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PAGE 2 —Dec. I, 1954 — SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS Arkansas LITTLE ROCK, Ark. ARKANSAS’ brief filed Nov. 15 with the United States Supreme Court argues: 1. The court should not order “forthwith integration” in the public schools. 2. The court should enter a decree in the pending cases which will per mit gradual adjustments. 3. The court should leave the prob lem of integration of the races in public schools to Congress for ap propriate legislation. Printed copies of the brief, re leased Nov. 13, were signed by Tom Gentry, Arkansas attorney general, James L. Sloan, assistant attorney general, and Richard B. McCulloch, a Forrest City attorney hired by sev eral East Arkansas school districts which had asked the state board of education to request intervention by the attorney general. The brief was written by McCulloch. About 30 East Arkansas school dis tricts, more directly affected by the Supreme Court decision because of high Negro populations, originally asked for an Arkansas intervention. The state board of education has advised school districts to take no action toward integration before the Supreme Court rules further on its May 17 decision. Arguing that the racial integration program effectively can be worked out only by a gradual process, the Arkansas brief requests that the court “not only nudge but even ex hort Congress to enact appropriate legislation under the power of Sec tion 5 of the (Fourteenth) Amend ment.” Section 5 reads'. “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by ap propriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” Arkansas’ brief said that “nothing contained in this brief is intended to bring into question the correctness of the ruling of this Court (on segre gation May 17) or its reasons for reaching that conclusion.” ASSEMBLY TO MEET It points out that the General As sembly has not been in session since March, 1953, and will not convene its regular session until January, 1955, and that “some further words of ad vice and direction from this Court will go a long way toward charting the course of future action or inac tion by the Arkansas General As sembly.” “One of the purposes of this brief is to solicit most earnestly from this Court such words of clarification and advice as to the course to be pursued by the people of Arkansas in carry ing out the final mandate of the Court as may be proper.” The brief notes the variety of con ditions in the various school districts and points out that two Arkansas districts already have integrated white and Negro children—Fayette ville at the high school level and Charleston in grades one through 12. It says the court “has indicated that it is not unmindful of the possi bility of widespread hostility in at least some school districts if imme diate integration of the races in the public schools is required by this Court,” It continues: This hostility is commonly known to exist in varying degrees in a majority of the school districts of Arkansas although there have been, so far as is known, no overt acts by any particular group or groups indicating open defiance of the law as declared by this Court. But even unwilling or hostile compli ance can, and probably would, have a most undesirable effect upon the whole system of public education in Arkansas. It will be conceded, presumably, that the bulk of the financial support for the pub lic school system of Arkansas flows from the white population. This fact will con tinue to be true for many years to come unless a large portion of those persons who now pay taxes in support of public schools manage, by some means not now foreseeable, to withdraw their support as a result of legislative enactments of some kind or other. Without the leadership of those who carry the large portion of the burden of supporting the school system, the system as a whole is bound to pass through a period of deterioration which might last for many, many years. If the public school system is permitted to deteriorate, it necessarily follows that both the Negro children and the white children will be the unfortunate victims. The Negro chil dren in all probability will suffer to a greater degree than the white children in such circumstances. The brief suggests that the Su preme Court decree should, in effect, authorize the lower courts to hold hearings, through a special master of the court, to determine what provi sions are essential and proper to give the appellants full protection against segregation of Negro children in the public schools. ROLE OF CONGRESS Arkansas’ brief makes this point in arguing that the Court should leave the problem to Congress for appropriate legislation: Even if the Court remands the pending cases with directions as suggested, there still remains the uncertainty of the im mediate effect which those decrees may have on prospective cases in the federal courts in Arkansas. The Court must of necessity make some disposition of the pending cases by way of appropriate de crees. In this connection it is most res pectfully urged that the Court take some action by way of a supplemental opinion, in addition to the specific decrees, which will have the effect of precluding what might well turn out to be a flood of cases in the federal courts of Arkansas and other so-called ‘segregated states.' The point here is that the Court can and should deal with the problem by way of supplemental opinion in such a way that the whole problem of solving the method of integration should fall square ly where the Fourteenth Amendment says it should fall; that is, on Congress for appropriate enactment. Arkansas’ brief ends with this conclusion: The point which is urged here with most emphasis is that a decree of this Court ordering immediate integration of the white and Negro children would have a most disastrous effect upon the public school system of Arkansas. Likewise, it would most seriously disrupt the efforts of the leaders of both races in solving the racial problem in Arkansas in all its various aspects. No person or court can predict at this time what the consequences would ultimately be. There is no need for immediate integration in the public schools. It is not required by the Con stitution. The problem of integration of races in the public schools is of such magnitude that it can be solved effectively only by a gradual process which would vary from locality to locality. It is probably safe to assert at this time that no person or group of persons—not even any court—has formulated any definite plan of integra tion which would