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District of Columbia
WASHINGTON, D. C.
n iSTRICT OF COLUMBIA school
U officials are keeping up with their
one-ye ar integration schedule. Come
midyear—January 31—and 1,200 Ne
gro and white junior high students
will graduate into high schools near
est home.
This means that the last racial bar
rier to high school admittance will
have been dropped as new boun
daries go into 100 per cent operation.
Already the majority of District
grade, junior and senior high schools
have some mixed classes, since all
new students were required to follow
the new integrated school zones in
September.
Besides the movement of graduates
this month, “no other school changes
will be made at this time,” School
Supt. Hobart M. Coming told the
board of education at its December
meeting. This is in accordance with
his master integration plan.
Coming said that requests of other
students — primarily grade school
youngsters—to transfer to buildings
nearer home will be considered this
spring.
Such transfers were permitted this
fall for senior high students living
within new non-racial school boun
daries and for junior high and ele
mentary students where space and
faculty were available.
ADMINISTRATIVE PROBLEM
Currently, school administrators
are working out a reorganization of
top officer jobs to eliminate dual po
sitions, necessary under segregation.
The new job lineup will be given the
school board in February, although
officers will not assume new duties
until September 1955 when integra
tion will be complete.
It is a ticklish and uncomfortable
task, school officers stress, to realign
their own duties and those of col
leagues. They fear that changed ti
tles and functions may result in hurt
feelings and even charges of discrimi
nation from members of both races.
“Guess it’s just human nature,”
said one officer, “but if you’re an
associate superintendent today, you
do wonder what you’ll be tomorrow.”
Said another: “As long as my work
is for the good of children, they can
give me any old name.”
Coming has assured his staff they
need not fear a reduction in force—
tbe dreaded “RIF” in government
circles which often follows a change
in administration.
There is work enough, ci
be done, for all of us,” Corr
stated. And there appears tc
TYPICAL EXAMPLES
for example, there are two asso
ciate superintendents in charge of
junior high and vocational schools,
nese jobs could be split between
,.® two types of schooling—quite
"“went in nature.
. bere are two associate superin-
ndents in charge of grade schools
ith one officer having a second big
Ponsibility for curriculum plan-
I V jjf\ A Sain, the jobs could be di-
f ™> °ne for administration and one
i. ^ ov erseeing the course of study.
o_ p nt il this fall, District schools
f sistan^ Un< ^ er duplicate sets of as-
' ,} * an d associate superintendents,
With 1 "*? 611 * keads and supervisors.
. “e start of integration, these
istJ? 0nS technically went out of ex-
te 06 as the officers worked as
a . s ’ tporning said this was vital to
°°th, orderly transition period.
Nesrr? a «T’ in 1116 Past, white and
operat- 0 ** 1061 ^ knew little about the
the c i° n °* each others’ divisions of
staff 6 °°t system, although mixed
numk*, ee t*ngs had been held for a
oer.of years.
R Thr RTS T ° BOARD
Just the insistence of Margaret
school , t * ler > ^egro member of the
a gener l 31 ^’ < t' orn tng gave the board
ftiinistj. .. report °n his plans for ad-
Urge<l , 1V . e revamping. He was
®Utcher° ° j more specific ■ by Mrs.
w 3 secon d Negro board
: theN" eS ' ey Wiliams, who
r about e ^ ro community is anxious
“^ s Ure officer assignments.
; ^ave be!? nCeS °* continuing status
hig said ?, 30 cleari y stated,” Com-
hirberi n Ulat no officer need be dis-
or worried about the final
outcome of the reorganization as far
as his particular position is con
cerned.”
Coming continued:
The reorganization of the administra
tive and supervisory staff will be accom
plished by assigning to each individual
general city-wide responsibility for some
phase of the school operation—and this
without designation as to race. Planning
for such a reorganization is not a simple
matter. It involves a careful analysis of
the abilities and experiences of individ
uals in relation to the various needs of
the school system. It is not, therefore,
a process which can be hurried if the
results are to be satisfactory to the school
system and to the individual officer con
cerned.
