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UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA
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libraries
Factual
Wthern School News
Objective
VOL. I, NO. 6
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
FEBRUARY 3. 1955
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Legislatures Take Up Segregation Issue
VV/HILE a majority of the 17 south-
” em and border states marked
time pending rearguments before the
U. S. Supreme Court, several of the
state legislatures which convened in
January received new legislative
proposals either to strengthen their
segregated school systems or provide
for “delaying actions.”
In South Carolina and Georgia,
bills aimed at preserving segregation
seemed certain of speedy passage. In
North Carolina, a measure to increase
authority of local school boards over
the enrolling and assignment of pu
pils got the backing of Gov. Luther
H. Hodges. A similar measure was
introduced in the Tennessee legisla
ture, but faces powerful opposition.
Pro-segregation bills had also been
drafted in Alabama, but had not been
introduced as this issue of Southern
School News went to press. Similar
measures were circulated in Mary
land, but had not been introduced.
The Oklahoma and Mississippi leg
islatures were wrestling with school
financing problems which had a di
rect relationship to the segregation-
desevregation issue.
Following is a brief state-by-state
summarv of significant developments
during the month of January. Fuller
details will be found elsewhere in
this issue.
ALABAMA
Alabama’s legislature was called
into special session by Gov. James
E. Folsom for the purpose of author
izing a big road bond issue. But sev
eral bills to strengthen school seg
regation have already been drafted,
and Sen. Albert Boutwell said he
would submit his legislative study
committee’s recommendations at the
first opportunity.” The Boutwell
plan would make it possible for the
state to discontinue public schools
and allocate money to aid private
schools.
ARKANSAS
The Arkansas SERS correspond
ent reported that the most significant
aspect of schools news in January
was the lack of executive or legisla
te comment on the segregation
question. The new governor, Orval
. Faubus, made no mention of the
ls sue in his inaugural address, and
school segregation wasn’t brought up
ln the General Assembly during the
rat two weeks of the biennial ses
sion. Main school item on the leg-
Jf. agenda: the provision of ad-
■tional revenues for education.
DELAWARE
Still awaiting a ruling by the State
opreme Court on the readmission
° 10 Negro pupils to the Milford
w te high school, Delawareans noted
j num ber of other developments
au nng January. NAAWP leader Bry-
Notice
rjm S '.- THE «N School News is ll
Ed C ' a . Publication of the Southe
19 ,. cat > Reporting Service, 11<
it 7. v< \ South, Nashville, Ten
injj 8 _ oLtribiitf'd free to interest:
re< pie.t 3 " anr * or 6 a nizations “P<
$ c L" quirie s about SOUTHEI
•o SPdd^' IWS should be address:
Stan S ’ P - °- Box 6156, Ackl.
^“-Nashville, Tenn.
tabli^L R e P°rting Service was «
a 0d f ,,| the southern edito
on th' Ucators whose names appe
fin an 6 ."l^ihead on Page 4. It
for t|, e * j a S rant from the Fui
an i n |j f < van ceinent of Educatio
l»v l,P en dent agency establish:
W rd , Foundation -
icy wi „ C . lal statement of SERS p<
^ e ad. 3 S ° f° un d in the mai
A Special SERS Report
Oak Ridge Maps Desegregation
(Note: The Atomic Energy Commission announced in January that the public schools in Oak Ridge,
Tenn., will be desegregated in September of 1955. Oak Ridge is hardly a typical southern community
because of its unusual relationship to the federal government, but its school problems are not unlike
those of other southern communities. Because of the widespread public interest in the AEC announce
ment, Southern School News assigned one of its Tennessee correspondents to do the following report.)
^TVIC and educational leaders report a mild reaction
to the announcement that Oak Ridge schools will be
desegregated in September, 1955.
Under the announced plan, 100 Negro students will be
enrolled in two schools formerly attended by only white
students.
Fifty Negroes are scheduled to attend Oak Ridge high
school, where the estimated attendance for 1955-56 will
be 1,748. At Robertsville junior high school another 50
Negroes will be among the 1,025 students expected to
enroll there.
The lack of any immediate response, pro or con, leaves
some Oak Ridgers puzzled and others cautiously con
fident the transition will be accomplished with a minimum
of disturbance.
