Newspaper Page Text
Factual
Southern School News
Objective
VOL. I. NO. 5
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
JANUARY 6, 1955
Effects
(Note: Publication of the September
issue of Southern School News prompted
a flood of letters to the Southern Educa
tion Reporting Service from groups and
individuals who are giving serious study
to the Supreme Court ruling of last May.
Because these thousands of letters gave
such a revealing picture of the regional
interest in the subject, the following anal
ysis was undertaken. The scores of com
ments quoted are typical of many hun
dreds of others.)
By BONITA H. VALIEN
SERS Analyst and Consultant
TN its first issue, dated Sept. 3, 1954,
Southern School News announced
itself as a reporting service which
would undertake “a major new jour
nalistic assignment—to tell the story
factually and objectively, of what
happens in education as a result of
the Supreme Court’s May 17 opinion
that segregation in the public schools
is unconstitutional.”
After approximately six months of
operation, Southern School News
seems to have established itself both
by definition and performance as a
“factual and objective” media. As an
instrument for reporting what is hap
pening in the 17 states and the Dis
trict with respect to implementation
or circumvention of the Supreme
Court decision, it has found enthus
iastic acceptance in both the South
and North and among widely diver
gent groups.
To date, Southern School News has
accumulated a mailing list of almost
25,000. A large number of these are
governors, chief state school officers,
school administrators and board
chairmen, newspaper editors, etc.,
whose names are on the mailing list
as a result of letters from the execu
tive director announcing that the
service would be available and de
scribing its objectives.
There is, however, another statis
tically significant group that is in
cluded in the mailing list. In this
group are thousands of individuals
who, without specific invitation, have
requested Southern School News. It
*s with this group of requests that the
present analysis is concerned. Much
°£ what follows as interpretation
should be considered both tentative
and suggestive rather than definite
conclusions. However, the data based
u Pon more than 3,000 letters seem
to admit the following observations
and interpretations:
L There is widespread interest in
the May 17 Supreme Court opinion
declaring segregation unconstitu-
wnal, and individuals and groups
whatever their interest—whether to
continue segregation or work toward
*ts abolition—show a deep concern in
nnd need for “factual and objective”
ata. Requests have come from all the
th U ^ ern an d border states and 28 of
® northern and western states.
• ft is clear that, while the groups
Notice
«ffi'° UTHFRN School News is the
t, CIa ^ Publication of the Southern
Reporting Service, 1109
I t . ^ Ve ' South, Nashville, Tenn.
j n( j! * * 3 4 S .distributed free to interested
duals and organizations upon
S c L” quiries about Southern
to c., 1 ' 1 ,, News should be addressed
Si a( . ^ O. Box 6156, Acklen
°n ! Nashville, Tenn.
i tic P , _
UhU s . ‘'“Porting Service was es-
aqg , tf h> the southern editors
Oq jl Ueat ors whose names appear
finap * , n,as thead on Page 4. It is
for tj^ C ft'" a grant from the Fund
an jjj? 1 d'ancement of Education,
hv thJ l Pen de nt agencv established
An „° r ‘ l foundation,
official -
'ey ,y;u — ‘«iemeni oi ar,n3 poi-
^ead 3 so ft e found in the mast-
statement of SERS pol-
Of Ruling Given Serious Study
New Legislation Slated
The Region—At A
‘J'WO major school problems—larg
er appropriations and the segre
gation-desegregation issue—will vie
for attention in southern and border
state legislatures which convene in
January, reports for this issue of
Southern School News reveal.
The Georgia legislature is expected
to enact at least three new laws to
strengthen the state’s segregated
school system. The South Carolina
legislature will receive new recom
mendations, yet unpublicized, from
a special state commission which has
been studying the Supreme Court de
cision of last May.
Leaders of the North Carolina Gen
eral Assembly do not favor any leg
islation on the subject, but the man
slated to be Speaker of the House
recommends that some expression of
the state’s sentiment about segrega
tion be sent to the Supreme Court.
A Tennessee legislator says he will
introduce a bill giving local school
boards wide leeway to assign chil
dren to designated schools, and in
Mississippi, a special session of the
legislature will consider a vast new
program for equalizing white-Negro
facilities as a move to preserve “vol
untary” segregation.
The Oklahoma and Arkansas leg
islatures will be mainly preoccupied
with complex school financial prob-
requesting Southern School News
are by no means homogenous, each
has one idea or concern in common—
the importance of facts in establishing
their particular point of view. The
pro-segregationist welcomes South
ern School News because he believes
that when the facts regarding the
particular and peculiar problems of
the South are known, the case for
segregation will be established. This
is clearly revealed in the comments
that appear elsewhere in this analysis.
