About Southern school news. (Nashville, Tenn.) 1954-1965 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 3, 1955)
PAGE 12—Feb. 3, 1955—SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS These Schools Involved In Oak Ridge Change OAK RIDGE HIGH school, built in 1951, will be one of I dents in September. School includes 32 conventional two Oak Ridge schools that will be open to Negro stu- | classrooms and 31 others for special instruction. ROBERTSVILLE JUNIOR HIGH school, grades six, seven and eight, will be the second Oak Ridge School to accept Negro students. Oak Ridge schools will be inte grated at the junior and senior high school level. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Photos SCARBORO SCHOOL, since 1950 the elementary, junior I dents next fall when Oak Ridge schools integrate. Scar- and senior high for Oak Ridge Negroes, will lose 100 stu- | boro will continue as an elementary school. Oak Ridge Continued From Page 1 garten through grade five will be maintained at the Scarboro school in the Negro community of Gamble Valley. Pupils from the Scarboro school in grades nine through twelve will at tend Oak Ridge high school and pupils from Scarboro in grades six, seven and eight will attend Roberts- ville junior high school. Since 1950, Scarboro school, with an all-Negro teaching staff, has served as an elementary, junior and senior high school for the Negro community of 1,137 persons. Oak Ridge’s Jefferson junior high school will continue to be all-white since its school district contains no Negro families. If there are changes in the present school districts, these will be made to conform with population shifts, Dr. Capehart said, and will not affect the desegregation plan since the Negro community is located well within the Robertsville junior high school district. EXTENSIVE PLANNING Detailed planning for several years has characterized the Oak Ridge ap proach to desegregation. Explained F. W. Ford, Director of Community Affairs at Oak Ridge: “People understand that integration is something that is bound to come, and it has been our purpose to pre pare the people for the transition so that the transition may be the smoothest possible, harm no one and be helpful to all.” During the past two years, Dr. Capehart and his staff have attempted to identify the problems that will de velop and to work out possible solu tions. Considered were: 1. The establishment of an all- white school at the junior high level, a situation made more awkward since the majority of the students from Oak Ridge’s lower income families attend Robertsville junior high school. It is expected that there will be some requests for transfers to the junior high school that will have Negro children. Similarly, it is ex pected that there will be requests from parents to have their children attend the interracial school because many parents will want their children to have this experience. Over the years there has been a pretty clear definition of school dis trict boundaries, which have been ob served with only minor exceptions. It is anticipated that no exceptions will be made for reasons of race. ATHLETICS 2. Interscholastic athletics. Oak Ridge is a community of varied ath letic interests and of outstanding prep athletic teams. During the football season it is not unusual for a game to attract eight to ten thousand peo ple. The problem of scheduling games could become acute, but it is not pro posed to force the issue by threaten ing the cancellation of interscholastic contests. Candidates for athletic teams will be accepted and encouraged, regard less of race, but it is not proposed to force their participation on other teams that do not want to participate. FACULTY INTEGRATION 3. Integrating the teaching staff. There sire 11 Negro teachers at Oak Ridge, but of these only three will be affected by integration. This may pre sent the biggest problem. It may be there will be few or no objections to integrating pupils, but serious objec tions might arise from the community to integrating the teaching staff. Personnel will be hired, assigned and promoted on the basis of quali fication alone without regard to race. However, assignments for next year have not yet been made STATE FUNDS 4. Tennessee law says that public schools must remain segregated. While the Oak Ridge schools are fed erally supported, Oak Ridge teachers technically are employed by the An derson County board of education and are members of the Tennessee Teachers Retirement Association, which receives about $50,000 annually from the state for the Oak Ridge members. The Anderson County board of ed ucation indicated that integration would make no difference provided Oak Ridge were directed to integrate by higher authority. The matter of state aid was dis cussed with state officials but no an swer as to what could be expected in the future was obtained. The impres sion is that the decision to integrate will not affect the state money. SOCIAL ACTIVITIES 5. Social life. The feeling exists that this problem has been exaggerated. There is no set solution now. When these problems develop, they will be dealt with individually. With the date for integration set, Dr. Capehart and his staff now are working more directly with the par ents and students in order to facilitate the change. For example, Dr. Cape hart is meeting with the Parent- Teacher organizations at all the schools in order to discuss informally and in detail the integration plan. A program is under way to register and orient the Negro students in the junior and senior high schools for next fall in a manner similar to the way incoming white children are handled. The same placement policy which applies to children from other ele mentary schools will be applied to children from Scarboro school when they enter junior high school. In as signing the student to a classroom, these principles will be followed: (1) Each child enrolling in a junior high school is placed in a classroom with someone he knows. (2) A principle of scattering pupils from a particular elementary school district over sev eral classrooms also is followed. School officials and school libraries have asked to be placed on the mail ing list of Southern School News. The feeling exists that a study of com munities where integration has been successful will help Oak Ridge. While Dr. Capehart is optimistic about the future, he acknowledges that he and his staff must remain flexible in their planning in order to meet unanticipated developments. EARLIER EVENTS The calmness with which Oak Ridge accepted the integration an nouncement