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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS —Nov. 4, 1954—PAGE 15 Virginia RICHMOND, Va. \/'IRGINIA’S school segregation ’ controversy was highlighted in October by the announcement that the Virginia Commission on Public Education will hold its first public hearing at the State Capitol here at 10:30 a.m. on Nov. 15. The commis sion is the 32-member group ap pointed by Gov. Thomas B. Stanley to study school problems posed by the Supreme Court’s anti-segregation decision. Another major development dur ing the month was the formation of the “Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties,” an organi zation which will work for the re tention of segregation in Virginia’s public schools. Announcement of the commission’s public hearing was made by State Sen. Garland Gray of Waverly, chairman. He said persons who ap pear before the group will be ex pected to discuss the question: “What course should Virginia follow in the light of the Supreme Court decision in the segregation case?” In a prepared statement, Sen. Gray explained: This first hearing is intended primarily for spokesmen for local governing bodies, members of the General Assembly and recognized organizations of both races who are hereby Invited to present the views of their membership, or constitu ents, and thus afford the commission the benefit of the opinions of citizens from all parts of the state. The commission will give priority to these spokesmen, but will hear interested individual citizens to the extent time will permit. Sen Gray added that other public hearings may be held later, but that this will be a matter for the full commission to decide. DEFENDERS’ ORGANIZED The “Defenders of State Sovere ignty and Individual Liberties” re ceived its charter from the State Corporation Commission on Oct. 26. Officers were announced as: President—Robert B. Crawford, Farmville dry cleaner, who for about 15 years was a member of the Prince Edward County School Board. Prince Edward County’s School Board is one of the defendants in the five cases involved in the Supreme Court’s May 17 segregation decision. Vice-President—C. D. Jones, a merchant of LaCrosse, Mecklenburg County. Secretary—William B. Cocke Jr., clerk of the Sussex County Circuit Court. Treasurer—E. Floyd Yates, Pow hatan County auto dealer and form er member of the Virginia House of Delegates. Mr. Cocke said the organization, at the time it received its charter, had approximately 2,000 members in 13 chapters located principally in the Fourth District. The annual mem bership fee is $10. He said the group hopes to organize chapters in every city and county in the state. The group’s charter does not men tion school segregation. But one of the stated purposes is “to seek by all honorable and lawful means the retention by each State of its . . . right to regulate within its borders, m the manner it believes to be most conducive to the happiness and good °t its citizens, its own domestic ar rangements, and to . . . advocate gleans by which the people of each . te may enjoy this right and power m any of its domestic matters, whether education, recreational, eco nomic, social or otherwise.” p/^he 4th District includes 13 of the Virginia counties with school pop- H®tions more than 50 per cent Negro, he 1950 census shows that the dis- rict has 171,211 white residents and 167,139 Negroes. Sen. Gray spoke on the night of ct - 5 at Prince George County ^ourthouse at a meeting called to three county representatives to g, e Strict-wide session held at ac kstone two nights later. GRay STATES VIEWS Gen remar ks to the Prince Sup FSe Sen. Gray called the Preme Court decision “political and monstrous” and added, “I have nothing against the Negro race as such, and I have lived with them all my life, but I don’t intend to have my grandchildren go to school with them.” At another point in his talk, he declared: When I was appointed chairman of the Governor’s legislative commission on segregation, I told that group I would act impartially and hear everything any one wanted to say on this vital question. But I also said I have my own personal convictions on the issue which I do not intend to sacrifice on the altar of political expediency. Sen. Gray’s remarks at the Prince George meeting led the Virginia Methodist Advocate, weekly official publication of the Virginia Method ist Conference, to question his “com petence” to serve on the commission. The Advocate, edited by the Rev. Dr. George S. Reamey, said Sen. Gray’s statements “can hardly be said to represent an impartial judi cial mind, such as the people of Vir ginia have a right to expect of the chairman—and of the entire mem bership—of this special fact-finding commission. “If this is a sample of the speeches the Senator intends to make prior to the hearing in November, it raises serious question of his competence to serve on the commission in any capacity, whether as chairman or member,” the publication said. Meanwhile, residents of Nottoway county, in a referendum on Oct. 5, overwhelmingly defeated a proposed $900,000 bond issue which had been designed to help finance construction of three Negro elementary schools. The vote was approximately 1,500 to 200. C. H. Bevell, chairman of the Not toway county school board, had ar gued that existing facilities for Negroes are inadequate and that new buildings are badly needed. But op ponents of the bond issue had claimed, among other things, that the proposal was ill-timed and should not be carried out in view of the uncertainty as to what the future holds in the matter of school segre gation. Approximately 1,300 Negro chil dren are enrolled in Nottoway coun ty elementary schools and 350 in high school, as compared with 1,250 white elementary students and 450 high school students. WHITEHEAD vs. TUCK During October, Virginians wit nessed a sharp verbal exchange