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SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS —Dec. I, 1954 —PAGE II North Carolina RALEIGH, N. C. 4 S expected, North Carolina’s brief to the U. S. Supreme Court asked the court to go slow in effecting its desegregation decree, and urged that federal district judges be given au thority to supervise the change-over. An alternative to gradual desegre gation, the state said, could be de struction of the public school system and “racial bitterness.” The brief referred to the late Jus tice Jackson’s suggestion that to send the cases back to lower courts with out standards for guidance in fur ther proceedings would mean a gen eration of litigation. “If so,” said the brief, “such a re sult is far preferable to a generation of strife outside the courts and of chaos inside the schoolroom.” No specific plan for ending segre gation was advanced by the brief, which contains 188 pages, including 141 paces of exhibits. It was signed by Atty. Gen. Harry McMullan and As sistant Attys. Gen. T. Wade Bruton, Ralph Moody, Claude L. Love and I. Beverly Lake. Except for a few statistical tables, the exhibits consisted of answers to questionnaires sent to city and coun ty school superintendents and police officials. In substance, an overwhelm ing number of the answers said im mediate desegregation would not work in the state and would lead to violence. When the Supreme Court invited briefs from states not directlv in volved in cases which led to the de segregation decision, such as North Carolina, it suggested ways of effect ing the decree. One way would be specific decrees, with compliance required “forth with.” Another would permit “grad ual adiustment” under court guid ance, and the third would permit dis trict judges to frame decrees. GRADUAL PROCESS URGED North Carolina spoke out strongly for the gradual process, handled by district judges. A blanket decree cov ering all states would be impractical, this state argued, because conditions in North Carolina are different from those in other states and vary within the state itself. “If the public schools and the pub lic peace are to be preserved,” the brief said, “the decrees to be entered in the South Carolina and Virginia cases must be framed to fit the con ditions in the actual communities. “Only a court conversant with lo cal conditions and granted wide dis cretion can tailor the decree to fit the local variations.” As an example of the differences, the brief noted that recent demon strations against integration occurred in Delaware, where there are 13 Ne groes to 87 whites. In North Carolina, the proportion of Negroes is one of four. The brief added: Even if every other condition were pre- se ly the same, the intermixture of one child with 99 white children in Dakota is obviously a far different blem for a school administrator from r*Viu ,^ r °htcm of commingling 71 Negro am * en w hh 29 white children in North- N" County, North Carolina, or 45 ir, children with 55 white children m Mississippi. Besides the proportion of Negroes , w hite in the state, the brief said, e re are three other “maior differ ences that distinguish North Caro- tl? 3 * rom most of the states outside e South. These were listed as “the ermixture of white and Negro ontes throughout rural areas, the !T e . ra f reaction to this court’s ores- n interpretation of the Fourteenth hiendment. and the number of Ne- 810 machers employed.” Ne^ rt * lern states with the largest alm° poDu ^ at i° ns have the Negroes a n j° S V en tirely confined to the cities. the Negroes are “concentrated wmcipally in certain areas through j n natur al tendency of people to live thermal Dro *’ mity to other people like u A can K resu ft> school district lines hvelvfrawn S o that there are rela- Sc v i ew Negro children in certain dren - S an< ^ datively few white chil- the bt- lri ,°^ er schools.” In such areas, are lef sa ’d' the questions presented ^largely academic.” e questions and answers in North Carolina, said the brief, are complicated by the fact that most North Carolinians, white and colored, do not live in cities but live in rural areas where the residences of white and Negro neighbors are inter spersed.” REACTION UNFAVORABLE On the “major difference” of gen eral reaction, the brief said, “in North Carolina the opinion conflicts with deepseated convictions and has been generally regarded as extremely un fortunate. Of course, this court may not allow its decisions as to the interpretation of the Constitution to be guided by public opinion, but, in determining the decree to be issued, a court of equity is not re quired to shut its eyes to reality, espe cially when the victims of an unwise decree will be children. As to the last “major difference,” the number of Negro teachers em ployed, the brief said that North Car olina, with about the same Negro population as New York, “employs five Negro teachers for every Negro teacher employed by New York. New York with six Negroes out of every 100 persons in its population, employs fewer than two Negroes for each 100 school teachers. North Carolina, with one Negro out of every four persons, employs more than one Negro teacher out of each four teachers.” Questionnaires sent to school su perintendents showed that 128 out of 131 “believe they would find it im practicable to use Negro teachers,” said the brief. At the present time, the brief noted, “North Carolina em ploys more Negro teachers than any other state in the Union. The aver age Negro teacher in North Carolina has more college training and is bet ter paid than the average white teach- »» er. If immediate integration is ordered, said the brief, “at least the following dangers will result in North Car olina: 1. Public schools may be abolished; 2. If the public schools are not abol ished. the presence in the same classroom of white children and Negro children may well bring about daily confusion, physi cal conflicts, ridicule of one group by