contrasted sharply with the reaction which followed a resolu tion dealing with integration passed 13 months earlier by the Oak Ridge Advisory Town Council. On Dec. 21, 1953, the council, by a four to two vote, adopted a resolu tion asking the Atomic Energy Com mission to end segregation at Oak Ridge schools and agreed that a copy of the resolution be sent to President Eisenhower. The council noted the President’s announcement regarding segregation on military reservations and other federally operated areas. A swift and loud reaction followed this surprise move. While segregation became the issue around which the opposition grouped, immediate criti cism was based on the lack of previ ous discussion of this question by the council and the lack of a public an nouncement before the meeting that the resolution was up for adoption. By early January, 1954, the opposi tion had formed a group known as the Citizens Action Committee, which circulated a petition requesting a town meeting to vote on the recall of Council Chairman Waldo Cohn. Cohn, a biochemist, was serving his second consecutive two-year term on the council. An active and out spoken civic worker, Cohn’s positions on issues in the past tended to make him a controversial personality. Many persons, including Cohn, admit that a part of the opposition resulted from this personal feeling, since Cohn had prepared and introduced the resolu tion. THREE CHARGES The CAC petition charged that the council, through its resolution, was attempting to bring about a condi tion that did not conform to the state laws. It charged that the council had sent a copy to the President without consulting the people of the com munity. And, primarily, it charged that Chairman Cohn, in leading the participation on the resolution, no longer “adequately” reflected the ma jority of the people and should be recalled. As tension mounted the council, on Jan. 11, 1954, adopted, by a five to two vote, a resolution making it man datory that all future resolutions of a “policy-level” nature be passed at two meetings and requiring that the segregation issue be considered as having passed only the first reading. The second resolution also required the appointment of a committee to study the entire question of school segregation and report recommenda tions to the council before the second vote. At the same meeting the CAC pe tition demanding the recall vote for Cohn was received. It was signed by 126 persons. A week later, Jan. 18, the council set Feb. 8 as the date for the recall voting. In his defense, Cohn stated that his original resolution was circulated among the other members of the council a full eight days before the Dec. 21 meeting. He said he had noted on each copy that if there were any questions about it, the council, men should call him. Only one did call, he said, to state he was uncer- tain about what the financial result would be and that he would vote against it. Cohn said there was a two and a half hour discussion of the resolution before the vote and that there was no move on the part of any councilman to table it. He said that the spectators to the discussion, including a leader of the CAC, did not participate. Cohn stated that it had not been established definitely that any loss of money from the state would result. Concerning his recall, Cohn said that if there were charges of ill. timing or bad judgment they should be leveled against all the councilmen, not just himself. On Feb. 4, 1954, thirteen persons, ten men and three women, were ap pointed to a committee to study and make recommendations to the coun cil on the possible integration of the Oak Ridge schools. Named temporary chairman was Dr. K. Z. Morgan, who later became the committee’s head NEWSPAPER’S STAND In an editorial against Cohn’s re call, The Oak Ridger, the five-day-a- week newspaper at Oak Ridge, de fined the issues this way: ... To some the issue seems prima rily segregation versus integration . . . To others it is Councilman Cohn as a personality, not only being judged for this action, but for his past civic actions . . To others the issue is the wisdom of the town council method of procedure on this specific issue, acting on such a contro versial issue without a period of notice and public discussion . . . The whole council membership and its relationship to those particular questions becomes ar issue as well ... A seemingly fading issue is whether or not councilmen acted in accordance with the by-laws . . . The recall movement failed to re ceive the necessary two-thirds ma jority of total votes cast, although the vote against Cohn was roughly three to two. The total vote was 5,417. which far surpassed the total vote for all elections for town council in the past. Of this total, about 62 per cent or 3,356 voted to recall Cohn while about 38 per cent or 2,061 voted against recall. Two weeks later Cohn resigned from the chairmanship of the council but retained his council seat. He ex plained he wanted to make certain “any antagonism against me is not di rected against the council.” Cliff Brill an Oak Ridge insurance man, re placed Cohn as council chairman. EXCITEMENT FADES With the recall issue settled, the excitement and tension created by the Dec. 21 resolution died quickly. When the Supreme Court an nounced its decision May 17, Oah Ridge leaders indicated there wouF be much thought and study befo rr any changes were made in the local schools. Community Affairs Director Ford told a news conference that the prob lem was under study and promised that a decision would not be "loot delayed.” School Supt. Hilary Parker said that in carrying out the court decision Oak Ridge should be guided to some extent by what other school* in the state were doing. Council chair man Brill said he felt certain other members of the council would wan* the segregation committee to con tinue its investigation. At the Scar boro school in Gamble Valley, announcement raised little or n ° comment. On May 31, The Oak Ridger com mented: School integration, we believe, h , proper step in our country’s sociology development. Believing this, we can ®n • applaud the Supreme Court action. ever, we also recognize that the proble ■ the decision presents in its implem eI ?j tion are such that much more than 1 ^ approval by those who approve it wu necessary to make it work. In mid-August, the council’s segr* ition committee recommended t** ak Ridge schools remain racial- gregated until a policy for all ot ^ e mnessee schools is established. This recommendation the coUDdj' lopted, withdrawing its Dec. Continued on Next Page
