Newspaper Page Text
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.
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