Newspaper Page Text
page 4 —Dec. I, 1954 — SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS
District of Columbia
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
Commercial Appeal, Memphis,
Tenn.
Gordon Blackwell, Director, Institute
for Research in Social Science,
University of N. C.
Harvie Branscomb, Chancellor, Van
derbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.
Virginius Dabney, Editor, Richmond
Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Va.
Coleman A. Harwell, Editor, Nash
ville Tennessean, Nashville, Tenn.
Henry H. Hill, President, George
Peabody College, Nashville, Tenn.
Charles S. Johnson, President, Fisk
University, Nashville, Tenn.
C. A. McKnight, Editor (On Leave)
Charlotte News, Charlotte, N. C.
Charles Moss, Executive Editor,
Nashville Banner, Nashville, Tenn.
Thomas R. Waring, Editor, Charles
ton News & Courier, Charleston,
S. C.
Henry I. Willett, Superintendent of
Schools, Richmond, Va.
P. B. Young Sr., Editor, Norfolk
Journal & Guide, Norfolk, Va.
CORRESPONDENTS
ALABAMA
William H. McDonald, Editorial
Writer, Montgomery Advertiser
ARKANSAS
Thomas D. Davis, Asst. City Editor,
Arkansas Gazette
DELAWARE
William P. Frank, Staff Writer,
Wilmington News
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Jeanne Rogers, Education Writer,
Washington Post & Times Herald
FLORIDA
Bert Collier, Staff Writer, Miami
Herald
GEORGIA
Joseph B. Parham, Editor, The
Macon News
KENTUCKY
Weldon James, Editorial Writer,
Louisville Courier-Journal
LOUISIANA
Mario Fellom, Political Reporter,
New Orleans Item
MARYLAND
Edgar L. Jones, Editorial Writer,
Baltimore Evening Sun
MISSISSIPPI
Kenneth Toler, Mississippi Bureau,
Memphis Commercial-Appeal
MISSOURI
Robert Lasch, Editorial Writer, St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
NORTH CAROLINA
Jay Jenkins, Staff Writer, Raleigh
News & Observer
OKLAHOMA
Mary Goddard, Staff Writer, Ok
lahoma City Oklahoman-Times
SOUTH CAROLINA
W. D. Workman Jr., Special Cor
respondent, Columbia, S. C.
TENNESSEE
James Elliott, Staff Writer, Nash
ville Banner
Wallace Westfeldt, Staff Writer,
Nashville Tennessean
TEXAS
Richard M. Morehead, Austin Bu
reau, Dallas News
VIRGINIA
Overton Jones, Editorial Writer,
Richmond Times-Dispatch
WEST VIRGINIA
Frank A. Knight, Editor, Charles
ton Gazette
MAIL ADDRESS
P. O. Box 6156, Acklen Station, Nashville 5, Tenn.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
THE District of Columbia told the
Supreme Court on Nov. 15 that no
further court action is necessary to
bring about public school integration
in the nation’s capital. In few words
the brief emphasized that by next fall
the school segregation issue will be
“completely moot” in Washington.
For all practical purposes, the brief
continued, the entire matter is moot
now. “. . . . Positive steps have been
taken and are well under way for
complete desegregation of pupils in
the public schools of the District...,”
Corporation Counsel Vernon E. West
wrote.
As proof of this, he submitted
School Supt. Hobart M. Coming’s
step-by-step, one-year integration
blueprint and the Board of Educa
tion’s five-point anti-discrimination
policy which governs the assignment
of both pupils and teachers to schools
without regard to race.
Two affidavits, one from Coming
and the other from School Board
President C. Melvin Sharpe were
given the court.
Corning explained that some big
steps in his original plans had been
speeded up to put existing school fa
cilities to fuller use. He stressed, how
ever, that the integration program as
a whole still is scheduled for Septem
ber 1955 completion.
Sharpe attested to a “wide diver
gence” of opinion among the nine
members of the school board on the
method and timing of integration
plans. He added, however, these
plans had been approved by a board
majority and are now in operation.
A week before the District brief
was filed, Corporation Counsel West
and Deputy Milton Korman called
the school board to their office to re
view the new line of argument. The
attorneys explained they originally
had urged the case be remanded to
the lower courts with instructions
that integration be started at the
earliest practical date, and be com
pleted by a definite future date to be
fixed by the Supreme Court.
Unless the Supreme Court dis
agreed with the premise that imme
diate integration was not required,
the District authorities said, there
was no need for further action.
After the meeting with counsel,
School Board Member Robert R.
Faulkner called the majority of the
board “. . . modem John Browns who
have forced public school desegrega
tion here without waiting for a final
Supreme Court decision, regardless
of its effect on rights of individuals.”
Faulkner’s “modern John Browns”
charge referred to the abortive anti
slavery rebellion led by the Kansas
abolitionist before the Civil War of
1861.
From the start, Faulkner has
wanted parents to have the right to
remove children from schools in
which they were in racial minority.