School Supt. Bertis E. Capehart made the desegregation
announcement Jan. 11 at a monthly meeting of the Par
ents’ Advisory Council after the date for desegregation
at Oak Ridge had been set by the Atomic Energy Com
mission in Washington.
Dr. Capehart told the 21-member council that in carry
ing out this reorganization the following principles will
apply:
1. Pupils will not be favored nor discriminated against
because of race or color.
2. School district boundary lines will be strictly ad
hered to without reference to race.
3. All appointments of teachers (or other personnel)
will be based on merit and not on race or color.
Dr. Capehart, who joined the Oak Ridge school system
in 1945 and became superintendent Jan. 6, said there are
no plans to desegregate below the sixth grade. He said
that neighborhood school district fines would be pre
served. For this reason, elementary grades from kinder-
See OAK RIDGE on Page 12
ant Bowles settled in south Delaware
and announced a campaign to oust
key state officials who have backed
desegregation. The Delaware legisla
ture met, but the first few weeks
failed to produced rumored legisla
tion to curb the powers of the state
board of education. Gov. J. Caleb
Boggs asked the legislature to cre
ate a State Human Relations Coun
cil.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
As January ended, the District of
Columbia took another major step in
its integration time-table when mid
year graduates of junior high schools
entered high schools according to
new non-racial boundaries. The
change involved 1,018 junior high
graduates. Supt. Hobart M. Coming,
re-elected to a new four-year term
in January in spite of some opposi
tion, began giving closer study to
special “social adjustment” problems
growing out of the integration pro-
gram.
FLORIDA
Florida saw the second incident in
which a family was forced to remove
its children from a white school on
the grounds that they were part Ne
gro. The latest incident involved the
twin stepsons of Monroe Taylor. Aft
er the loss of his job, a midnight visit
from a “crowd of men” and a Ku
Klux Klan warning, Taylor decided
to leave Florida. Taylor’s wife is
part-Indian. Meanwhile an official
investigation into an earlier incident
involving the Platt children con
tinued.
GEORGIA
Three proposed laws to strengthen
public school segregation, explained
in detail in earlier issues of South
ern School News, were introduced
shortly after the Georgia legislature
convened, and seemed assured of
speedy passage. By resolution, the
Georgia House and Senate approved
two proposals to amend the U. S.
Constitution to make states solely re
sponsible for the policies under
which their schools are operated. The
House approved another resolution
to amend the Constitution to pre
serve segregation in the nation s
armed forces. Repeal of Georgia s
compulsory school attendance law
may also be sought.
By JAMES ELLIOTT
Staff Writer, The Nashville Banner
KENTUCKY
With an official policy oriented to
ward compliance with the Supreme
Court decrees when they are finally
issued, Kentuckians began to think
of the upcoming summer primaries
when a new set of state officials will
be nominated. To date, the segrega
tion-desegregation issue has not been
injected into the warm fight for the
governorship brewing between Judge
Bert T. Combs and A. B. “Happy”
Chandler. A special advisory com
mittee on desegregation continued its
studies preparatory to making rec
ommendations to the state board of
education in March, and Supt. Omer
Carmichael of Louisville told a Ne
gro business group that “I expect to
implement the integration program
... in whatever way the court de
crees.”
LOUISIANA
As Louisiana officially marked time
waiting for the Supreme Court to is
sue formal decrees in the school seg
regation cases, a struggle between
the forces of Gov. Robert F. Kennon
and those of ex-Gov. Earl Long
shaped up over the use of tidelands
oil revenues. Kennon’s group wants
to use the money for a vast road-
building program. Long’s group fa
vors earmarking some 200 million
dollars of the amount for equalizing
school facilities.
MARYLAND
The Maryland legislature convened
in January, but an earlier prediction
that a “deluge of bills and propo
sals” on the segregation issue would
descend on the session failed to ma
terialize. Copies of two pro-segrega
tion proposals, however, were dis
tributed by the Maryland Petition
Committee. The proposals would (1)
continue segregation by having a
system of private schools supported
by state aid, and (2) repeal Mary
land’s compulsory school attendance
law by stating that no white child
shall be required to attend any school
which has a Negro pupil or teacher.