on school segregation between Robert Whitehead, member of the Virginia House of Delegates and a recognized leader of the “anti-organization” faction in Virginia Democratic Party politics, and former Gov. William M. Tuck, now a member of the House of Representatives from the Fifth Congressional District. It started when Mr. Whitehead, who is considered a probable candi date for governor in 1957, told the Norfolk Cosmopolitan Club on Oct. 21 that adoption of proposals to abolish the public school system would be “an open invitation to the federal government to boldly step into the field of education and take over.” He said he favored a middle-of- the-road approach to the school seg regation problem, one that would not force integration on any locality, but rather would give each locality wide discretion in deciding whether to have dual or single school systems, or a combination of both. The following day, Rep. Tuck, an outspoken opponent of integration, said in a speech to the Virginia Com missioners of Revenue Association in Richmond that “middle-of-the- roaders” are people who “don’t know which way they’re going.” “I’ve always thought ‘middle-of- the-roader’ was another name for double crosser,” he added. Retorted Whitehead: In view of what he did in 1952,1 would have thought that Bill Tuck would have been the last politician in Virginia to use the word ‘double crosser.’ It was he who, then posing as a Democrat, stabbed the Democratic Party in the back and helped the Republicans carry Virginia for Eisen hower. Who was double crossing then? SEN. GARLAND GRAY Heads Virginia Commission In his reply, R. Tuck said that Mr. Whithead “has in his attack upon me made abundantly clear what I strongly suspected all along, and that is that he favors integra tion of the races in the public schools.” This was strongly denied by Mr. Whitehead. BOOTHE’S PROPOSAL Meanwhile, a proposed plan for Virginia in carrying out the school integration decision was presented by State Delegate Armistead L. Booth of Alexandria, who in past years has led legislative fights to eliminate segregation on public transit vehicles. In a speech before District L of the Virginia Education Association at Norfolk on Oct. 15, Mr. Boothe sug gested that the Supreme Court be asked to grant local governing bodies or school boards considerable auton omy in putting the court’s ruling into effect. He proposed that the local boards be empowered to assign individual students to schools on the basis of academic backgrounds; health re quirements of different students; personality, practices, needs and de sires of individual children; and the intensity of racial feeling in the various areas. Under his plan, the local authori ties would exercise the foregoing powers in three primary ways: (1) by making individual assignments of children to local schools, (2) by ar ranging attendance through new at tendance districts, and (3) by allow ing chilldren within proper limita tions to select their schools. “If we show good faith and can convince the Supreme Court of our good faith,” Mr. Boothe said, “we must not only ask that discretion be vested in the state authorities to bring our practices into harmony with the Court’s decision, but we must impress the Court with the necessity of indefinite time which these changes may require.” The Jewish War Veterans, in na tional convention in Richmond, adopted a resolution favoring “com plete integration in the public schools, according to the mandate of the United States Supreme Court.” On Oct. 22, Recreation Director E. L. Barnwell, issued a permit to allow the NAAWP to hold a rally at Brad- dock Field on Oct. 24. But on Oct. 23, City Manager Ira Willard told Bry ant W. Bowles, president of the NAAWP that the permit had been withdrawn because of a city ordi nance forbidding carnivals and un necessary noise at the field. Notice Southern School News is the offi cial publication of the Southern Edu cation Reporting Service, 1109 19th Ave. South, Nashville, Tennessee. It is distributed free to interested indi viduals and organizations. Requests for Southern School News should be addressed to SERS, P.O. Box 6156, Acklen Station, Nashville 5, Tennes see. The Reporting Service is financed by a grant from the Fund for the Ad vancement of Education, an inde pendent agency established by the Ford Foundation. West Virginia CHARLESTON, W. Va. esegregation in West Virginia’s schools and colleges, rebuffed in the early weeks of the present term, moved along toward a more peaceful solution during the past month with every indication that another year would find almost complete har mony. Only one flare-up marred recent developments, and that was quickly smothered when a Marion County circuit judge issued an injunction on Sept. 28 against mothers picketing the Annabelle school at Four States near Fairmont, W. Va. The angry matrons on two con secutive days were successful in sending teachers home in protest against integrating white and Negro pupils until Judge J. Harper Mere dith issued the injunction. Previous ly, Meredith termed the parents’ action “a rebellion against the government.” The Marion County Parent Teach ers Council voted to support legal action stopping picketing at the school after the pickets had succeed ed in sending Principal Lloyd H. Securro and the school’s teachers home. County School Supt. W. W. Straight then announced that the teachers would return and he would seek court action if they were stopped. When Chief Deputy Sheriff L. O. Yeager tacked a copy of the tem porary injunction forbidding picket ing on the front door of the six-room brick and cinder block schoolhouse, which sits on a hill in the little coal mining community in northern West Virginia, there wasn’t a soul around. The injunction prohibited the 53 parents named as defendants—in cluding a few fathers—“from in any way interfering with or obstructing the entering or