The school officers have been
working cooperatively, as teams, for
three months meeting many of the
problems jointly, Coming said. It is
true, he added, that the direct su
pervision of many functions held by
these officers under the dual system
will remain with the same officers.
This will be necessary until the re
organization has been completed, he
said.
“In the meantime, all the officers
are busily at work for the general
good of all of the schools and all of
the children,” Corning emphasized.
AHEAD OF SCHEDULE
Coming reminded board members
that he is ahead of schedule in his
integration program, referring to the
speed-up this fall in allowing many
young people to enroll in schools
nearer home where there was room.
“Any phases of the integration
process not yet accomplished,”
Coming said, “should not be con
sidered as errors or deficiencies but
rather as elements of in qpm pleteness
at this time which were inherent in
the original plan and which will be
accomplished by September 1955.”
Coming declared:
It is important that members of the
board of education and the general public
evaluate the progress that has been made
in terms of achievement and of the sincere
and wholehearted efforts and determina
tion of all teachers and officers through
out the school system to do a successful
job of desegregating the schools of Wash
ington.
Mrs. Butcher, who in November
accused Corning of being dilatory in
integrating the school administration,
said she had since been advised of
several steps taken towards staff
merger. She said regarding sports
there was a “gratifying indication of
progress.”
Both white and Negro officials took
part in planning the city’s first all-
star football team which last month
was victor in a post-season game
with the winners of the Catholic
parochial school league. In the past,
the competition was between the
Catholic league and the best team of
the white public schools. The city all
stars included both Negro and white
players. The game is sponsored by
the Washington Touchdown Club and
The Washington Post & Times Her
ald.
Coming reported further that offi
cers of both races planned the inter
racial basketball schedule which
starts this month. He said that a bi-
racial committee has just completed
recommendations on revising ath
letics rules which have been sent to
all principals for study.
Near the close of the December
board meeting, Member Robert F.
Faulkner was for a second time de
feated in an attempt to have the
board rescind its policy of assigning
pupils to schools without regard to
race.
In October, Faulkner unsuccessful
ly argued that parents should be al
lowed to transfer children out of
schools where they are in a small
racial minority.
In renewing his effort, Faulkner
said the reasonableness of his propos
al was supported by press reports
that “persons high in authority” un
derstood the Supreme Court would
take emotional strains of parents and
children into account in dealing with
desegregation.
Faulkner told reporters he re
ferred to a recent statement by
President Eisenhower. The Presi
dent commented on the emotional
strains and problems involved in in
tegration during a November press
conference. Mr. Eisenhower’s re
mark drew considerable press atten
tion because Chief Executives tra
ditionally refrain from talking about
cases pending final Supreme Court
action.
The school board’s rule of pupil
assignment is “rigid and arbitrary,”
Faulkner contended. He cited the
following make up of school regis
tration, according to a November pu
pil accounting taken by race:
CITES STATISTICS
“We have 156 schools. In each of
44 schools—two senior highs, four
junior highs and 38 grade schools—
there is a minority student body of
1 to 5 per school, totaling 112 pupils.
“In each of 11 schools—two junior
NAACP, AVC Briefs Score
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Attorneys for Negro plaintiffs in
the original four State segregation
cases have asked the Supreme Court
to order desegregation as fast as ad
ministrative and mechanical proce
dures can be completed in various
communities.
The consolidated brief, filed by
Thurgood Marshall, general counsel
for the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, and
20 other lawyers, recommended that
September 1955 would be a reason
able deadline in most instances.
“Certainly to indulge school au
thorities until September 1, 1956, to
achieve desegregation would be gen
erous in the extreme,” the NAACP
brief pointed out. “All decrees should
specify September 1956 as the outside
date,” it contended.
The integration process could be
effected much faster without incon
venience or injustice, the attorneys
said. “Much of the opposition to
forthwith desegregation does not
truly rest on any theory that it is
better to accomplish it gradually,”
they continued, adding: “In consider
able part, such opposition stems from
a desire that desegregation not be
undertaken at all.”
