Newspaper Page Text
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS —Nov. 4, 1954 —PAGE 7
Delaware
(Continued from Page 6)
opinion. The essence of his decision
—that the Negro children should be
readmitted to the Milford high school
—was:
In the light of the sweeping declara
tion of the Supreme Court on the un
qualified right of all persons to a public
school education in which consideration
of race plays no part, it necessarily fol
lows that the plaintiffs (Negro children)
and those similarly situated are equitably
entitled to an education at the Milford
high school. Under the facts of this case,
how long must plaintiffs wait?
The vice chancellor also stated:
I hold that plaintiffs, having been ac
cepted and enrolled, are entitled to an
order protecting their status at the Mil
ford high school; that their right to a
personal and present high school educa
tion having vested on their admission,
they need not wait for decrees in the
cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court
in May as a prerequisite to the relief they
seek.
Even while the NAAWP was
threatening more boycotts if the Ne
gro children were readmitted to the
Milford high school, Vice Chancellor
Marvel signed the order several days
later but the Milford board of edu
cation took an appeal to the State
Supreme Court.
QUESTIONS OF LAW
The State Supreme Court on Oct.
23 stayed the order of the Court of
Chancery as Chief Justice Souther
land said that the court found
“serious questions of law” involved
in the status of the Negro children.
He added:
This court, we think, should be given
sufficient time to examine these questions
without disturbing the status quo as exist
ing upon the filing of the suit.
In announcing this decision, the court
neither expresses nor intimates any
opinion upon the merits of the case.
And so there will be briefs filed
during November, and in the mean
time, the attorney general of Dela
ware prepared to appear before the
U. S. Supreme Court early in De
cember.
Except for a continued flow of let
ters to the newspapers and an oc
casional meeting of the NAAWP, the
“Milford incident” calmed down and
October in Delaware concluded with
politics on the front pages.
While the headlines of newspapers,
radio and television stations of the
nation and even Moscow played up
the “Milford fight,” secondary posi
tion was given to the stand taken for
integration by every major church
in Delaware, by the Episcopal and
Catholic bishops, labor unions, teach
ers’ organizations and the State Con
gress of Parents and Teachers.
These resolutions and statements
ranged all the way from unqualified
support of integration in the public
schools to a law-and-order observ
ance of the U.S. Supreme Court’s
decision.
They also took strong positions
against the National Association for
the Advancement of White People
® n d its national president, Bryant
Bowles.
Even some weekly newspapers in
southern Delaware that have as
sumed cautious attitudes toward in-
egration have admitted that they do
n °t relish the activities of Bowles.
And many citizens of Milford—the
^al point of the conflict that be
came nationwide news—insist that
e issue is not integration vs. segre
gation, but rather law and order vs.
^h'egation. They say that the vast
ajority of people in southern Del-
no * wan t integration and
v ould rather the U.S. Supreme Court
i a handed down its opinion,
“ ’ , e y add, since the opinion has
D me ’ h * s now a question of how to
oceed toward integration and how
'Wckly to proceed.
C< Ch FLICT GETS HEADLINES
d P i men and civic leaders are
pa ° rin g that the big play on news-
ers » ra <dio and television is being
durf 1 ,] con Bict and the rallies con-
rathe k tHe NAAWP 311(1 Bowles,
ajjj er , “an the positive resolutions
hon a atements in favor of integra-
integrati ^ 0rt ^ erly transition toward
a warf°°V ^ Gatlers in northern Del
ing nr , W . integration is proceed-
that tb Var y* n S scales, also deplore
bei n „ , e , j at * on and the world are not
sand D 1 alrea< iy several thou-
attenrl- e v’’ ar e school children are
m g integrated classes.
tricts, but the board also took the
position of pledging “to uphold all
law and order as the Constitution of
the State of Delaware states for the
protection of its citizens.”