operate successfully in the school districts of Arkansas. As to the four cases now before the Court, the plan for integration in the dis tricts which would be directly affected by those cases must, for the time being at least, be formulated, developed and finally concluded under the supervision and control of the courts of first instance. The decrees of this Court should accord to the lower courts the very widest range of discretion in bringing about integra tion in a manner which will promote, rather than retard the ultimate solution of the whole problem. Finally and most earnestly, it is urged that this Court, by a supplemental opin ion, pomts out in no uncertain terms that the integration problem is one which should be sowed by Congress under Sec tion 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The American system of government being what it is, this Court canot compel Con gress to act. But certainly this Court can, by some appropriate suggestion, bring about prompt and appropriate action by that branch of the government in which the people themselves, by adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, lodged the power to adopt the appropriate plan to correct the conditions which, so this Court has said, the states have brought about in violation of the Amendment. If the powers of this Court were not limited by the Constitution, the proper decrees of this Court in the pending cases would be to ‘remand the cases' to Congress with directions to take approp riate action. Lacking the power to com mand Congress, the next best thing would be a most urgent invitation to Congress from this Court. It is such a course which this Court is asked to adopt to the very limit of its power. If the Court complies with this request, then the solution of the problem will rest where it was intended by the Constitution that it should rest— with the Congress. Attached to the Arkansas brief was a table which showed, by counties, Arkansas’s white and Negro enroll ment figures and public school ex penditures for 1953-54. It showed a total of 314,041 white students and 98,310 Negro students, and disburse ments of $54,618,690. ELECTION RESULTS On Nov. 2, Fred W. Martin, a Ne gro bathhouse attendant, was elected to the Hot Springs City Council, de feating two white candidates, includ ing the incumbent. Secretary of State C. G. Hall said his office had no records on city elec tions but that he was certain Martin was the first Negro to win a city office in recent Arkansas history. Martin, 60, is a native of Hot Springs. All three candidates for the alder- manic post in the predominately Ne gro Second Ward ran as independ ents. The unofficial returns gave Martin 2,834 votes; O. O. Miles, the incumbent, 2,559 and Ralph Wright 2,284. On Nov. 5, in convention at Little Rock, about 2,000 members of the Arkansas Teachers Association, a Negro organization, adopted a policy statement on integration of Negroes and whites in public schools. The statement said that the pat tern of desegregation still was a le gal question which should be left to the courts, that the problems in volved in desegregation were largely local and peculiar to each district and that when citizens of good will and wholesome intent attack com mon problems co-operatively, satis factory solutions follow. BUILDINGS DELAYED On i\ov. 9, Mrs. ineima Spinnen- weoer, director of bond service for tiie state education department, said tnat some scnooi districts apparent ly were holding up their building plans until the Supreme Court issues its decree on school segregation. She said that an unusually large number of districts had asked for applications for commercial bond is sues during the past four months. But, she said, few of them had re turned the applications, which must be approved by the state board of education before the bonds were is sued. Most of the requests for the appli cations came from districts populat ed with a large number of Negro students, she said. The presidents of practically all private Negro colleges in the South attended the Oct. 26-27 meeting at Hot Springs which produced a state ment welcoming the Supreme Court’s May 17 decision on public school segregation and urging immediate steps to implement the decision. Presidents of state-supported schools were present in lesser num bers “for obvious reasons,” a dele gate said. A total of 64 Negro educators and school officials from 14 Southern states and the District of Columbia attended the session which had been called by Rufus E. Clement, president of Atlanta University and a member of the Atlanta, Ga., Board of Educa tion, as president of a steering com mittee of Negro educators. Expenses of the delegates were paid by the Phelps Stokes Fund, which Dr. F. D. Patterson of New York city, former president of Tus- kegee Institute and executive direc tor of the Phelps Stokes Fund, de scribed as “a small educational foundation interested in the educa tion of Negro youth in America and Africa.” President Benjamin E. Mays of Morehouse College at Atlanta, Ga., was chairman of the committee which drafted the group’s statement. President Charles S. Johnson of Fisk University at Nashville, Tenn., was chairman of the program committee. Represented at the meeting were educators from Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ala bama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Geor gia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Of the 17 states where public school segregation has been required by law, only Missouri, West Virginia and Delaware were not represented. Notice Southern School News is the official publication of the South ern Education Reporting Service, 1109 19th Ave. South, Nashville, Tennessee. It is distributed free to interested individuals and or ganizations upon request. Inquiries about Southern School News should be addressed to SERS, P.O. Box 6156, Acklen Station, Nashville 5, Tennessee. The Reporting Service is fi nanced by a grant from the Fund for the Advancement of Educa tion, an independent agency es tablished by the Ford Founda tion. Alabama MONTGOMERY, Ala. T the Southern Governors Con ference in Boca Raton, Fla. on Nov. 13, Gov.