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PAGE 8 —Nov. 4, 1954 — SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS Maryland BALTIMORE, Md. gALTIMORE’ S moderate desegre gation program, involving 52 out of 186 public schools, gave every out ward appearance of going smoothly from Sept. 7 through Sept. 29. The early word from one white school after another, following the admis sion of Negroes, was that everything was working out fine, that there were no incidents of any kind to report. The one hint of coming trouble, seen in retrospect, was that a group of parents in South Baltimore had called the coordinating council of PTA’s to say they wanted to protest desegregation. A council representa tive met with the group, found them to be angrily anti-Negro, and report ed back to school authorities the group’s request, which was to have the school board call a mass meeting of persons opposed to desegregation. School officials declined to sponsor such a meeting, and the subject was still being discussed by the group and the coordinating council when the picketing and boycott began on Sept. 30. South Baltimore is the area which school officials had considered in ad vance most likely to be troublesome, if any trouble at all developed. Re puted to be the section of Baltimore where racial feelings are most in tense, the area is heavily populated with industrial workers, some of long residence and others of quite recent vintage who came to Baltimore dur ing the wartime and post-war influx of labor from West Virginia, Tennes see and points farther south. The educational level of the adults in the area, or, at least, of the active segregationists among them, was indicated by the grammar and spell ing on signs which appeared on the picket lines: “Southern Don’t Want Negroes,” “We Are Not Satisfied With This,” “We Want Seperate Schools,” and the like. LEADERS IN BACKGROUND What actually precipitated the trouble has never been exactly de termined. Back of the supposedly spontaneous demonstrations some organizational effort was apparent, but the leadership remained under cover. The women on the picket lines maintained they were “just parents,” and many of them may not have realized the extent to which their activities were being directed by others. Prominent in the crowds which gathered were members of the group which had been negotiating with the coordinating council for a mass meeting, and also persons associated with the Maryland Petition Commit tee, an affiliate of the National Asso ciation for the Advancement of White People. Whatever the leadership, a large factor in Baltimore’s trouble was un questionably the trouble in Milford, Delaware. The Milford school boy cott had been covered daily in Balti more as an important local news story, since Delaware’s Eastern Shore and Maryland’s Eastern Shore are practically one and the same thing, geographically, economically and cul turally. That the successes of the Milford boycotters had the effect of activating the hitherto non-vocal opposition in Baltimore was made evident during the ensuing disorders by the oft-heard expression “Milford had the right idea.” Just what the pro-segregationists in Baltimore hoped to gain by their picketing was never made clear. No bill of particulars was presented to the city. Some of the pickets ex pressed the hope that the Baltimore school board would back down on its integration policy, as the Milford school board had. Others said that a show of strong opposition to de segregation might make the Supreme Court change its mind. Still others had no positive purpose; they only wanted to make known their opposi tion to Negroes in predominantly white schools. The picketing began on Thursday, Sept. 30, at Elementary School 34, which had an enrollment of 575 white children and 12 Negroes. The prin cipal was new to the school, and for this reason may not have sensed that trouble was brewing. It was learned later that for two days prior to the picketing, unusually large groups of white adults had gathered on a corner near the school and that a meeting had been held in a private home, presumably to plan a course of action. About 30 pickets, one man among them, appeared at School 34 approxi mately 15 mintues before classes were to begin. Children at the scene were urged not to go inside, the children on their way to school were stopped and told to go home, that there was no school that day. As a crowd began milling about, parents approaching the school with small children turned back to avoid possible trouble. Other parents, learning of the disturbance, came and got their children out of school. Attendance that day was cut to 20 per cent of normal. BOARD ISSUES STATEMENT Just as the Milford situation was in part responsible for the picketing in Baltimore, it was also responsible for the immediate recognition by Baltimore school officials, police and civic groups of the serious troubles likely to develop from the then small boycott movement. Police trouble squads were alerted, civic, labor and religious groups prepared statements condemning the picketing and planned a joint emergency meeting on Friday, and the school board, holding its regular monthly meeting that day, issued the following state ment: A11 of our schools are, of course, open and will remain open. The department of education and the poHce department give their fuU assurance that parents need not have any concern about send ing their children to school. We are well