The attorneys asked the court to
lay down strict limitations to avoid
“any invitation to procrastinate.” It
would be paradoxical indeed, they
said, if, in the instant cases, it were
decided for the first time that consti
tutional rights may be postponed be
cause of anticipation of difficulties
arising out of local feelings.
“Piecemeal desegregation of
schools,” the brief said, would in
crease tension. It urged that if the
court decided on a gradual system
that there be “minimum safeguards”
to prevent injury to Negro children.
There must be safeguards, too,
against gradual adjustment having no
specific ending, the brief said.
The September deadline would
give the states ample time to com
plete “prerequisite administrative
and mechanical procedures,” the
lawyers stressed.
“Surely, appellants’ rights are not
to be enforced at a pace geared down
to the very customs which the Four
teenth Amendment and implement
ing Federal laws were designed to
combat,” the brief reasoned.
The attorneys cited evidence that
gradualism, far from facilitating the
process, may actually make it more
difficult. They said any sort of so-
called delayed “deadline” plan will
be used by opposition forces in com
munities “to firm up and build oppo
sition.”
“At least in South Carolina and
Virginia, as well as in some other
states affected by this decision, state
ments and actions of government of
ficials since May 17 demonstrate that
they will not use the time allowed to
build up community support for de
segregation,” the brief said. Various
“piecemeal schemes” have been sug
gested and tried, the brief pointed
out
“These seem to be inspired by the
assumption that it is always easier
and better to do something slowly
and a little at a time than all at
once,” the brief said.
It continued: “As might be expect
ed, it has appeared that the resist-
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—Jan. 6, 1955—PAGE 5
highs and nine grade schools, there
is a minority student body of 6 to 10,
totaling 84 pupils.
“In each of 15 schools—one senior
high, two junior highs and 12 grade
schools—there is a minority student
body of 26 to 44, totaling 236.
“And in each of 7 schools—one sen
ior high and six grade schools—there
is a minority student body of 26 to
44, totaling 222.”
Faulkner said in these 77 schools
the minority race numbers 654 and
the majority (in all but a few cases,
Negro) totals 46,927 students.
Of the remaining 79 schools,
Faulkner said, 39 have a wholly
white or Negro student body (8,388
white and 22,796 Negro). In the re
maining 40 schools, the minority stu
dent body is over 100 per school, he
said.
“These undisputed facts demon
strate clearly that in practicable
application the school board rule is
rigid, unreasonable and arbitrary,”
Faulkner said.
Mrs. Butcher told Faulkner he
should be ashamed of his reactionary
proposal to drop the anti-discrimina
tion rule.
DANCE CANCELLED
A traditional Christmas dance
was cancelled at an integrated
Washington high school because the
principal decided that students are
not ready for the social mingling of
races.
Dr. Charles E. Bish said “I believe
I made an unpopular decision.”
Bish, head of one of the three for
mer white high schools where stu
dents staged a brief October stay-
away demonstration against mixed
classes, said the question of the
dance arose in normal fashion.
“It would be hard to say which
came first, the McKinley Christmas
dance or McKinley itself,” Bish said.
Early in December, he continued, the
student body began to buzz with
conjecture about whether the affair
would continue this year.
Bish talked to his student council.
Students agreed it seemed bad to de
prive classmates of a dance because
of the presence of Negroes this year
in their school.
The principal, however, called in
the executive council of the Parent-
Teacher Association. “We discussed
many angles of the dance—and came
to no conclusion,” Bish revealed.
Next, the council invited three
Negro parents to discuss the matter
with its members and later listened
to views of student leaders.
In general, Bish said, the students
said they felt “we could have gone
ahead with it,” and the parents
‘Gradualism’
ance of some people affected by such
schemes is increased since they feel
arbitrarily selected as experimental
animals. Other members in the com
munity observe this reaction and in
turn their anxieties are sharpened.
“Piecemeal desegregation of
schools, on a class-by-class basis,
tends to arouse feelings of the same
kind and these feelings are height
ened by the intrafamilial and intra
school differences thus created. It
would be hard to imagine any means
better calculated to increase tension
in regard to desegregation than to
so arrange matters so that some chil
dren in a family were attending seg
regated and others unsegregated
classes. Hardly more promising of
harmony is the prospect of a school
which is segregated in the upper
parts and mixed in the lower.”
