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PAGE 6 —Nov. 4, 1954 —SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
Delaware
Southern School News
Southern School News Is the official publication of the Southern Education
Reporting Service, an objective, fact-finding agency established by southern
newspaper editors and educators with the aim of providing accurate,
unbiased information to school administrators, public officials and interested
lay citizens on developments in education arising from the U. S. Supreme
Court opinion of May 17, 1954 declaring segregation in the public schools
unconstitutional. SERS is not an advocate, is neither pro-segregation nor
anti-segregation, but simply reports the facts as it finds them, state by state.
OFFICERS
Virginius Dabney Chairman
Thomas R. Waring Vice-Chairman
C. A. McKnight Executive Director
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Frank Ahlgren, Editor, Memphis Charles S. Johnson, President, Fisk
Commercial Appeal, Memphis, University, Nashville, Tenn.
^" enn * C. A. McKnight, Editor (On Leave)
Gordon Blackwell, Director, Institute Charlotte News, Charlotte, N.C.
for Research in Social Science, , .
University of N.C. Charles Moss, Executive Editor,
. . , |. Nashville Banner, Nashville, Tenn.
name Branscomb, Chancellor, Van
derbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. Thomas R. Waring, Editor, Charles-
Virginius Dabney, Editor, Richmond ton News & Courier, Charleston,
Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Va. *
Coleman A. Harwell, Editor, Nash- Henry I. Willett, Superintendent of
ville Tennessean, Nashville, Tenn. Schools, Richmond, Va.
Henry H. Hill, President, George P. B. Young Sr., Editor, Norfolk
Peabody College, Nashville, Tenn. Journal & Guide, Norfolk, Va.
CORRESPONDENTS
ALABAMA MISSOURI
William H. McDonald, Editorial Robert Lasch, Editorial Writer, St.
Writer, Montgomery Advertiser Louis Post-Dispatch
ARKANSAS _
Thomas D. Davis, Asst. City Editor, NORTH CAROLINA
Arkansas Gazette Ja Y Jen,!ins ' Staff Writer, Raleigh
DELAWARE News & ° bserver
William P. Frank, Staff Writer, OKLAHOMA
Wilmington News Mary Goddard, Staff Writer, Ok-
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA lahoma City Oklahoman-Times
Jeanne Rogers, Education Writer,
Washington Post & Times Herald SOUTH CAROLINA
FLORIDA W. D. Workman Jr., Special Cor-
Bert Collier, Staff Writer, Miami respondent, Columbia, S. C.
Herald TENNESSEE
GEORGIA James Elliott, Staff Writer, Nash-
Joseph B. Parham, Editor, The v j|| e Banner
Macon News ... . .
i/cMTiirvv Wallace Westfeldt, Staff Writer,
KENTUCKY K , , ... T
... , , , -j*. • i \a# •, Nashville lennessean
Weldon James, Editorial Writer,
Louisville Courier-Journal TEXAS
LOUISIANA Richard M. Morehead, Austin Bu-
Mario Fellom, Political Reporter, reau, Dallas News
New Orleans Item
V,R0,NIA
c , , , rj*. • i \a/ *± Overton Jones, Editorial Writer,
Edgar L. Jones, Editorial Writer, . ' .
D ... c • c Richmond Times-Dispatch
Baltimore Evening bun r
MISSISSIPPI WEST VIRGINIA
Kenneth Toler, Mississippi Bureau, Frank A. Knight, Editor, Charles-
Memphis Commercial-Appeal ton Gazette
MAIL ADDRESS
P.O. Box 6156, Acklen Station, Nashville 5, Tenn.
WILMINGTON, Del.
N UNEASY TRUCE prevails in
southern Delaware after the con
troversy that flared up in the middle
of September over the admission of
less than a dozen Negro youngsters
to the white high school in Milford.
The truce was declared, so to speak,
by the Delaware State Supreme
Court, composed of three justices,
two of whom had handed down a
public school integration opinion two
years ago.
In effect, the State Supreme Court
on Sept. 22 stayed a Court of Chan
cery order that would have forced
the readmission of 10 Negro children
to the Milford high school from which
they had been removed by the Mil
ford board of education in the face of
attendance boycotts, agitation by the
National Association for the Ad
vancement of White People and a
general situation in Sussex County
that had been referred to as “an up
rising against law and order.”