He also has advocated a triple set of
schools — all-white, all-Negro and
mixed.
ENROLLMENT FIGURES
Mrs. Frank Phillips, school board
vice president, gave the lawyers a
detailed study of September enroll
ments at former white schools.
Marked decreases in white registra
tions in some of these buildings, she
said, have been recorded because of
a “coercive” integration program.
Her interpretation of official enroll
ment statistics, she said, is that they
reflect “a desire on the part of the
white families to get away from an
undesired situation.”
Mrs. Phillips, former Government
statistician and wife of a builder, said
she wanted the Supreme Court to
know this effect of school integration.
The District brief referred only to a
difference of opinion of board mem
bers—leaving out detail.
The integration time schedule of
the school board, the brief said, is “as
short as can reasonably be devised
to establish in orderly fashion a
school system which complies with
the (court) decision.”
Meanwhile on Nov. 15, lawyers
who filed a brief for Negro student
Spottswood Thomas Bolling took
sharp issue with this contention of
the District.
The Bolling case, along with those
in four states, brought about the May
17 anti-segregation edict of the Su
preme Court. At that time, the high
tribunal asked participants in these
cases to file briefs on the methods
of carrying out this ruling.
In this brief, Negro attorneys James
M. Nabrit Jr. and George E. C. Hayes
urged the Supreme Court to direct
the school board “forthwith” to admit
all children to the schools of their
choice.
The brief attacked the so-called
“Corning integration plan,” charging
that its “gradualist element” caused
not only the denial of “present consti
tutional rights” of Negro children in
the District but had been the genesis
of many administrative difficulties in
the past and presaged more for the
future. The brief continued:
It is our appraisal of the Coming plan
put in operation in the District that the
respondents have advanced on the as
sumption that this court has accepted the
theory of an effective gradual adjustment
from a segregated system to a system not
based on color distinctions: that they have
discounted the propriety of a forthwith
disposal of this matter upon its merits,
and have launched upon this gradual plan
which is replete with errors and pitfalls.
OPTION PLAN SCORED
The brief objected particularly
that the Corning plan would “delay in
completely desegregating the public
school system here.” It said the plan
contains a method of “student op
tions” designed to defeat effective in
tegration. The attorneys said the “op
tions” feature (of allowing students
to remain in last year’s schools, if de
sired) was hard to understand.
The option system, the brief said,
took authority from the superintend
ent to operate an orderly integrated
system and delegate it to the parents
of the children.
Investigation, it was charged, failed
to show where a single Negro child
had been transferred from a school
he attended previously, because of
his race, to a school from which he
previously had been excluded on that
basis, if, “to do so would have meant
the displacement of a white student.”
On the contrary, the brief said, in
stances had been found where white
students required to attend pre
viously all-Negro schools have been
permitted to transfer to schools where
the students were predominantly
white on the alleged ground of
“hardship.”
The Negro attorneys urged the
court to order immediate admission
of pupils to schools of their choice
within normal geographic school dis
tricting.
TWO FUTURE STEPS
All District schools were redis
tricted last summer and the new
boundaries were observed this Sep
tember by students new to the school
system, regardless of their race. In
February, the new boundaries must
be observed by junior high school
graduates, and next September by all
students.
Aware of the approaching mid-year
graduation, delegates from six citi
zens’ associations of southeast Wash
ington urged school officials to change
the new Anacostia and Eastern high
school boundaries. Under the new
school district map, students living
in one section of the Southeast must
cross the Anacostia River to attend
Eastern high school instead of nearer
Anacostia high.
The parents declared their children
will have to travel a much greater
distance to class and face hazards of
heavy bridge traffic in crossing the
river each day. They added that fam
ilies will be separated as students
now enrolled at Anacostia high will
remain there while younger brothers
and sisters graduating from junior
high, for the most part, will have to
attend Eastern.
Real estate values will decline, the
parents said, as residents will move
to other parts of the city to avoid this
situation. School officials promised to
make a new student count in the area
to see if a compromise line can be
drawn without overcrowding Ana
costia high.
Both Anacostia and Eastern, for
mer white schools, now have mixed
classes. At present, Anacostia has
1,279 students, 44 Negro. Eastern has
1,850 students, including a junior
high unit, with 885 of this number
Negro.
Since the advent of school integra
tion in Washington, word-of-mouth
rumor has persisted that white fam
ilies were leaving town in great num
ber because of the end of a dual edu
cation system.
The Washington Evening Star pub
lished an unofficial comparison of sec
ond day school registration and that
of last year, stating that the recorded
drop in white enrollment was influ
enced to some degree by integration.
This was followed by Mrs. Phillips’s
similar study and conclusions.
MIGRATION CONTINUES
Supt. Corning during a press con
ference said the drop in white enroll
ment in Washington is due to a 8 to
10-year migration of residents to the
suburbs. “For years, school superin
tendents in large cities have been be
moaning the fact that this thing has
been happening everywhere, regard
less of the race question,” Corning
said.