At the other extreme are those who
are equally convinced that segrega
tion can be clearly demonstrated to
be economically and morally un
sound once the facts are known.
The largest group, the middle
group, the more or less uncommitted,
are those who, realizing that there is
a Supreme Court decision, are earn
estly searching for an answer as to
how the decision might be carried out
with the least amount of trauma to
either group. They, too, are looking
for objective facts. Representatives of
this group range from the individual
“interested citizen” to some of the
more or less formal organizational
groupings.
3. Interest in the facts with regard
to the consequences of the Supreme
Court decision has been greatest
among the group that refers to itself
as “just an interested citizen” (40.7
per cent), with teachers and educa
tional administrators (20.7 per cent),
and professional workers associated
with organizations (14.0 per cent)
evincing interest in the order named.
4. Southern School News is being
used as an educational device by
religious study groups both formal
and informal; civic and professional
organizations as discussion material;
college professors as basic resource
data in their classes and as an ex
ample of a new type of journalism;
students as a source of data for theses,
discussion groups, debates and school
newspapers.
5. The range of interest in South
ern School News extends beyond
lems, but Arkansas Education Com
missioner Ford predicts there will be
some legislation designed to carry
out the Supreme Court ruling.
The Maryland and Texas legisla
tures will also meet, but so far no
specific proposals for new segrega
tion-desegregation legislation have
been made.
The Florida legislature doesn’t meet
until late spring, but a struggle is
already shaping up between those
who favor some variation of the
“Mississippi plan” for preserving seg
regation, and those who prefer Atty.-
Gen. Richard Ervin’s “gradualism”
approach to integration.
In Missouri, St. Louis made plans
for a second major desegregation step
—the redistricting, effective Feb. 1, of
the city’s seven white and two Negro
high schools to eliminate racial seg
regation. Full details, including maps,
are on Page 11.
On Jan. 11, the District of Colum
bia will take another step in its one-
year integration program when 1,200
graduates of white and Negro junior
high schools will start attending high
schools nearest their homes. School
officials in the District were also giv
ing thought to administrative and so
cial problems growing out of deseg
regation.
The first complete summary of
those individuals, groups and areas
directly concerned with the problem
of school segregation. This is ex
emplified by the many requests from
representatives of organizations
working in the field of human rights
who, while indicating that they are
not directly concerned with the prob
lem of school segregation nevertheless
express the desire to have Southern
School News for the perspective
which it can furnish with respect to
the problems or areas of their imme
diate and direct concern.
6. The international implications of
the issues with which Southern
School News is dealing are pointed
up by the gradually increasing num
ber of requests from outside the
United States.
ANALYSIS OF REQUESTS
An examination of 3,194 spontan
eous requests for Southern School
News, selected entirely at random
over a three and one-half month pe
riod, revealed that 2,049, or 64.1 per
cent of these requests originated in
southern and border states with the
remaining 1,145, or 35.9 per cent being
distributed throughout 28 states of
the North, West, Canada, Alaska,
Honolulu, England, Germany and
India.
The five southern states with the
largest number of spontaneous re
quests are Tennessee (330), North
Carolina (298), Virginia (264), Texas
(191), and the District of Columbia
(145). New York led the northern
states with 624 requests, with New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts,
and Connecticut following in the
order named with 66, 63, 62 and 47
requests, respectively. There are no
requests from North Dakota, Mon
tana and Nevada included in this
analysis.
The largest number of spontaneous
requests (1,299) originated with the
“just interested citizen.” Within this
group, 38 per cent in the South and
72 per cent in the North indicated
active membership in some local or
Glance
West Virginia’s desegregation pro
gram showed that 52,545 white and
Negro students are attending 135 in
tegrated public schools.
Delaware awaited the decision of
the State Supreme Court on a suit
seeking the readmission of Negro
students to the Milford white high
school, scene of protests in October.
In South Delaware, public opinion
referenda piled up large majorities
against integration.
Virginia saw the chartering of a
new organization—the National Pro
tective Individual Rights, Inc. —
which favors authority for the states
and local communities to work out
problems posed by the Supreme
Court decision.
In Alabama, formation of several
White Citizens Councils was featured
in the news. In Kentucky, the state
board of education promised “the
most careful consideration” of a plan
to minimize problems posed by de
segregation of the schools, particu
larly the effect on the employment of
qualified Negro teachers.