The State Supreme Court of which
Clarence A. Southerland is chief jus
tice in effect declared that the Negro
youngsters should continue to go to
the Negro high school in nearby
Georgetown, Del., the county seat of
Sussex county, and that the case on
behalf of the Negro punils seeking
readmission to the Milford high
school would be heard Dec. 13—one
week after the scheduled start of
hearings before the U.S. Supreme
Court on how its integration opinion
should be translated into a mandate.
CAUSE FOR RELIEF
While Louis L. Redding, attorney
for the Negro children involved and
also attorney for the NAACP, ob
jected to the truce, it was received
with considerable relief throughout
Delaware for various reasons:
1. It was hailed as a cooling off
period in which tempers and bitter
arguments over integration could
ease off.
2. It was applauded by politicians
because it means that the final days
of the politicial campaign could be
conducted without an open conflict
staring them in the face.
3. Citizens who are willing to abide
by the decision of the U.S. Supreme
Court but who do not necessarily
welcome integration, believe that
discussion of integration in a more
calm atmosphere will be beneficial
to the state.
4. Middle-of-the-roaders greeted
the truce with favor because it meant
that there would not be, for a time at
least, any more threats of boycott or
violence in southern Delaware.
5. Citizens who may or may not
favor integration but nevertheless do
not favor the expansion of the
NAAWP, hoped that the organization
would not have any more opportun
ity for getting additional support.
The News-Journal papers of Wil
mington said editorially:
This (the State Supreme Court’s truce)
should put a temporary end to the hotly
contested battle over integration in south
ern Delaware and we feel that nearly
every one involved will welcome this
truce in the hostilities.
What Delawareans on both sides of the
controversy need more than anything else
at this point is time to cool off and take
stock.
And practically all Delawareans,
regardless of their points of view on
integration or segregation, were re
lieved when the so-called “Milford
incident” got off the front pages of
Delaware newspapers and national
papers. Delawareans particularly re
sented remarks about their state that
were broadcast over Radio Moscow
and heard in Delaware—remarks
that were intended as reflections not
only upon all Delawareans but upon
democracy.
But the truce declared by the State
Supreme Court was only one of a
number of events that rocked Del
aware during October. The difficulty
started on Sept. 17 when an almost
spontaneous rally was held in Mil
ford as a protest against the admis
sion of Negro students to the Milford
(white high school.)
The anti-integration movement
gathered momentum, involving the
sudden expansion and nationwide
publicity given to the NAAWP and
its national president, Bryant Bowles.
Conflict in Washington, D.C., and
Baltimore, Md., was said to have
been stirred up by the outbreak in
Milford.
EVENTS IN OCTOBER
Highlights of October in Delaware
were:
1. A hearing before Delaware
Chancery Court, Vice Chancellor
William Marvel sitting. He declared
that the 10 Negro children removed
from the Milford high school should
be immediately readmitted because
they had “a clear legal right entitling
them to immediate relief.”
2. An appeal taken by the Milford
board of education to the State Su
preme Court that stayed the order
of the lower court.
3. The arrest of NAAWP president
Bowles in two of Delaware’s three
counties on charges of conspiring to
urge people to violate state laws.
4. The action of the state’s attorney
general, H. Albert Young, to revoke
the charter of the NAAWP which
was granted in Delaware under the
state’s corporation laws in December
of 1953.
5. The lengthy statement by Del
aware’s senior U.S. Sen. John J. Wil
liams who lives in Sussex county,
and who declared that while the U.S.
Supreme Court took upon itself too
great a responsibility “in determin
ing so important a social question” as
integration, the laws of the nation
and state must be upheld and re
spected.
6. The demand by Bowles that Del
aware’s governor, J. Caleb Boggs, re
move Atty. Gen. Young because the
latter had changed his name from
Yanowitz to Young—a demand that
was ignored by Gov. Boggs. The at
torney general of Delaware is a con
stitutional officer of the state elected
by the people.
7. The demand by NAAWP officials
that Gov. Boggs resign his office—
also ignored.
8. A promise issued by Wilming
ton’s mayor, August F. Walz, that
NAAWP president Bowles would be
arrested on any one of 14 possible
charges if he tried to undertake a
school attendance boycott in Wil
mington where the elementary
schools are integrated.
9. A stand taken by the Wilming
ton chapter of the NAACP that any
school district in Delaware that does
not have an integration program
under way by September 1955, will
be brought into court.
10. Pro-integration positions of the
Delaware State Education Associa
tion and the Federation of Delaware
Teachers (AFL-affiliate) reaffirmed
in their respective conventions.