MISSISSIPPI
Mississippi’s official policy on
school segregation is directed toward
full equalization of white-Negro fa
cilities in the belief that equaliza
tion will preserve “voluntary” seg
regation. The Mississippi legislature
met in special session in January to
Oak Ridge, Tenn.
appropriate new money for equaliza
tion, but strong resistance was de
veloping to all proposed sources for
major tax increases. The 25-member
Legal Educational Advisory Commit
tee, meanwhile, was voted unlimited
power to conduct hearings and com
mand the appearances of witnesses to
ascertain the effect of enforced pub
lic school integration on “law and
order.”
MISSOURI
Just at deadline for this issue of
Southern School News, St. Louis
was getting ready to integrate its
high schools with the start of the
second semester. A St. Louis County
town became the first to announce
plans for full integration of its teach
ing staff next September, and six
principals reported in detail how in
tegration looks after a full semester
of experience.
NORTH CAROLINA
The North Carolina General As
sembly received, with the blessings
of Gov. Luther H. Hodges, a meas
ure to give city and county boards
“complete authority” over the enroll
ment and assignment of pupils in
public schools. This step, recom
mended by a study commission, will
write into law sanction for current
practices, and is seen as a device to
forestall the introduction of more ex
treme legislation pending issuance of
final decrees by the Supreme Court.
OKLAHOMA
Oklahoma’s unique system for fi
nancing a dual school system will get
a major overhauling if the legislature
and the voters of the state approve
a constitutional amendment intro
duced this month. The amendment
would facilitate the transition to de
segregated public schools. But while
details of the amendment were being
worked out, the chairman of the
house education committee was
sounding out his colleagues on a
proposal to establish a “free transfer”
plan that would, in effect, enable
local school authorities to maintain a
large measure of segregation. The
author, however, has no immediate
plans for introducing the proposal as
a bill.
SOUTH CAROLINA
South Carolina’s outgoing gover
nor, James F. Byrnes, and the new
governor, George Bell Timmerman, in
major speeches stressed the state’s
official policy of preserving racial
separation in public schools to the
maximum degree possible. Against
this background, the South Carolina
legislature received a number of
legislative proposals aimed at fortify
ing the authority of local school of
ficials to cope with problems growing
out of the Supreme Court decision.
The proposals came from the 15-
member special study committee. One
major suggestion would eliminate the
state’s compulsory attendance law.
TENNESSEE
January saw several “firsts” in the
desegregation issue in Tennessee: (1)
The introduction of the first legisla
tive proposal designed to maintain
the separation of the races in the
state’s public schools; (2) an an
nouncement that the schools of Oak
Ridge would be desegregated in Sep
tember; (3) the preliminary step to
ward creation of a regional organiza
tion to support desegregation; (4) a
public stand for desegregation by a
parent-teacher group; and (5) en
dorsement by a civic club of a pro
posal to maintain segregation.
TEXAS
The opening days of the Texas
legislative session failed to produce
any new legislation on the segrega
tion-desegregation issue, but there
was a hint of future official policy in
Gov. Allan Shivers’ address to the
new legislature when he ad libbed
four words—“and maybe not then”
—into this sentence: “I recommend
that no change be made in our system
of public education until—and maybe
not then—the United States Supreme
Court gives us its complete mandate.”
Meanwhile, steps are being taken to
improve Texas Negro colleges.
VIRGINIA
In a preliminary report filed with
Gov. Thomas B. Stanley, Virginia’s
segregation study commission an
nounced that it will search for legal
means to prevent enforced integra
tion in the public schools. The com
mission then appointed special coun
sel. Virginia’s attorney General, J.
Lindsay Almond Jr., called the report
“entirely consistent with the position
I feel compelled to take before the
Supreme Court,” but several Virginia
newspapers voiced reservations about
the report.
WEST VIRGINIA
As the West Virginia legislature
moved through the first month of its
session, expected measures to facili
tate further school desegregation
failed to materialize. The legislature
did, however, appoint a special com
mittee to study the state’s colleges
and institutions to determine whether
integration would permit the “moth
balling” of some of them.
Index
State Page
Alabama 2
Arkansas 2
Delaware 3
District of Columbia 4
Florida 5
Georgia 6
Kentucky 5
Louisiana 7
Maryland 8
Mississippi 9
Missouri 15
North Carolina 14
Oklahoma 10
South Carolina 3
Tennessee 16
Texas 7
Virginia 10
West Virginia 13