leaving of the school grounds and building” and from “as saulting, coercing, or threatening any pupil, teacher or other agent” of the board. JUDGE WARNS PARENTS Judge Meredith told those present, including Supt. Straight and school board members: “It cannot continue and I won’t permit it to continue. If necessary, Ill fill the jail until their feet are sticking out of the windows.” Some white parents had been keeping their children home in pro test against the enrollment of 13 Ne groes with 157 white pupils in grades one through seven. There are 799 Negro students and 13,193 whites in Marion County, the third of 55 West Virginia counties where attempts at integration have resulted in demon strations. On Sept. 13 about 300 of 475 high school students in Greenbrier Coun ty, which borders Virginia, went on a strike. Parents held a mass meeting and the school board rescinded its plans for integration. The following week, two disturb ances broke out in Boone County over partial integration, but the school board decided to maintain the status quo while investigating legal aspects of the case. Both of these incidents were reported in detail in the October issue of Southern School News. Since these disturbances, state Ne gro leaders have criticized Gov. William C. Marland for not taking a stronger stand on integration, saying a statement he had issued fell short of their expectations. The chief ex ecutive had said that integration poses no insoluble problems if both parties make a sincere attempt to understand the viewpoint of the other. Tom G. Nutter of Charleston, pres ident of the West Virginia Confer ence of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said that while Marland’s statement wasn’t as strong as the NAACP had hoped it would be, it should help if “it causes others to give sober thought to the situation.” He added that Negro leaders had hoped the governor “would take positive ac tion” to quiet feelings which caused the strike in Boone and Greenbrier Counties. But if Negroes were disappointed in the governor, they had reason to cheer the unification of the West Virginia Education association (white) and the West Virginia State Teachers association (Negro), which was the highlight of the WVEA an nual state convention in Charleston on Friday, Oct. 15. All teachers in the state will henceforth belong to the WVEA as their professional or ganization. The “Declaration of Unification” follows: “For many long years, the illustri ous and honored profession of teach ing in the State of West Virginia has worked in and through two separate associations; namely, the West Vir ginia Education Association and the West Virginia State Teachers Asso ciation. Both have held as their guiding purpose the advancement of the cause of education, the improve ment of the welfare of those who teach, and the promotion of profes sional fellowship. “During those many intervening years, these two distinguished or ganizations have worked closely to gether in the common cause. But, at the same time, they have been kept separate because of tradition and custom and because of needs pecu liar to the respective groups. “In the year one thousand nine hundred forty-eight, a joint com mittee of the West Virginia Educa tion Association and the West Vir ginia State Teachers Association was established for the purpose of study ing relationships, problems, and programs of the two associations. Subsequent studies revealed a defi nite sameness of problems accom panied by a duplication of effort in arriving at conclusions and answers to such problems. “Upon report and recommendation of the joint committee to the gov erning bodies of the West Virginia Education Association and the West Virginia State Teachers Association, in the year one thousand nine hun dred fifty-three-fiifty-four, author ization was given by each organiza tion to bring into being a unification of the two associations under the fol lowing proviso: 1. That the united professional associa tions of teachers on a statewide basis shall be called the West Virginia Educa tion Association. 2. That the rights and privileges of all teachers shall be those set forth under the Constitution of the West Virginia Education Association. 3. That all life memberships previously held under either association shall be honored and recognized as life members of the West Virginia Education Associa tion under the unification agreement. 4. That the audit of both the West Vir ginia Education Association and the West Virginia State Teachers Association from the cate of July 1, 1953, to the date of final merger be printed in the Annual Report. TRAINING PROGRAM Mountaineer Boys State, week- long citizenship training program operated annually at Jackson’s Mill in Marion County with representa tives from all state counties, here after will be conducted “without dis tinction as to race, creed or color.” A prepared statement of policy to that effect was issued by Boys’ State Inc., a state corporation sponsored by the West Virginia Department of the American Legion. W. Elliott Nefflen, former Charleston lawyer now residing in Washington, D. C., is chairman of the group’s incorpo rators. Boys’ State is attended each year by about 300 high school juniors and was established in 1936. It was the second such program to go into op eration in the nation. A West Virginia Boys’ State for Negro youths has been operated an nually since 1941. Also conducted each year under Legion sponsorship are the Rhododendron Girls’ State for white youngsters and a comparable program for Negro girls. These pro grams are not affected by the action on Boys’ State board, which de clared: Forthwith Mountaineer Boys’ State shall be conducted and operated without distinction as to race, color or creed, to effectuate for posterity a 100 percent Americanism in order that the principles of justice, freedom and democracy in our great republic may be absolute.