He added that the superintendents
termed the migration to the suburbs
the “decadence of American cities,”
pointing out that business follows the
residents out of the metropolises.
Coming admitted this migration has
been “stepped up” to some degree by
school integration.
“We don’t know to what degree,”
Corning added. He said “it cannot be
contended” that the degree of loss of
white enrollment in the school sys
tem or in individual buildings en
tirely is due to an end of segrega
tion.
Children have changed residence
within the city, some are absent for
illness when the rolls are taken, oth
ers have moved out of town and some
teen-agers finished their senior year
during night classes, Corning said.
Unofficial enrollment counts based
on early days of school attendance
which showed a drop in white enroll
ment in specific schools cannot be
considered “too significant,” Coming
said.
TOTAL ENROLLMENT UP
Later, Corning released District
school enrollment for November 4,
1954 as compared with November 5,
1953 in a school-by-school racial
breakdown. It showed total public
school enrollment has increased
slightly more than 1 per cent since
last year to reach a record high of
105,409 students.
The figures reflect a drop in white
pupil enrollment of 7.6 per cent since
November 1953, while there has been
an 8.6 per cent rise in Negro enroll
ment in this period.
The 1954 total shows 64,501 Negro
pupils and 41,358 white. Negro pupils
number more than 60 per cent of the
total.
Pupils of white and Negro races are
enrolled at 120—or three-fourths—of
the city’s 158 schools, the figures
show. Twenty-six remain all-Negro,
and 12 all-white.
Integration has begem at seven of
the District’s 11 senior high schools.
Three of the former Negro schools,
Armstrong, Cardozo and Spingarn
report no white pupils. One former
white high school, Woodrow Wilson,
reported no Negro students this year.
In the 22 junior high schools, seg
regation has ended in 15, while stu
dents of both races attend all but 27
of the District’s 125 grade schools.
Many District schools now have in
tegrated faculties. The latest count
shows that of a faculty of 3,620, there
are 1,943 Negro and 1,677 white teach
ers. Breaking down the enrollment
changes according to educational lev
els, the latest survey shows these to
tals:
Elementary schools—White, down
2,735 to 25,024; Negro, up 3,701 to 41,-
390.
Junior highs—White, down 351 to
8,830; Negro, up 307 to 13,573.
Senior highs—White, down 402 to
6,066; Negro, up 591 to 6,263.
Teachers College—White, down 140
to 431; Negro, up 251 to 648.
Vocational high—White, up 20 to
972; Negro, up 301 to 1,381.
A drop in white pupil enrollment
has taken place in 14 of the 18 years
since 1936. Sharp drops were regis
tered during World War H and the
Korean War, but totals climbed back
slightly after hostilities ceased.
FIGURES DISPUTED
During the Nov. 17 school board
meeting, Mrs. Margaret J. Butcher,
member, deplored the national pub
licity given the drop in white enroll
ment in Washington. She said “cer
tain unofficial studies” had over
weighted integration as a cause and
factor.
Mrs. Butcher also asked the board
to order Coming to submit a time-
schedule for the integration of top
officer jobs in the school system. Cur
rently, Negro and white officers with
parallel positions are serving as teams
in administering all the schools.
Corning said this is preferable during
the “period of transition” from segre
gation. Mrs. Butcher failed to get a
second from board members, includ
ing the two other Negroes, West A.
Hamilton and Wesley S. Williams.
On a second motion by Williams,
however, the board directed Corning
to present a December progress re
port on reorganization of his admin
istrative staff.
A plea has been made to District
Court judges by several white citi
zens’ groups to remove Mrs. Butcher
from her school board post on
grounds she now is serving as a paid
worker for the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored Peo
ple. The citizens charge that in this
new capacity, Mrs. Butcher cannot
represent the “interests of all chil
dren” as a member of the school
board.
Mrs. Butcher has taken a year’s
leave as English professor at Howard
University. Currently, she is touring
the country as a “reporter” of inte
gration on trouble spots for the NA
ACP. She has attended all monthly
board meetings and declares her
plane trips here and there do not
“keep me from being up-to-date on
school happenings in Washington.”
ASSEMBLIES HELD
Assemblies were held this month
at two of the three former white
high schools where students in Octo
ber participated in brief demonstra
tions against integration.
At McKinley high, Coming talked
to students about integration and the
meaning of the Supreme Court de
cision. He received “the biggest ova
tion I’ve ever gotten during a speech
in Washington.” A mixed chorus san?
on the stage.
At Eastern high school, students
marked the first Veterans Day ob
servance. The program was the stoD
of this nation’s wars. When the CiV"
War or the War Between the States
(it was given both titles) ***
reached, a mixed girls’ chorus sal*
the “Battle Hymn of the Republic-^
The assembly climaxed with a sho
talk by a disabled Negro veteran 0
the Korean War.
Student grievance committee 5
which were formed to work out pr°^
(See DISTRICT on Page 10)