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PAGE 4—Nov. 4, 1954 —SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS District of Columbia WASHINGTON, D. C. HE opening bell at Anacostia High School on Oct. 4 was the signal for the start of a four-day demon stration by white students against racially-mixed classes. The organized class-cutting spread to two other former all-white schools and six junior highs. Participating in this truancy were 2,500 students, or two per cent of the city’s 104,000 school population. Trouble started at the beginning of the fourth week of school. Two weeks before, School Supt. Hobart M. Coming had speeded up his original one-year program of public school integration. He had authorized the transfer of nearly 500 Negro high school students to buildings nearest their homes and similar shifts of 354 Negro junior high students. These young people were enrolled in District schools last year and when the new term opened Sept. 13, they returned to the buildings they attended last fall. The new non- racial set of school boundaries pre viously had applied to new students only. Believing the community had ac cepted this acceleration of classroom integration, Corning next asked grade school pupils if they wished to exer cise their “option” to shift to the building now zoned to serve their neighborhood without regard to race. More than 2,300 Negro youngsters requested such transfers. The rela tively few denials were based on lack of seat space. Originally, school officials planned to make the bulk of these student- choice transfers at mid-year or in the fall of 1955. APPROVAL BY BOARD The speedup was approved by the board of education at its September meeting and brought not a protest from community organizations. At the same time, however, the community was reading and seeing newspaper and television accounts of anti-integration uprisings first in Milford, Del. and later in Baltimore. This publicity caused local educators to become uneasy and to talk among themselves about the contagion of mob psychology. Late in the day on Friday, Oct. 1, the word of “trouble on Monday at Anacostia High” had reached city and school officials by way of the grape vine. Police Chief Robert V. Murray took out of moth balls a preventive plan which had been in operation—but not needed—the first week of school. This plan enabled police headquarters to dispatch foot and mobile units to trouble spots at a moment’s notice. As early as 8 a.m. on Oct. 4, the wide street in front of Anacostia High was lined with uniformed police and plainclothesmen. Parked cruisers were occupied by some of the Dis trict’s highest ranking police officers. NEWSMEN ON HAND So well-known was the “strike” ru mor that on hand were representa tives of the local press, the wire serv ices, the New York Times, and radio and television cameramen and news gatherers. These reporters quietly observed the scene without pencil or paper showing, commenting to each other that “maybe we won’t have a story after all.” By 8:45 a.m. the high school’s 43 Negro students had arrived and were huddled nervously on the steps of the school. A teacher opened the door and the group filed into the building. The sidewalk bordering the school entrance was jammed with more than 1,200 white students who were talk ing the usual teen-age chatter but gave the impression of waiting for something to happen. The bell rang. About 500 of the stu dents moved to the sidewalk oppo site the school. Others hurried into the building. Their action was her alded by cries of “chicken,” “nigger lovers” and loud boos by the stay- away mob. Some 150 other students circled the building and went to class by the back entrance. Inside the school, business began as DR. CHARLES E. BISH Shown Addressing McKinley High School Students Washington Post & Times-Herald Photo usual. The inter-com system carried a student leader’s voice saying The Lord’s Prayer and the Pledge to the Flag. Regular announcements fol lowed. Some classes were one-third filled, others had five or six in at tendance. Teachers looked strained but said nothing about the milling group outdoors whose cries and shouts were easily heard. MARCH SUGGESTED Outside, the crowd agitated and then a hulking football player sug gested a march. The students paraded four abreast up and down the street. Somone produced a cardboard sign which said, “We want to pick our own friends” and “Down with Corn ing.” Next the group began singing school songs. Many of the students carried books and brown paper bags with lunches, an indication they had arrived with the intention of school- as-usual. News reporters began talking to the teen-agers. Some said they had heard reports on Friday that “the thing to do” was cut class Monday. Others said they “knew nothing” of the demonstration, but “didn’t want to be different from the rest of the kids.” Repeatedly, the students denied that there were ringleaders. One girl admitted: “We thought we’d have some parent support but they seem to have let us down.” A boy said: “If Delaware and Baltimore can do it, so can we ... we don’t want them in our school.” A bespectacled youth asked a re porter, “Will we make the headlines tomorrow?” The answer was: “Not here son, but unfortunately, you will in every Communist country . . . this is the capital of the United States, not just the southeast section of your home town.” The boy was seen to enter the school door a few minutes later. The truant students picked up a suggestion that they walk the two blocks to Kramer junior high and lure their younger friends, including brothers and sisters, gjit of class. Off they went. The try was futile. Their urging brought only a few heads to the windows of the junior high. ON TO EASTERN’ As the column of students again marched past Anacostia, the shout went out “On to Eastern.” Eastern high school is across the Anacostia River from the southeast section. Both Eastern and Anacostia high schools had all-white enrollments last year and today serve