aware that it is only hu man to be somewhat apprehensive about changes in long-standing customs. It is equally true, however, that one of the things that has made the United States the great bulwark against Communist and Fascist totalitarianism is the fact that, by common consent, we accept the prin ciple of government by law and believe that adherence to law, especially when it concerns the rights of our fellowmen, is a primary obligation of citizenship. We have confidence that the over whelming majority of Baltimoreans will not be misled into thinking anything good can possibly come from behavior that serves only to confuse and frighten children and to interfere with their education. Our schools have been open for almost four weeks without a single untoward in cident, and in that time Baltimoreans have amply demonstrated the spirit of tol erance, understanding and fair play that has been a source of pride so often in the history of our city. Let us all con tinue to work together to maintain that tradition. The following morning the picket ing spread to other South Baltimore schools, as reporters the previous day had heard would happen. A man and woman who had picketed School 34 arrived early at School 22 (11 Ne groes, 883 white pupils) and exhorted parents arriving with children to pick up signs and parade with them. A crowd soon formed outside the school, and after that only a few parents with children, or children on their own, took a chance on getting through to the school door. The same scene was duplicated at School 48 (5 Negroes, 1107 white children), and at School 98 (17 Negroes, 700 white children). DISORDERS AT SOUTHERN The picketing of elementary schools that day, however, became secondary to the disorders at Southern high school. There, from all accounts, the students themselves touched off the trouble, with or without previous parental prompting. Some of the first white students to arrive stood on the steps and urged approaching col leagues not to enter. Soon about 500 students were milling about. A crowd of adults gathered, and picketing be gan. Most of the 39 Negroes in the student body of 1,788 boys and girls entered the school in a single group, along with perhaps half of the white students. A heavy detail of police broke up the first demonstration around 9 a.m., telling the students either to go into Baltimore Sunpapers Photo POLICE COMMISSIONER BEVERLY OBER, right, and Chief Inspector Fred L. Ford keep an eye on the disorders at Baltimore’s Southern High School. school or go home. Only a few did the former. At that time, while on guard against acts of violence and traffic-blocking situations, the police were under orders not to interfere with the picketing or peaceful as sembly. As a result, crowds ebbed and flowed about the school all day, causing some alarmed parents to come and withdraw their children from classes. As ten Negro children (nine girls and a boy) left the school in a body at 11 a.m., at the request of their par ents, a jeering mob moved toward them in menacing fashion. The police intervened, allowing the children to retreat homeward in safety. During the afternoon the rumor-fed hostility of the crowd outside the school mounted fast, and a mob of many hundreds was waiting for school to let out. Police, ministers, and at least one teacher escorted the remaining Ne gro children out of the building at closing time. But the mob was close to being out of hand, and one Negro boy was punched in the face before being led to safety. The police made several arrests and nearly had a squad car overturned in retaliation. In the end, law and order got the upper hand; not, however, before Baltimore had been brought face to face with the shocking possibilities of a race riot. POLICE REINFORCED Police were poured into the South Baltimore area that night and on Saturday night to break up any gangs on street comers and other wise to head off more trouble. Con ferences were held between school officials, high police officers, and legal authorities to determine the proper course of action. The initial decision was to sit tight and hope for a return of common sense and respect for the law over the weekend. South Baltimore ministers agreed to devote Sunday sermons to appeals for tolerance and reason, and it was com monly agreed, also, that three days of heavy rain would be a Godsend. Nineteen civic, religious and so cial welfare groups, representing what is commonly called the “best elements” in the whole community, held their emergency meeting Friday afternoon and arranged to have a delegation of four meet with school and other officials early Monday morning. Most of the groups, along with the Association of Commerce and prominent ministers, prepared statements which were carried, in part, by the Sunpapers over the weekend, along with editorials de nouncing the violence. The strongest appeal by far was made by John H. Schwatka, principal of Southern high school, on Sunday via television. Mr. Schwatka address ed his plea directly to “you in South Baltimore” for whom and with whom he had worked for 28 years. He re minded them of the proud traditions of Southern, of how its choir had sung with the Baltimore Symphony and its band had become “the only high school band in Baltimore to be elected to the First Chair Society of America.” And he pressed home the point that “Freedom Foundations at Valley Forge has honored us on six different occasions so that we are now the only high school in 29,000 to pos- s e s s their Distinguished Service Scroll.” Then Mr. Schwatka got down to “October 1, 1954, a Day of Fear, a thoughtless, witless effort to rule by force.” He denounced the “trained and organized agitators” who had spread rumors of stabbings, school burnings, armed bands of Negroes and similar scare stories to parents, newspapers, police and corner crowds. “Vicious and cruel,” Mr. Schwatka called them, with “no sense of responsibility for their actions.” He went on to say: They call the parents and say, 'There is a riot in school X. Go get your children and take them home.’ This is an old trick of the trained ri- otman. Do not be misled by rumors! Ask his name, address and telephone number and tell him you’ll call back immediately. He won’t give you the information. Then call our office and I’ll give you the truth. Do not keep your children home. The police department, under Captain Deems, will do its utmost to protect them. We in school will do our best. To keep them home will handicap them and the school. The principal warned his television audience of the privileges that would have to be taken from the pupils and the social and athletic events which would have to be cancelled if stu dents did not get back to their classes, and concluded: I grant the right at all times to aU par ents and to aU citizens to seek redress on JOHN H. SCHWATKA Southern High Principal any grievance through due process of law, but I do not concede to anyone the privilege of taking the law into his own hands. We have tried to teach "respect for au thority” and we wiH not condone intimi dation, rule by fear, or force to compel your child or mine to do what he in his own heart does not want to do. Look into your hearts, you Southerners, (that is, persons associated with South- em high school). Examine your consci ences, keep up your courage and sense of decency, to prevent another Day of Fear in our community. We need cool heads, sober judgments and lots and lots of common sense. Stand up and be counted on the side of law and order! Bring your children back to school. PICKETING RESUMED Despite this appeal, and a call from the mayor for cool heads, and Sunday sermons, and reasoned statements from scores of groups and individ uals, and not a few prayers for rain, when classes were due to begin at Southern high school on a bright, clear Monday morning, the crowd of demonstrators was as large as on the previous Friday. Police tried to keep the way open to school, but attend ance was way down. Three men were arrested, one of whom appeared later as a speaker at the first meeting held by Bryant W. Bowles and his NAAWP in the Baltimore area. Picketing was resumed on Monday at School 34, where attendance was reported to be better than on Friday, and at the three other South Balti more elementary schools where they had been active. Pickets also appear ed for the first time at a North Balti more elementary school which has 19 Negroes out of 1,025 pupils in its stu dent body. The play was taken from the pick ets once again on Monday. A gang of students gathered early at Mergen- thaler Vocational-Technical high school (3 Negroes, 1,827 whites) and urged oncoming fellow students to join them in a general strike. A large crowd of them made noisy invasions of the campuses of five other junior and senior high schools, picking up a few followers but in general getting a cold shoulder, and then marched downtown to City Hall where their shouts for the mayor to appear went unheeded. The police kept the student march ers almost continually on the move, and they went clear down to South ern high school and swelled the rumpus there before swinging through the midtown section once again, where their ranks were thinned by foot-weary strikers dropping out to go to the movies or home. Actually, the whole student demonstration sounded worse than it really was. While anti-Negro remarks were shouted, most of the marchers were obviously out on a self-declared holiday, and they turned the anti integration movement that day into something akin to a raucous football rally. TOUGHER POLICY URGED While the students were staging their demonstration, the four-mem ber delegation representing the civic, religious and welfare groups that had met on Friday was making its rounds. In brief, the delegation represented the considerable body of opinion in Baltimore that city officials should “get tough” with the pickets and other disturbers of school peace. Its members wanted strict enforcement of two pertinent state laws, one against inducing children to absent themselves from school and the other against creating a disturbance out side of a school while classes are in session. The essence of the “get tough” policy was that while persons have a constitutional right to picket and peaceful assembly and can exercise that right in front of City Hall, or at the headquarters of the school ad ministration or in some other public place, they cannot do it in front o' schools without running afoul of the laws against creating a school dis turbance or inducing truancy. The four-member delegation found school officials still hesitant about calling for police action against th e picketing, since they were uncertain as to the legality and practicalities o' arresting pickets and did not want t° make martyrs of the agitators if then 6 was a chance that the disturbance® would die down in a few days. Th e delegation then met with the state® (Continued on Page 9)