About Southern school news. (Nashville, Tenn.) 1954-1965 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 3, 1955)
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—Feb. 3, 1955—PAGE II Virginia Continued from Page 10 tentative statewide organizations. In addition, the sentiments of a large number of individuals have been ex pressed through the medium of peti tions opposing integration.” Dr. E. B. Henderson, of Falls Church, vice-president of the Vir ginia State Conference of the Na tional Association for the Advance ment of Colored People, took issue with the commission’s statement that the “overwhelming majority” of Vir ginians are opposed to integration. Dr. Henderson said that 2,071 Ne groes in nine northern Virginia coun ties had signed a statement express ing opposition to all forms of segre gation in public schools and in pub lic life. He said less than one per cent of those approached hesitated to sign, which would indicate that “over 95 per cent of the Negro population of Virginia is opposed to segregation.” He added: “The governor’s commission hence must speak almost entirely for the white citizens. Of this we have doubt, since practically all of the responsible church leaders are on record as fa voring integration. Many white spokesmen of other groups also fa vored compliance with the decision of the Supreme Court at the hearing of Nov. 15.” Virginia Papers Vary In Reaction To Report RICHMOND, Va. yiRGINIA newspapers which edi- ' torialized on the subject appeared to be in unanimous agreement that the segregation study commission was correct in saying that the “over whelming majority” of the people of this state oppose racial integration. But certain other aspects of the com mission’s preliminary report did come in for some criticism. Editorial ex cerpts follow: The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot: “A primary weakness of the com mission to this point has been its neg ative attitude toward a problem that can never be dealt with intelligently by harsh limitations. The commission has seemed to be concerned chiefly with establishing a point of view in Virginia. On the other hand, it has done nothing, so far as the public knows, about scholarly research into extremely pertinent school conditions m Virginia. It has made no study, so far as the public knows, of any areas (if such areas exist) where adjust- m ents may be made with reasonable satisfaction and public approval. It has attempted no objective examina- hon, so far as the public knows, of various methods, procedures, and Programs under discussion elsewhere ■—some of them seemingly extreme in °ne direction or the other, but some Possibly helpful in suggesting what can or cannot be done in Virginia.... ff the commission is to present something more than a purely nega- Ive program, it has an enormous amount of work to do in areas which, so far as the public knows, it has not J?t entered. Its duty is to do so. The nnt fact is that, even under the commission’s own definition, large j an Ses in Virginia educational pol- V and procedure are coming. To repare for and guide wisely those anges, the State needs a far higher th^ sfntesmanlike leadership D an ~f° this point—government has shaded’ commission itself has „, 0 ', vn - or the people themselves have Produced.” Vh » .■Lamport News Times-Herald: advi ® question ... is ... of the Co nbility of shaping probable cree S6S f ac ^ on before the final de- ten 1 Supreme Court are writ- before • 6 ^ VG desegregation cases take tt, 1 *' ' ‘ ‘ "^be decrees may not Prino’ i an ticipated form and the deej. lp es fafd down in advance of light % may have to be revised in the cisi ons °,, bnal Supreme Court de- Jl» ■ A ***°k. Times: Work C ° mrr fi ss !° n which has been at statem ° r mon ths comes up with a °f the problem of which a\v ar 0 y in this State has been ’ 6 ” ~ Court Text Of Talk To N. C. Press Group (The following is the text of a talk by SERS Executive Director C. A. McKnight before the North Carolina Press Association in Chapel Hill., N.C., Jan. 21.) * * * I N , talking to public groups about the Supreme Court school deci sion, I have found it useful—indeed essential—to make an opening “Dec laration of Independence.” The Southern Education Reporting Service of which I am currently serv ing as director is NOT an advocate in the segregation-desegregation is sue. It is neither pro-segregation nor pro-integration. Accordingly, you will get no ex pressions of opinion from me today, no evaluation of what is good or what is bad about what you in North Car olina or the people in the other states are doing to meet the problems posed by the court decision. Instead, I propose to give you a brief factual review of regional de velopments as we have watched them from Nashville; to trace for you a few of the trends that are shaping up, though not yet definitive; to make a plea for the “forgotten man” in the discussion of the Supreme Court decision; and to say a few words about press coverage of the biggest regional story of the century. THREE CATEGORIES In their reaction to the Supreme Court decision, the 17 southern and border states where segregated schools have been required by law range themselves roughly into three loose categories: 1. The “do it now” states, includ ing Delaware, West Virginia and Missouri. In this group would come the District of Columbia, also, though here the legal authority of the Fed eral Government was a major fac tor in the decision to move toward complete desegregation in 12 months. These states have not waited for the Supreme Court to issue its decrees, but have begun desegregation in varied measure in the current school year. 2. The “wait and see” states. In this group would fall Maryland, Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Ten nessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Texas, Arkansas and Alabama. In Maryland, of course, the city of Bal timore would be an exception. Balti more desegregated its schools at the beginning of the current school year. In Alabama, a legislative study com mission has recommended that legal steps be taken to circumvent the court decision, but until the Alabama legislature acts favorably on that recommendation, Alabama belongs with the “wait and see” states. Ar kansas, too, is almost an exception, since two western Arkansas school districts—Fayetteville and Charles ton—desegregated their schools last September without incident. The “wait-and-see” states have either done nothing, or have set study groups to work analyzing the probable impact of the court decision. Once the formal decrees are issued, some of these states will doubtless move into the “do-it-now” cate gories, and others may well move into the third category: 3. The “unyielding resistance” states, including Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Louisiana. In these four states, statutory or consti tutional changes have been made to permit a drastic revision of their school systems, even the abolition of the public schools, if necessary to preserve segregation. TRENDS SHAPING UP The developments of the past few months permit the following obser vations: 1. Among the “do-it-now” states, Missouri appears to have moved to ward desegregation with the least maladjustment. Whether this is be cause of extensive planning or strong leadership, Missouri’s desegregation program has been without incident. 