-Elect James E. Folsom of Alabama abstained from signing a statement protesting forced integra tion in public schools. Seven southern governors and one governor-elect signed the statement pledging every constitutional effort “to preserve the right of the states to administer their public school sys tems to the best interest of all the people.” Folsom and five other gov ernors did not sign. Folsom takes office in January, succeeding Gov. Gordon Persons who did not attend the conference. Gov. Persons has flatly refused to call a special session of the Alabama legislature to consider constitutional changes recommended by a special legislative committee headed by State Sen. Albert Boutwell of Bir mingham. The committee’s recommendations, if enacted, would remove the man datory public school requirements in the state constitution and thus pave the way for various plans to pre serve classroom segregation, includ ing a version of the “private school” plan already being seriously consid ered in other states. OPPOSITION SEEN Like Gov. Persons, Gov.-Elect Fol som has indicated opposition to any plan to abolish public education. However, Folsom has been recently quoted as saying he would not as sume the role of forcing any Negro to attend school with white children. He did not elaborate. Late in Sep tember, Folsom had said: If we deed our schools to private in dividuals, they could make apartment houses out of them. If strings are attached, the maneuver won’t hold in court. The Boutwell committee’s recom mendations were prepared in exec utive sessions over a period of some ten months. No public hearing has been held and none is contemplated, Boutwell said—that is, until the pro posals are actually submitted as bills in the legislature. The legislature will convene in a regular session in May. However, Folsom may call a special session soon after his inauguration, but to fulfill some campaign promises rath er than to consider the Boutwell re port. Sen. Boutwell said in Birmingham Nov. 10 that the recommendations of his committee would be offered to the legislature at the “earliest opportuni ty”—either in May or at any earlier session. At the Alabama convention of NAACP branches in Selma Nov. 13- 14, it was announced that a legal battle is planned to “open up” the University of Alabama to Negroes. Mrs. Constance B. Motley, an NAACP attorney from New York, said: We will open up the law school, the medical school, and the graduate school and any other school Negroes want to attend . . . our goal is integration. . . . Speaking at the same convention, Judge Hubert T. Delaney of New York City domestic relations court, a well-known Negro jurist, warned the delegates: Our enemies will use every force at their command to halt integration. We must be prepared to protect ourselves at every turn. Among the tactics we expect them to use are: delay, McCarthyism . .. and the old bugaboo, intermarriage. Delegates were urged to form a statewide educational committee to work with state officials on school desegregation, and to establish a state credit union to combat economic pressure that might be exerted against NAACP workers in Ala bama. New Book (Continued From Page 1) with what happened to 24 communi ties in six states where desegregation (in no uniform pattern) was begun. The states involved were Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, New Mexico and Ohio. Each of the studies dealt with an area in which Negro population was concentrated. One community, for example, had shown an increase in Negro population of as much as 129 per cent between 1940 and 1950. Only four cities in either the South or Southwest registered as large a proportional increase between 1900 and 1950 as did this one in a span of ten years. Several of the studies involved what legitimately could be called “southern” in atti tudes and general mores. One, Cairo, Illinois, was particularly so. The study is soundly based. Let it be said that this study, like its predecessor, is an invaluable book for those who wish to possess factual information, be they engaged profes sionally or be they merely interested citizens wishing to be as good citizens as possible and, therefore, in search of light. It is not surprising that some of the conclusions reached by the study are those which any sensitive, inter ested person has long assumed— namely, for example, that desegrega tion is “an uneven, shifting process, not a sudden massive change.” It is obvious that social mores, which in the history of the many civilizations the world has known have proved more durable and more excluding than the great wall of China, will be breached unevenly and not blown down by Joshua’s trumpets. For years to come this country will include communities in travail as they deal with the complexities of the factors involved. Also revealed is another presumption of those who have looked at the future—namely, each community has “its own special blend of factors at work,” and each must, of necessity, “meet the detailed problems in its own individual way.” One of the dismal facts of bi-racial conditions has been, and is, the lack of communication between white and colored leaders. That this factor crops up in the study is not surpris ing. The following important para graph is from the summary: “A tendency frequently observed in communities where desegregation initially aroused opposition was a lack of communication between white and Negro leaders and a tendency on the part of the whites to attribute the local call for desegregation to out siders. Sometimes responsibility was imputed to national organizations having a local branch or chapter. Sometimes the reaction took the form of ‘our own Negro people are satis- N. C. Methodists Back Court Ruling RALEIGH, N. C. With only a few dissenting votes, delegates to the North Carolina Methodist Conference here approved the U. S. Supreme Court’s school de segregation decision as a “true inter pretation of our Christian faith and of our American democracy.” Conference approval of the decision was contained in an amendment to the report of the Board of Social and Economic Relations. The amendment commended the late Gov. Umstead and other state officials for their ef forts to find “orderly and construc tive solutions” for the problems in volved. It asked all Methodists to re sist attempts to incite racial prej udice. In addition the amendment urged appropriate groups within the church to set up seminars throughout the conference for study and discussion of “our Christian responsibility.” James Martin, president of the student body of the Duke University Divinity School, during the discus sion read a statement from the div inity students, which said in part “. . . We are ready and anxious f° r the unrestricted admission of quali fied Negroes to our divinity school- “. . . The need for ecclesiastical leadership is obvious and we look to you as leaders for a deeply contemp' lated statement that can be consider' ed as a mature and positive procla mation by the church to its people-