an other, and other conditions which will make it difficult for children to study and teachers to teach; 3. If public schools are not abolished, parents financially able to do so may send their children to private schools, and public schools will come to be re garded as a dole to paupers, repulsive to everyone, black or white, having that pride and self respect essential to good citizenship in a democracy; 4. Conflicts in the schoolroom, on the playground, and between parents and teachers may lead to racial bitterness in a community and bring to North Carolina the bloody riots which have disgraced cities and states where justifiable racial ATTY. GEN. McMULLAN Author of N. C. Brief pride among both Negroes and white people has been ignored. Referring to the questionnaire an swers of school superintendents and police officers, the Tar Heel brief said the opinions expressed by them “in dicate that the mixture of the races in the school buses is the most diffi cult problem confronting them” as a result of the court’s decision. TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM It pointed out that the State oper ates 7,200 public school buses and transports 452,000 children to and from school each day. Over 6,000 of these buses are driven by high school students and no adult now rides on most of them. Around 2,000 are used for trans porting Negro children, 5,000 for transporting white children, and 85 for Indian children. To require that Negro children and white children be commingled forthwith on these buses, without adult supervision and police protection, is to invite con flicts on the bus, which will make riding on them so hazardous few parents will consent to their children’s using them. This is a substantial danger a court of equity may well consider in formulating its decree. The diverse conditions within North Carolina also were discussed. In addition to a high proportion of Negroes in the East compared with the West, the state has about 30,000 Indians. “The racial loyalties of the Indians of North Carolina are as strong as those of either of the other races, per haps stronger,” the brief said. “The Indians will be as resentful of any compulsory integration of their chil dren with the children of other races as will be the people of either the white or the Negro race.” To illustrate the diversities within North Carolina, the brief noted that the 1950 census showed only 10 Ne groes in Graham County, in the West, compared to 18,189 in Northampton, where whites number 10,182. “A de cree which would be an annoyance in Graham County could well bring disaster in Northampton,” the brief said. DIFFERENT AGE LEVELS The brief quoted from studies showing that in the elementary schools 17.47 per cent of the white children are overage for their respec tive grades while 33.95 per cent of the Negro children were in that category. “Thus one white child out of six was retarded, as compared with one Negro child out of three,” the brief states. Obviously, it would create more nu merous and more serious administrative and instructional difficulties to put in the same classrooms with white children the thousands of Negro children in North ampton County, one-third of whom are retarded, than it would cause to put into the classrooms of Graham County a sin gle Negro child or even two Negro chil dren, even if both of them should hap pen to be in the retarded one-third. The brief asked the court to take “judicial notice” that nearly every school building is crowded to capac ity. If a substantial number of Negro children are admitted to a white school, white children will have to go elsewhere. Thus, a decree requiring a school board in North Carolina forthwith to admit Negro children to the schools of their choice will, if a substantial number of them choose a school now used by white children, necessarily require the school board to deny to white children presently enrolled in that school the right to con tinue to attend it. Discussing the development of the state’s public school system, the brief said, “North Carolina, today, is educating more Negro children and employing more Negro teachers than any other state in the Union. She is educating them in a statewide school system, which means that, except in sofar as local tax supplements pro vide additional benefits, every child in North Carolina, regardless of race, residence or economic status, studies the same subjects and uses the same textbooks. . . .” VIEWPOINT OUTLINED It said the state’s “firm belief that separate schools for the races will train both white and Negro children to live together in mutual respect and friendship, while mixed schools in North Carolina will cause racial con flicts is the result not of emotions and prejudice but of sober, earnest thought by those who have desired to see her children educated so as to be prepared to demonstrate to all the world that two races as fundamental ly different as the Anglo-Saxon and the Negro can live side by side in freedom, peace, and mutual respect. Hodges New Governor Of N. C. RALEIGH, N. C. T IEUTENANT GOVERNOR Luther Hartwell Hodges became North Carolina’s 91st Governor on Nov. 9, the day Gov. William B. Umstead was buried in his native Durham County. Gov. Umstead, stricken with a heart attack two days after his in auguration in January, 1953, was a periodic visitor to the hospital after the initial attack. He died Nov. 7. A political unknown until he made his successful campaign for lieut enant governor in 1952, Gov. Hodges will serve during the remaining 26 months in Gov. Umstead’s term. At the end of that time, he will be eligible to run for the full four-year term. Within 60 days of his inauguration, the new chief executive will have to be prepared to submit recommenda tions to the 1955 General Assembly on tough twin problems. One con cerns future public school policy in the light of the desegregation deci sion; the other concerns declining state revenues and an almost-cer- tain tax