The Delaware Region of the Na
tional Conference of Christians and
Jews called upon “all those in posi
tions of authority or leadership to
speak out and act at once against any
further attempts to perpetuate or re
establish segregation in our schools
by use of direct or implied threats of
force or other illegal means.”
The Delaware State Industrial
Union Council endorsed a national
CIO statement asking the attorney
general of the United States to in
vestigate possible violation of fed
eral civil rights laws in the school in
tegration protest in Sussex county
and elsewhere.
The Delaware Federation of Labor
in convention adopted a resolution
condemning “A shameful display of
mob violence” in the Milford area
and charged a lack of leadership on
the part of the state’s Gov. J. Caleb
Boggs and the state board of educa
tion.
The so-called “Milford Incident”
did not catch the Delaware Congress
of Parents and Teachers (white) un
prepared.
The president of the State Congress
of Parents and Teachers—made up
of Parent-Teacher Association units
in all parts of Delaware—is James H.
Snowden of Wilmington, father of
children who go to the Wilmington
public schools, and himself a chemist
employed by the duPont Company in
Wilmington.
Months before the U.S. Supreme
Court handed down its integration
opinion in May, the Delaware Con
gress of Parents and Teachers had
already undertaken study groups de
voted to discussions of the problems
that would come with integration.
Mr. Snowden, himself a strong
champion of integration, has taken a
position that whatever the Delaware
Congress does about integration must
be the result of democratic processes
among the representatives of the
various local PTA units.
During the summer—weeks before
the opening of school—Mr. Snowden
had a statewide committee on group
relations working on a program deal
ing with the integration of PTA units
of Negro and white parents.
And right in the midst of the Mil
ford controversy—on Oct. 3—the
board of managers of the Delaware
Congress of Parents and Teachers
met to take action on a report of the
committee on group relations.
Mr. Snowden explained that the
meeting of the board of managers
which includes the presidents of
every local PTA in the state was not
purposely scheduled for Oct. 3 so as
to figure in the Milford controversy.
He said the meeting date had been
set before the outbreak of the con
flict.
The group relations committee
submitted a unanimous report which
was discussed at the meeting of the
board of managers for several hours
and then adopted without a dissent
ing vote.
In effect, the adoption of the report
put the Delaware Congress of Par
ents and Teachers behind integra
tion. The gist of the report was that
Negro PTA units in segregated school
districts could join the Delaware
Congress of Parents and Teachers
(up until now a wholly white organ
ization) .
In the meantime, the executive
committee of the Milford high school
PTA—the very center of the storm
that broke over Delaware—quietly
met on Oct. 12 and unanimously ap
proved a resolution of the board of
managers of the Delaware Congress
of Parents and Teachers which
stated:
The threat of violence has resulted in
the interruption of the education of many
Delaware children; it has coerced or
inspired state and local officials to neglect
or violate their offices; it has frightened
those to whom we generally look for
leadership into silence. The preservation
of respect for law and order now rests
squarely upon the shoulders of all good
citizens.
Regardless of our views on the elimina
tion of segregation in the public schools,
we are now seriously concerned with the
maintenance of law and order and respect
for our democratic institutions and their
orderly process.
TWO VIEWS OF NAAWP LEADER IN ACTION IN DELAWARE
Wilmington News-Journal Photo
Bryant Bowles addresses a rally of the National Association for the Advancement of White People at Harrington,
Delaware.
Veteran newspapermen in Wil
mington who have covered “Brother
hood Week” year after year say that
those observances in February never
produced such an outpouring of
“brotherhood” resolutions and ser
mons as did the integration conflict
in southern Delaware since the open
ing of school in September.
Here is a digest of the stand taken
by church groups and church lead
ers:
The New Castle Presbytery which
embraces all of Delaware and the
Eastern Shore of Maryland:
Every Presbyterian within our jurisdic
tion is urged to refrain from encouraging
or participating in any school strike or
boycott or other like reprehensible con
duct, and is urged to uphold the processes
of law and order.