The American Veterans Commit
tee, Inc., has also filed a “friend of
the court” brief. The AVC previously
filed a brief when the first arguments
were heard, and again in December,
1953.
The AVC brief, arguing that “the
public interest does not require ex
tensive delay” in desegregating
schools, concludes with:
“Most of the people of the South
respect the Constitution. They will
comply with firm directives em
bodied in decrees of this Court. The
more positive the ruling, the greater
will be its acceptance. We believe
that the future course of desegrega
tion in the South will substantiate
the experience of public school de
segregation in New Jersey: . . that
the best way to integrate is to
do it.”
would have gone along if school offi
cials guaranteed being able to “con
trol a calculated risk.”
Bish said he queried several Wash
ington Catholic high schools to find
out how they held integrated dances
and also asked the question of the
long-integrated New Rochelle, N. Y.
high school. The latter school played
host to students from Washington
schools in October to show them how
integration had worked out in the
wealthy suburb of New York City.
These integrated schools replied
that white boys were told they must
bring white girls to dances and Ne
gro boys must bring dates of their
own race, Bish said.
As the parents and students con
tinued to discuss the matter, Bish
said, such questions arose as “who
does a Cuban student dance with
and the same with a Hawaiian stu
dent?”
“I tried to get the whole subject of
the dance talked up within the stu
dent body,” Bish said. “I don’t want
whisper campaigns about something
like this ... that’s demoralizing to all
concerned,” he said.
Some of the white students felt
that if the dance were called off, they
“would run scared of a situation,”
Bish said. Others felt they would be
socially disgraced by attending a
mixed affair, he reported.
In the final analysis “it was up to
me to decide,” Bish said. “I said no
dance,” he added.
“You see,” Bish said, “community
attitudes must be taken into consid
eration as long as taxpayers are in
volved ... in public schools you have
a captive audience, so to speak.”
FEARED ‘INCIDENT’
Bish said he kept thinking that
perhaps one of his white girl students
might bring “say, an ex-serviceman
... and this boy might decide to take
a flyer and cut in on a Negro girl
during the evening.” Then, Bish said,
there would be an incident and it
would make newspaper headlines.
“That we must avoid,” he stressed.
“We must be able to control such
factors without making news,” Bish
said. “We must work into the social
problem gradually on a factual—not
emotional—basis,” Bish said.
In reporting to parents, Bish said:
“I told them public schools are not
like private schools; public schools
are supported not only by parents of
students but by all taxpayers of the
community, and therefore communi
ty attitudes are involved. It is a ques
tion of sensing readiness for such a
move. Next year we may be ready,
but just now we are not.”
Bish said “Things have been mov
ing very well in the field of integra
tion, and I don’t want to risk em
barrassing incidents at this time.”
He said McKinley would operate on
a socially integrated schedule “when
we feel we are ready and can handle
the situation with dignity and calm
ness.” The Bible Club already is op
erating on an integrated basis.
The formal Senior Prom, scheduled
for February, will not be cancelled,
Bish said. There are no Negroes in
the midyear graduating class, how
ever.
In another former white high
school, the principal said “no Christ
mas dance will be held.” She added
that a community Christmas sing
will take its place. “I feel people get
a spirit of closeness through singing,”
she said. “It always makes you feel
good.”
“My white students have been real
sports about sacrificing their social
activities this year,” she said. “Some
times,” she added, “I feel real bad
when they say ‘but we’re giving up
everything that is important in our
last year in school.’ ”
Dances have been foregone this
year in all integrated District high
schools. The decision has been that
of the principals who best know the
readiness of their own student body.
PANEL DISCUSSION
Elsewhere in Washington, the
Southwest Citizens Association spon
sored a panel discussion on integra
tion by five graduates of Jefferson
Junior High in the Southwest com
munity who now attend mixed senior
highs.
The five student panelists agreed
that integration in classrooms and
sports is “on the way to success” but
were divided on the question whether
students were ready for social inte
gration.