 general election. School and community groups con tinued mulling the question of “How shall we do it?” sometimes in for mally-docketed meetings and some- times incidentally at gatherings called for other purposes. Education leaders displayed a keen desire for information and evaluation on the Maryland, Delaware, and Washing ton, D. C. racial flare-ups. Among desegregation information programs during the month: A Fighting Fund for Freedom rally conducted by the Oklahoma City NAACP branch, with Dr. Mar garet Butcher, Washington, D. C., school board member, as guest speaker. An administrators’ section devoted entirely to school merger problems and plans, at the annual Oklahoma Education Association convention in Oklahoma City on Oct. 28-29. All-day human relations institutes sponsored by the National Confer ence of Christians and Jews, Oct. 26 at Tulsa and Oct. 27 at Oklahoma City, on the theme, “Integration is Everybody’s Business.” Joined by 19 other groups, the association tackled the question from standpoints of schools, churches and the commun ity, with seminars in all three fields. The institutes, held annually on themes of current significance, marked the state’s first formal com munity-wide meetings concentrating on the coming integration job.