2. Wherever desegregation has been accomplished smoothly, school boards and school administrators have taken forceful, positive stands and adhered to them. 3. Despite the headline prominence given student strikes and picket lines in Delaware, the District of Colum bia and Baltimore, the number of pupils engaged was never more than a small fraction of the total integrat ed student body. Since October, there have been no further incidents in these three places. 4. In virtually all of the states, schools on military posts and Cath olic parochial schools have under gone some degree of desegregation. 5. Organized resistance to imple mentation of the Supreme Court de cision has developed in practically every state, with varying degrees of effectiveness. 6. In several instances in the “do- it-now” states, there has been some degree of faculty integration, usually without tangible repercussions. 7. In an ever-increasing number, parent-teacher associations, teachers’ associations, medical societies and ministerial alliances are desegregat ing. 8. In the “unyielding resistance” states, there has been no perceptible growth of a spirit of Klan-type vio lence. Instead, leaders of the various resistance organizations usually stress that they will stay “within the law” in maintaining segregated schools. 9. In many of the states, unprece dented state spending to equalize white-Negro facilities is planned or under way, perhaos in the belief that equal facilities will persuade Negroes to accept voluntary segregation. 10. Those states which have filed briefs and the attorney general of the United States agreed on the scope and complexity of the desegregation problem, and asked the Supreme Court to give Federal district courts wide latitude to consider variations among the states and within each state. The NAACP, on the other hand, criticized “gradualism” in its brief and set September, 1956, as the “outside date” for full desegregation. SUMMARY If I may sum up, the South ap pears to have weathered the May 17 decision so far without serious dam age either to its public schools or to the steadily-improving pattern of race relations. It remains to be seen whether there has been any appre ciable change in the southern atti tude toward desegregation, or whether the events of the past offer any clue to the end of events after the Supreme Court issues formal de crees in the five cases now before it. In my opinion, the most signifi cant single fact evident since last May 17 is that the democratic proc esses have been followed in all states, including the “unyielding resist ance” group. This, of course, is as it should be. THE SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR That having been said, I would now like to turn your attention as newspapermen to a man in your community who has been overlooked all too often in the public debate over the Court decree. I speak of the school administrator. And what I say on this subiect are not my views, but those of administrators with whom I have talked these last few months. The reversal of the “separate-but- equal” doctrine raised many per plexing new questions for a region ■which has long had more than its share of problems. These questions are of many kinds—social, cultural, economic, political. In the months following the decision, all of them seemed difficult to answer. But none appeared more complex than the questions facing southern school ad ministrators if desegregation in fact as well as in law is to become a reality in the next few years. It is of considerable significance that most of the discussion of the court decision and its impact on ed ucation has taken place in the po litical arena rather than the educa tional, and that most of the planning either to comply with or evade the court opinion has been done by poli ticians rather than educators. This is understandable, and it is not neces sarily bad, for it shows how closely school policy and public policy are interwoven. Even so, it means that the school administrator will be largely limited by the decisions made by others— either governors and legislatures, or state boards of education. It is also important to remember that the school administrator is somewhat of a prisoner in another sense. He is acutely conscious that in his community or district, there are sharp cross-currents of opinion on this delicate issue. He cannot, save at considerable personal risk, take a very active role in the public dis cussion of the issue. HE SHOULD BE HEARD Yet his voice ought to be heard. The administrative problems alone which would result from general de segregation are as complex as the larger socio-politico-economic prob lems of the region. Let us look at a few of them through the eyes of the administrator, once again assuming that the Supreme Court meant what it said and said what it meant, and that its decrees, whether flexible or rigid, will either encourage or impel the southern region toward deseg regation of its public schools. The first of these is the equaliza tion of school facilities. In spite of the tremendous investment in Negro schools in the postwar era, facilities for Negro children are still substan tially inferior to those for white chil dren in most of the region. Desegre gation at a time when classroom space is still at a premium would inevitably mean that some white children would have to go to schools in inferior buildings formerly used exclusively by Negroes. This would create a new source of dissatisfac tion with the inferior facilities from white narents and a