racially-mixed neighborhoods. Acting Principal Eugene Griffith came outside and talked to the stu dents. He said: “I came out as your friend, and I’m simple enough to be lieve you are my friends. I’ve got a big job to do inside the building and I believe that is where you feel you really ought to be. I am asking you to report to class.” The statement was drowned out by catcalls and boos. The principal shrugged his shoulders and walked back toward the cshool. “Well, any way, I tried,” he said. At this point, a motorcycle police man’s radio carried the staccato an nouncement that trouble had begun at McKinley high school. McKinley is situated in a racially-mixed neigh borhood of northeast Washington. At McKinley, about 150 white stu dents had walked out of classes. The school has enrolled 419 Negroes and 598 white students. Principal Charles Bish pleaded with the young people to come inside and “talk the situation over.” About 45 minutes later, they agreed and marched into Room 130. “You can get what you have off your mind now,” Bish said. STUDENTS GIVE VIEWS There were shouts of “integration will lead to intermarriage.” One girl said: “I don’t like what is going on. They have no right to go to school with white people.” Another girl added: “They make comments and hand us slips of paper with their name and phone number and ask us to call them up. I’m afraid to walk down the hall....” A boy stood up and declared: “We want it known that integration won’t work. It won’t work if we have any thing to do with it.” Speaking next was a well-dressed young girl: “You won’t like what I have to say. But they have to go to school with us now. We have to make the best of it. They are human beings just like us. We have to appreciate them, live with them, tolerate them and by doing this will build a better school and a better city.” This was met with yells of “you dirty little Communist .. . you Com mie... Another boy stood up immediately. He was president of the student council. “I am for integration,” he told the jeering students. “Let’s make it work, it’s a practical lesson in de mocracy.” A teacher strode to the stage and said: “All we ask is for a small thing, integration. Can’t you see the great harm if you don’t let it work?” She was booed. Dr. Bish raised his hand and looked straight at the students. For the first time they were silent. “I want to be a good principal,” he said. “But I need your help. The Lord knows I need help now. This is a new road we must travel. There are problems we must face. There must be an answer. I ad mit I don’t know the answers now, but I need your help.” ASKED FOR COMMITTEE Bish asked the students to form a 10-member advisory committee to study the problem and make sugges tions and recommendations. “It will take more than 10 of us to solve this problem,” a boy said as the students noisily left the school for the second time. Back across the city, the Anacostia demonstrators marched toward Sousa Bridge which spans the Anacostia River on the way to Eastern High. Precinct Captain William T. Murphy walked at the head of the group. At the approach of the span, he stopped, wiped his forehead, and said: “Okay now fellows, we’re not leav ing Anacostia. This is your school. You have no right over at Eastern. They can settle their own problems. All right, boys and girls, I’m telling you . . . turn around.” The teen-agers milled around a minute or two. Then, the boys in the front line yelled: “You heard what the Captain said. Let’s go back.” They did. Murphy spurned a ride in a police car and walked back with the stu dents who again took up their stance in front of the school. Murphy told a reporter: “I thought they’d listen to me. I know these kids. They know me.” Racial feelings have not been good in the Anacostia community for a number of years. Six years ago, there was trouble on public transit buses between Negro and white boys of the area. Later, the Anacostia Recreation Center, adjacent to the school, was opened for use by both races. White attendance at the large swimming pool and other facilities fell off rap idly. In 1950, Washington celebrated a Sesquicentennial. A play depicting the Federal Union called “Faith of Our Fathers” was part of the cele bration. Part of the cast was sched uled to present a skit at Anacostia high school. There was one Negro performer in the troup. Mrs. Opal Corkery, then principal, refused to let the performers appear on the stage. She said students had indicated a “riot” would have oc curred if the mixed cast appeared. The board of education investi gated this incident and supported Mrs. Corkley in her action. The school board ruled further that white and Negro persons could not mix in Dis trict schools during school hours. Gradually through the next two years the school board shut its eyes to this ruling which never was enforced. Shortly before school opened this year, Mrs. Corkley retired as princi pal and accepted a teaching post in a nearby segregated Virginia school. She said integration had nothing to do with her decision. CORNING’S STATEMENT Dr. Coming issued a statement ask ing parents to see their children did not take part in the demonstration. The text of Coming’s statement read: The public schools of the District of Columbia have for the past three weeks been operating on an Integrated basis in compliance with the decision of the Su preme Court of the United States that segregated schools are unconstitutional. The students have accepted the program adopted by the board of education and have been continuing their school work in compliance with the decision of estab lished authority. Some, however, today have unwisely followed the pattern of the incidents in another school system and have remained out of classes and have tried to urge their classmates to do like wise. As superintendent of schools, I wish to state that the schools are continuing to operate in accoordance with the action of the board of education and the Su preme Court decision. I have confidence in the