And in Louisiana, a federal dis
trict court ordered the admission of
Negro plaintiffs to McNeese State
College at Lake Charles—the second
Louisiana undergraduate institution
to be so opened.
national organization and/or com
mittee, while the remaining 62 per
cent in the South, and 28 per cent in
the North simply identified them
selves as a citizen, a parent or a
grandparent with a deep con
cern and interest in the subject.
A clear majority of persons in
cluded in this group looked upon
SSN as an educational device de
signed to help educate citizens toward
a positive point of view. This view
point was most often indicated by
such statements as “I am willing to
learn,” “My opinion could be changed
through a ‘factual and objective’ re
porting of the facts,” or as one Ala
bama citizen put it, “I find it informa
tive to the point and valuable as a
corrective for the Southerner’s think
ing.”
On the other hand, there were those
who, “believing segregation to be es
sential to Southern living and
schools,” were also interested in SSN,
and as one representative of this
group put it, an “interested citizen”
from Virginia, “I am very much in
terested in receiving your paper and
trust more states will see the ‘light’
before we have to organize the KKK
again.” Another in Maryland indi
cated, “I am doing all in my power to
help align Maryland behind segrega
tion efforts. Please enlist me in your
membership and send me all perti
nent information.”
Those requesting SSN because they
were interested in preserving segre
gation and their reasons behind this
wish might be seen in the following
comments at random:
A Texas citizen:
I cannot understand why among the
various objections offered no one has
claimed that desegregation is counter to
religious rights guaranteed in Amend
ment I of the U. S. Constitution. As I
read mv Bible, God was the first seg
regationist.
From Christianburg, Virginia:
I am deeply interested in this segrega
tion idea, and would like to receive your
paper. It is a difficult thing to imagine a
white body of men attempting to saddle
Negroes upon us. It would be different if
the white race asked for it. But to be
forced to have them thrust upon us is
difficult to imagine.
From Dallas, Texas:
I am a white man very much against
the Supreme Court decision and am in
terested in what the Southern States, Del
aware and Kansas are doing about the
matter. Recently the NAACP help a con
vention in Dallas with some reportedly
800 members in attendance. They stated
that they had collected (presumably from
the USA organization) $300,000 for their
1954. budget, and were asking for one
million in contributions before the end
of the year. It is my belief, personally,
that this money is coming from malcon
tents in the North who hate the South,
and may be the seventh or eighth genera
tion of the Civil War carpetbaggers who
will do anything to destroy the South.
From Kingston, Tennessee:
# I a m interested in maintaining segrega
tion in our schools, churches and other
public places as I consider segregation
a part of God’s plan. I agree whole
heartedly with the minister in Chattanooga
who recently said, ’Segregation was
established for here on earth and we will
obey the simple rules laid down by God.’
From Abilene, Texas:
As an American citizen, and for 60 years
a voter in Texas, I know that non-seg
regation of races in our public schools is
not and cannot be the answer to equal
opportunity for the negro race in these
United States. If it were, it has been so
for 160 years. When did these wonderful
judges ’wake up’?
By this one act, the Supreme Court as
sumes the right to set aside any and all
rights accorded the states when the
central government was created by the
states. They created and adopted the Con
stitution. Apparently the Court seems to
assume the right to interpret any part
of our Constitution (as the highest Court
of Appeals) just any way it wishes to.
A citizen from Louisiana:
I.was.wondering if the Supreme Court's
ruling is to stand, what would prevent
darkies from being buried in white ceme
teries? Like membership into white secret
orders? Would appreciate your putting me
on your mailing list.
And from Washington, D.C.:
Come up to Washington and see the
rapidly deteriorating status of the racial
situation here in our Capital.
EX-SOUTHERNERS
Although removed from the region,
southerners maintain their interest in
the South, some justifying the south
ern philosophy and pattern of living,
some describing themselves as “li
berals ’ who wish to change the south
ern “attitudes” and “patterns.”
While neither condemning nor con
doning the South, there are those who
are anxious that the region be under
stood in the light of its history and
present problems. These individuals
evince sensitivity over the “over gen
eralized” and “inaccurate” statements
of non-southerners and welcome the
factual and objective reporting” of
Southern School News. The follow-
See ANALYSIS On Page 15
Index
State Page
Alabama j
Arkansas 3
Delaware 4
District of Columbia 5
Florida g
Georgia 7
Kentucky g
Louisiana 3
Maryland 9
Mississippi 10
Missouri n
North Carolina 12
Oklahoma 13
South Carolina 14
Tennessee 14
Texas 6
Virginia 13
West Virginia 2