increase. HAS WIDE EXPERIENCE To both of these problems, Gov. Hodges will bring far more know ledge than his limited political ex perience indicates. By virtue of his office as lieutenant governor, he served as chairman of the state board of education and appointed a special GOV. LUTHER HODGES committee to go into the segregation question. At his first press conference, he said in answer to a question that he will lean heavily on advisory com mittees established by his predeces sor. The list includes an advisory group appointed by Gov. Umstead to help formulate policies, that, in the Governor’s words, “would preserve and strengthen the public school sys tem.” Gov. Hodges further increased his fund of information about the state government during the 1953 General Assembly when he sat in on many committee sessions at which a va riety of subjects were under discus sion. He also read a great deal. He was known as a hard worker in what had previously been a purely hon orary office. POLITICAL UNORTHODOXY The new Governor in his brief public career has earned a reputa tion for unorthodoxy among the strictly orthodox politicans. As lieutenant governor, he was presid ing officer of the State Senate at the 1953 session and thus charged with naming important committee chair men. In an unprecedented step, he refused to disclose in advance who would get what chairmanship, and declined to make any promises. In addition, he reduced the number of Senate committees from 39 to" 26, eliminating some of the patronage plums available in the form of cler ical and stenographic help. The ceremony at which he took over the governor’s office likewise was un usual: it lasted nine minutes all told, including Gov. Hodges’ acceptance speech. Gov. Hodges, who is 56, retired as a Marshall Field & Co. vice president in 1950. As for the future, the North Caro lina brief noted the people of the state are “determined to maintain their society as it now exists with separate and distinct racial groups in the North Carolina community. They strongly oppose creating conditions in the public schools which tend to amalgamize the white and Negro races.” It added the people “also believe that the achievements of the Negro people of North Carolina demon strate that such an educational sys tem has not instilled in them (Ne groes) any sense of inferiority which handicaps them in their efforts to make lasting and substantial contri butions to their state. A social order which is the product of three centuries, and a public school sys tem which is the product of one century of conformity to the Constitution as in terpreted by this court and by Congress, cannot he transformed overnight into an entirely different social order and educa tion system notwithstanding the great respect which the pople of North Carolina have for constitutional government and for this court. The brief contended that a decree directing a school board of the state to admit Negro children forthwith to a school of their choice within the limits of normal geographical school districting would exceed the author ity of a federal court. However, it said if the high court has such au thority to issue such a decree, it is not required to do so “but in the ex ercise of its equity powers (it) can permit a Gradual adiustment from the existing school system to a system not based on color distinctions.” It also stated if the court has such authority, it should not do so “if such a decree is to be a pattern to be fol lowed in other cases arising in other states and other school districts.” In averring that the North Carolina brief did not intend to present a solu tion to the problem, Atty. Gen. Mc Mullan and his assistants wrote: This brief is submitted for the purpose of showing the unparalleled gravity of nullifying the Constitution and laws of North Carolina affecting its most cher ished, important, and expensive enter prise, its public schools, and for the pur pose of stating sincerely and emphatically that, the subsequent decrees of this court in these cases should allow the greatest possible latitude to the district judges in conducting subsequent hearings and in drafting final decrees, if any of the ob jectives sought by this court’s decisions are to be attained. The questionnaires to school super intendents, signed by Dr. Charles F. Carroll as state superintendent of public instruction and Atty. Gen. Mc Mullan, consisted of 18 questions and ranged from opinions on the results of immediate and gradual integration to school population. In the brief, identity of the answer ing superintendents is referred to by a code number. The letters of trans mittal pledged anonymity. TYPICAL ANSWERS McMullan’s questionnaires to the sheriffs and chiefs of police asked them for an estimate on the attitude toward segregation and also asked about the possibilities of violence if immediate integration were ordered. Typical questions and answers by police: “Do you think there would be like lihood of violence among racial groups of students which would se riously interfere with the operations of schools in your city or county?” Answers: Yes, 193. No, 6. Don’t know, 1. “Do you consider your present po lice force sufficient to preserve the general peace and order in your ju risdiction if such intermixing of white and Negro children in the public schools were to occur?” Answers: Yes, 14. No, 182. Don’t know, 3. Asked about the prospects in their school districts if integration were ordered “forthwith,” seven of the 165 superintendents answering said they believed the attempt would be ac cepted peacefully and 145 said they thought it would “seriously impair the conduct of their schools.” Other answers: 125 thought “serious complications” would develop in school bus opera tions, 148 thought “serious problems” of discipline would be created, 135 thought it would be hard to get enough properly trained white teach ers and and “only three” thought “it would be practicable to use Negro teachers.”