The unanimous decision of the Supreme
Court of the United States has finally
settled the law of the land, leaving open
only the mechanics of enforcement and
in so settling the question has given the
force of law to a Christian principle.
In support of this resolution, form
er State Supreme Court Justice
James M. Tunnell Jr., a resident of
Georgetown, the county seat of Sus
sex county (the NAAWP battle
ground), said: “The church is one
place where it is better to be right
than to be popular.”
Mr. Tunnell is the moderator of
the New Castle Presbytery.
The Rt. Rev. J. Brooks Mosley,
bishop of the Episcopal diocese of
Delaware (in a sermon in a small
Sussex county church):
We must be certain to take our stand
on these issues of righteousness and jus
tice. God weeps for those who have come
to our state to take advantage of our
plight. Poor misguided souls! Preaching
hate—in the name of a God of love!
Teaching lawlessness in the name of the
United States of America.
The Most Rev. Edmond J. Fitz-
Maurice, bishop of the Catholic
diocese of Wilmington which covers
all of Delaware and parts of the
Eastern Shore of Maryland:
To the question, “Who is my neighbor?”
the Catholic Church makes answer: "All
men without distinction or exception,” for
every man bears within him the divine
spark. He is a son of God and hence in
the truest sense our brother. ... If a
Catholic does not hold to this doctrine,
he denies the Catholic faith. If he fails
to put it into practice, if he denies to his
brother his inalienable rights and would
relegate him to an inferior status, he is
a recreant, disobedient member of his
church.
This was part of a pastoral letter,
solely devoted to integration, issued
by the Catholic bishop and read at all
masses in every Catholic church in
the diocese in the first week of Oc
tober.
The Wilmington Methodist Minis
terial Association of the (Delmarva)
Peninsula Conference:
We believe that the present movement
of integration truly represents the spirit
and the teaching of the Christian gospel.
We believe that now is the time for the
Christian people of Delaware to give
careful and prayerful consideration to the
Christian means by which integration can
be achieved.
The Dover District Methodist
Ministerial Association of the Penin
sula Conference:
The Methodist Church declares that
"to discriminate against a person solely
on the basis of his race, is both unfair
and unchristian.” Progress can be made,
though adjustments are difficult. The duty
and responsibility of all Americans is to
put into daily practice now, the high
standards of their religious faith and
national law. The problem of integration
of races in the school system can be
solved when sincere effort is based on this
foundation.
The B’nai B’rith lodges of Dela
ware:
What has taken place in Milford makes
a mockery of our American traditions of
fairness to all. A "Milford incident” lends
aid and comfort to the enemies of our
nation who rejoice when they see us
pitted one against the other. We condemn
the expulsion from their classes of Del
aware children solely because of their
color.
The Rev. John G. MacKinnon, pas
tor of the Unitarian Church in Wil
mington:
While denouncing integration as some
thing from outside Delaware being foisted
upon the good people of Delaware, this
transient rabble rouser (Bryant Bowles)
with a police record has entered the state
and stirred up a situation to his own ad
vantage.
The Rev. John M. Ballach, pastor of
the Immanuel Baptist Church in
Wilmington: (speaking out against
Manean Warrington, an evangelist,
who calls himself the “chaplain” of
the NAAWP):
The church can take only one position
in this thing, in spite of the evangelist
who has been speaking his mind in the
Milford area. We cannot and must not
keep the Negro from the benefits of our
society. Life is too short to be hateful.
The Jewish War Veterans of Dela
ware called for an investigation of
the NAAWP and all other organiza
tions “which are fomenting discord
and violence” and asked that these
groups be placed upon the attorney
general’s subversive organization list.
The board of directors of the Sus
sex County Farm Bureau called for
a halt of any further integration in
the Delaware public schools until
referenda are held in all school dis
Another view of NAAWP Leader Bowles
Wilmington News-Journal Photo