11. Bowles’ attack upon members
of the Wilmington press and the
Southern Education Reporting Serv
ice in the course of speeches at
NAAWP rallies.
REPUBLICAN THREAT
12. Threat of Republican State
Chairman J. Clair Killoran that any
Republican candidate for any office
—state or county—who signs an
NAAWP pledge to fight integration
will be removed from the Republican
ticket.
13. Controversy within the State
Republican Party top ranks when
Atty. Gen. Young (Republican) de
clared in court of chancery that the
laws of Delaware will be enforced
even if it takes “the governor of Del
aware and our two United States
senators to lead these Negro children
by the hand back into the Milford
school.”
(This statement was immediately
attacked by Sen. Williams who de
clared Young had no authority to
speak for him. U.S. Sen. J. Allen
Frear (Democrat running for reelec
tion) took the same attitude as Sen.
Williams. Young later said he was
speaking only figuratively.)
14. Pro-integration steps taken by
the Delaware Congress of Parents
and Teachers.
15. Widespread support of inte
gration given by church leaders and
civic organizations, particularly in
northern Delaware.
16. A deluge of pro and con letters-
to-the-editors of newspapers in Wil
mington, Dover, and Georgetown.
17. An invitation from the NAACP
in Peekskill, N. Y. to Bowles to speak
at the New York State NAACP con
vention—an invitation that was later
withdrawn upon direction from the
national office of the NAACP.
18. A public opinion poll on inte
gration taken officially by the board
of education of Laurel in Sussex
county. The result: 1,258 voted
against integration; 31 voted for.
1,248 voted for expansion to the
Laurel Negro high school; 99 voted
against.
(There was only one polling place
—in the Laurel (white) high school.
Only seven Negroes took part in the
referendum. Although Laurel itself
has a population of 2,300 of which
12.3 per cent is non-white, the Laurel
school district has about 4,000 eligible
voters.)
19. The board of education of Sea-
ford (3,000 population of which 13
per cent is non-white) in Sussex
county recommended a 12-year inte
gration plan to start only when the
U. S. Supreme Court hands down its
mandate.
THE MILFORD INCIDENT
These highlights give only an
inkling of the controversy that raged
through Delaware during October,
centered chiefly in the southernmost
county of Delaware—Sussex.
But practically the entire contro
versy roared around the Milford
high school which admitted 11 Negro
children on the first day of school in
September. The board of education
that approved this partial integration
program later resigned because it
declared it didn’t have the full sup
port of the state board of education.
Then the state board of education
officials took over the school for
several days but were faced with at
tendance boycotts that spread to
nearby school districts.
Finally, a new Milford board of
education was organized and its first
move was to oust the Negro children
from the Milford high school. Almost
immediately suit was brought in the
court of chancery.
Oddly enough, this was the first
case to be heard by Vice Chancellor
William Marvel soon after his ap
pointment to the bench by Gov.
Boggs.
The suit was brought by NAACP
attorney Redding on behalf of the
Negro children, asking the court to
compel the Milford board of educa
tion to readmit them.
Atty. Gen. Young declined to rep
resent the Milford school board in
court—as he ordinarily would have
been called upon to do—because, he
said, the Milford board had ousted
the Negroes against his legal advice.
The Milford board then used the
legal services of Howard E. Lynch,
Sussex county attorney, but Mr.
Young took part in the hearing as a
friend of the court. It was in the
course of this hearing that he made
his statement about the governor and
two U. S. senators leading the Negro
children back to the Milford school
—a statement that exploded still an
other controversy in Sussex county.
COURT RULING AT ISSUE
This was probably the first court
hearing in any one of the so-called
segregated states that brought into
the record and argument the May H
decision of the U. S. Supreme Court.
The hearing was held in the old
court house in Georgetown, Sussex
county, while outside the court house
milled a large throng of NAAWP
members. Bowles himself was among
them and according to a statement
he gave the press, he did not try to
attend the hearing because it was not
“segregated.”
Two days after the hearing, Vice
Chancellor Marvel handed down his
(Continued on Page 7)
Wilmington News-Journal Photo
BRYANT BOWLES. NAAWP president, watches intently as Magistrate
Morris Gloverman of Milford, Del., signs the documents placing Bowles under
$3,000 bond on charges of conspiracy. A few moments later, Bowles was free
and on his way to the Harrington airport to address a mass meeting.