corresnonding demand for their improvement. Yet this greater demand for equal ization of facilities may run into in creased resistance in influential quarters to new expenditures of tax funds for schools. No clear-cut pat tern has yet been established, but there is evidence in the region that local bond issues and local tax leg islation for the improvement of Ne gro school facilities are meeting stronger resistance growing out of public uncertainty about desegrega tion—even in those states where there is large state spending. TEACHER PROBLEM The teacher shortage is not new, but it may well taken on different proportions if desegregation becomes a reality. The shortage of qualified Negro teachers is relatively small, and presumably it will remain small because of the superior economic ad vantage that teaching offers the Negro in the South. Under de segregation, however, many school administrators fear that public re action to integrated faculties would be even less favorable than to in tegrated classes. If this should prove to be true, desegregation might re sult in a decreasing number of teaching opportunities for Negroes without a corresnonding increase in the supply of white teachers, thus creating an even more critical teach er shortage. Redistricting in one degree or an other is almost a certainty if the Su preme Court opinion is translated into realistic decrees. For nearly two decades, the trend in the South has been toward larger, more efficient school districts. “Gerrymandering” to circumvent the court’s decrees, especially in the rural sections where there is little segregated housing, might well reverse that trend and create thousands of new districts, some of them tiny pockets. From the standpoint of the administrator, this would approach chaos. INSTRUCTIONAL PROBLEM The southern administrator who has done any thinking at all about integrated classes is conscious of still another problem—for the first few years at least. Not because of any racial characteristic but because of uneaual opportunity beginning at the family level and continuing through the schools, the average Negro child is not so far along educationally as the white child in his same age group. The administrator and his teachers already have to cope with the instructional problem growing out of the normal classroom division of the less able, the average, and the gifted students. If suddenly this division should become heavily weighted at the lower end. new in structional policies would have to be adopted. In fact the opinion has al ready been expressed by one noted southern educator that desegregation may nullify one of the most cher ished principles of modern progres sive education by restoring the grouping of children according to ability. Perhaps the greatest problem of all facing the southern school adminis trator in the new decade will be the providing of the kind of leadership that will encourage a sane, unemo tional, objective attitude on the part of the community, the faculty, and the children. His work has to go on, regardless of what the Supreme Court does. There are teachers to be employed, classrooms to be built, children to be educated. Schools can not be run successfully in an at mosphere of tension, emotionalism, dissatisfaction. Yet the southern school administrator himself, in more cases than not, is personally oriented to segregation. Large-scale deseg regation would force him not only to overcome his own reservations, but to find some way to enlist broader community support for de segregated schools than is now in prospect. A YEAR OF CHALLENGE So it was that the South in the year 1954 moved toward what will perhaps be the greatest test of dem ocratic principles in the region since 1860. And because the school is both the producer and the product of de mocracy, the school administrator was caught squarely between the crossfire from those who would com ply with the court opinion and those who would defy it, even to the point of abolishing the public school sys tem. The administrator’s lot was not a happy one, but it was not entirely dismal. He faced not only a big prob lem, but also an opportunity of large proportions. For the first time in modern history, there was no longer public apathy about the schools, but rather a burning new public inter est—interest, it is true, that was kin dled by the Supreme Court decision, but an interest which went far beyond the issue of whether or not white and Negro children should sit side by side in the classroom. In sum, here was an opportunity for the school administrator to direct this new pub lic interest not only toward the so- luion of the segregation-desegreoa- tion problem, but also toward the solution of the manv other educa tional problems that have tradition ally beset the region. NEWSPAPER OPPORTUNITY It is also an opportunity for the newspaper editor. There is more to the story of the Supreme Court de cision than the discussion of its phil osophical aspects, the unrooting of established legal precedents, the ma neuvering of legislatures and the outcome of constitutional amend ments referenda. There are many hard practical administrative prob lems that go straight to the core of our public school system. The newspaper that looks at all dimensions of this story is rendering a real service to its readers. I can testify from my own experience in Nashville that the people of the South are hungry for more news on the subiect. Regardless of their con victions. they want to know what is hannening elsewhere, and thev would like to have events elsewhere interpreted in terms of their own lo cal conditions. I can testify further that objectiv ity can be attained in covering even so controversial a story as this, and that people on both sides of the issue want objectivity. That is the newspaper’s job—to give the people all the obiective facts that can be had, so that they may ar rive at wise decisions by democratic processes. Many subjects compete for your attention, but I know of no regional story in this century that is closer to the minds and hearts of your read ers, that may have a greater impact on our vital system of public ed ucation, or that is a greater test of our democratic processes, than the segregation-desegregation story. If through your news and editorial col umns vou help the people resolve the philosophical and practical nrob- lems posed by the Supreme Court, you will accomplish the journalistic miracle of the Twentieth Century.