judgment and citizenship of Wash ington students and that they will not endanger their educational program by demonstrations of this sort. The school year is only 180 days long and no stu dent, particularly when in high school, can afford to be absent unnecessarily. The students who are absent from school today should evaluate this experience in terms of loss in school work. The parents of these children should realize their re sponsibility to the students and to the community to see that their children are in school and are not a part of such demonstrations. On the second day of the so-called strike, another perfect Indian Sum mer day, about 1,500 students refused to go to class at Anacostia, McKinley and Eastern high schools. In addi tion, the crowd was larger by several hundred younger students from six contributory junior highs who joined in the class skipping. At Anacostia, members of the cler gy walked among the students urging them to return to class and to think hard about what they were doing. BRIDGE STORMING The students, however, focused their attention on storming Sousa Bridge. Shortly before noon, some 500 to 600 blue-jeaned youngsters marched across the Anacostia Flats, headed up the hill and began a hair- raising race across the bridge. The teen - agers zigzagged across the bridge, startling drivers, many of whom braked their heads into wind shields in attempts to avoid hitting children. Motorcycle police raced to unravel bridge traffic. Other police piled out of their cars and literally jumped between the children and on coming cars. As part of the crowd reached the far end of the bridge, top police offi cers tried to stop the rush toward Eastern high. These men were kicked, cursed and scratched by both boys and girls. Finally, the students were driven back by words and a few pushes. Near the end of the first-day stu dent demonstration, Samuel Spencer, president of the board of district commissioners, made this statement: The students of our schools and the adult citizens of our city have given a fine example of responsible American citizesnhip by the successful manner in which they have been carrying out the integration program in our schools during the past three weeks. The Commissioners have every confi dence that both students and adults will continue to do so, that you will meet your responsibilities as peaceful, law abiding citizens and that you will coop erate with the school authorities in carry ing out the law of the land as laid down by the Supreme Court. MEETING ARRANGED Through efforts of a minister, Ana costia school officials and leaders of the demonstration agreed to meet the following day at the school stadium to talk things over. Police were under orders to tell the students to go to school or go home. Chief Murray announced that a section of the District Code dealing with unlawful assembly would be en forced to prevent unruly demonstra tions. Said one mother watching the marching students: “They’re wasting their time talking to these children. Those kids are having the time of their lives. They don’t want to go to school and they’ve hit on a good way out.” A policeman, perspiring in the near 90 degree heat, said: “A good rain would stop all of this foolishness.” At McKinley high, more than 100 students refused to attend class. They were advised by Principal Bish they would be carried as absent and un excused. “I’ve taken all the stuff I’ll take,” he said, “I’ll play it my way now and I’ll play it fair.” A short time later, Bish met with a student committee and made the following points: 1. We’re going to work within the framework of the law and the law is integration. You can’t change it. You don’t have to come to McKinley. You can go to a private school. But if you come to McKinley, you’re coming to an integrated school. 2. All the right in this situation isn’t on one side. There have been serious mis takes made on both sides in our efforts to adjust and they have to be rectified as we go along, just as we do with all our mistakes. Since McKinley is going to be an integrated school, we might just as well try to make it the best integrated school. Meanwhile, 200 McKinley and Taft junior high students gathered across the street from school board head quarters in downtown Washington. Some carried signs protesting inte gration. Police escorted three of the demonstrators inside Franklin Ad ministration Building for a confer ence with Assistant School Supt. Nor man J. Nelson. A half hour later, the trio emerged and asked their followers to return to school, pending completion of plans for formation of a grievance committee. With a few mutters, the crowd broke up. It was decided they would attend an assembly the follow ing day at McKinley to learn how the committee would work. Nelson reported that the three stu dents with whom he met presented their case intelligently and with the utmost frankness and respect. He said he outlined to them the over-all con cept of integration and how it had been planned in the District school system and asked their indulgence over the rough spots. TAFT SCHOOL INCIDENT At Taft junior high, Principal John Koontz said the Tuesday opening bell found about two-thirds of the 900 student enrollment milling rather aimlessly about in front of the school. There was no organization, Koontz said, and by circulating among them casually he was able to persuade all but about 100 to enter classes. (Koontz two weeks later was ap pointed principal of Anacostia High.) At Eastern high school about 300 white students gathered noisily in front of a nearby delicatessen. The youngsters obviously were in a holi day mood. Typical of their mood was the oft-heard remark, “it’s fine just to be standing around here like this without having to go to school.” Eastern’s 1,900 enrollment is one-half Negro. On Tuesday, police grew sterner. Two adults were arrested near Ana costia high on charges of disorderly conduct. A handful of juveniles were taken into custody and released to (Continued on Page 5)