About Southern school news. (Nashville, Tenn.) 1954-1965 | View Entire Issue (March 3, 1955)
SOUTHERN SCHOOL NEWS—March 3, 1955—PAGE 13 North Carolina RALEIGH, N.C. SKED at a press conference on Jan. 29 whether he thought the General Assembly should “adopt a policy on segregation for transmittal to the U. S. Supreme Court,” Gov. Luther H. Hodges replied, “No, I don’t.” “I think we should study the legis lation we have in the hopper and await developments. I think that the state already has expressed its posi tion in two ways—in the brief we filed with the Supreme Court and in the report of the commission,” he added. Thus the governor took an op posite view from that of Speaker of the House Larry I. Moore, who had called for such an expression. The brief (Southern School News, De cember) asked for time and urged that federal district judges be given wide latitude in supervising the change-over. The commission, a spe cial advisory group, proposed that local school boards be given control over the assignment and enrollment of pupils (Southern School News, February). Legislation to accomplish this now is before the assembly. PRIVATE SCHOOL PLAN On Feb. 18, Rep. Sam Worthington of Pitt County (Negroes comprise 51.5 per cent of the school popula tion) introduced the most extreme measure the General Assembly has yet received on schools. He proposed that the legislature let the people vote in November, 1956, upon a con stitutional amendment to pave the way for private, segregated schools in North Carolina. Rep. Worthington would amend the state constitution by adding a new section that would relieve the state of its historically-accepted obligation to support a system of public schools. The new section, headed “Grants for Education,” would read as follows: “Notwithstanding any other pro vision of this Constitution, the Gen eral Assembly may by law provide for grants of State, county or mu nicipal funds to citizens of the State for educational purposes, in dis charge of all obligations of the State to provide adequate education for its citizens. “Sec. 2. This amendment shall be submitted to the qualified voters of the entire State at the next General Election after the ratification of this Act. At said election the electors favoring the adoption of this Amend ment shall vote a ballot on which shall be written . . . ‘For Constitu tional Amendment authorizing the General Assembly to provide for grants of State, County or Municipal funds for educational purposes’ or Against Constitutional Amendment 1 » WORTHINGTON’S COMMENT Rep. Worthington said: “I think this amendment should have been voted upon in last November’s elec- tions, and I asked the governor (the a te William B. Umstead) to call a special session of the General As sembly as soon as the segregation ecision came down. He didn’t do it.” The longtime legislator added, “I funk that this is a very good pre cautionary measure. This situation calls for a program of preparedness ° prevent integration if the people ? North Carolina don’t want in flation in their public schools, f think the people are the ones vvho should have the say on whether p' e w iU integrate, and I think the neral Assembly should give them ^j^upportunity to say what they Gov. Hodges promptly called ° , fngton’s bill “extreme and un- Sar e y;’ He said, “It’s an unneces- full . . . Until we know more of do V h ' Supreme Court’s going to ’ « s unnecessary and untimely to g0 s o far.” Worthington bill, Gov. Hodges as ’ ,“ e felt “came out of the blue” Ua j ® Proposal of a single individ- ” e said he understood Worth- tyj,, n had not discussed his plan h 0Us c “airmen of the senate and Wbi f education committees (to Go kills were assigned). in Cor V ' Hodges said he felt the bill rPorating the advisory commit tee’s recommendations “will take care of the situation for the present.” Asked if the committee had con sidered, and rejected, something akin to the Worthington proposal, Gov. Hodges said, “They spent months on this problem and I’m sure discussed every possible phase.” He was not alarmed, the gov ernor said. He said he had confidence enough in the judgment of North Carolinians and their legislators to trust that undesirable legislation would not get far. PASSAGE DOUBTFUL Gov. Hodges’ opposition to the bill makes it extremely doubtful that the bill will pass. Since it amends the constitution, the bill must gain the votes of three-fifths of the sena tors and representatives. A sizeable number of the legislators are reluc tant to act on any school legislation until the implementation decree has been issued, and these, plus the support the governor can rally, spell almost certain defeat for the meas ure. The Raleigh News & Observer said editorially the plan “would compound the serious desegregation problem with greater confusion and danger” and added: “If the state is going to retire from public schools rather than submit to the Supreme Court decision, then the logical course for the state is to retire completely from the field of public education. The education of children then would be left to the parents. Children having parents with the money and the inclination would be educated. Children whose parents lacked the money or the inclination would not be educated. That would mean, of course, that the children of the well-to-do would be educated and the children of the poor would be left in ignorance. In the long run that would be pretty bad for the children and the state 11 CLARK’S LETTER Meanwhile, several members of the General Assembly received car bon copies of a letter written by John W. Clark, a Franklinville in dustrialist, longtime University of North Carolina trustee, and frequent critic of what he terms “liberal” trends of the university. Clark ad dressed the letter to Sen. John H. Kerr of Warren County, a trustee. The letter said that Chancellor Carey H. Bostian of N. C. State Col lege (a branch of the consolidated university) had asked the executive committee of the trustees to permit about 30 Negroes to attend a three- week extension course this summer on the State campus. Said the letter: “This movement to take Negroes in the summer courses at State Col lege is part and parcel of the in tegration program and is just the opening wedge. Once they get this crowd hanging around the college they expect to bring in the younger generation to the various courses at the college, then call for the admit tance of every Negro who wishes to come to the Farm and Home Week “At first they will be put in sepa rate dormitories and then under protest made by subsidized workers will ask to be mixed in the various dormitories with the white farmers. In this way, they hope to bring about complete integration . . .” A postscript to the letter said, among other things: “Last Sunday Harold Hipp, assist ant pastor of the Market Street Methodist Church in Greensboro, had charge of the morning service and put on quite an act. Practically everything he said, word for word, had been stated by the Rosenwald crowd before. Among other things he said that it was anarchy to oppose the Supreme Court’s decision, in other words anyone in the legisla ture not falling in line with old Frankfurter and his gang is an an archist . . TRACT ENCLOSED Enclosed with the letter was a tract, in rotogravure, headed “Total Mongrelization,” which attacked the National Association for the Ad vancement of Colored People, the CIO, and contained pictures under REP. SAM WORTHINGTON Sponsors N. C. Segregation Bill which were captions reading “inter racial marriage, friendship, enter tainment, love, society.” Chancellor Bostian replied that he proposed to let State College ad mit Negro farm and home agents to a three-week extension workers’ course which also will be attended by white farm and home agents. The course is a refresher course of a type not offered at A&T (Negro) College, he said. “There are three ways in which Negro extension workers can receive this training,” Bostian said. “They can go to institutions in other states where Negroes are regularly ad mitted but where the training avail able does not relate directly to farming conditions and practices found in North Carolina. A second possibility involves having our staff devote an extra three weeks of in struction at A&T College. This would entail considerable expense in both time and money.” The third possi bility is training at N. C. State, with the Negroes lodging and eating off the campus. The trustee’s executive committee, Dr. Bostian said, approved the ad mission of the Negroes for the train ing course with only Clark dissent ing. OTHER LEGISLATION The General Assembly has re ceived other legislation bearing on schools. This stemmed from a report by the Commission on the Revision of Public School Laws. In the main, the resulting bill would codify and condense present state laws. In a few respects, the bill includes rec ommended changes as a result of the segregation decision. One recommended change would eliminate the state provision for segregation in the schools and leave the statutes silent. Another would put teachers and principals on a one-year contract basis, in contrast to the present continuing contract (if a teacher is not notified by the end of the school year he is not be ing rehired, he automatically has a contract for the next year). Another would let city and county boards of education establish “attendance areas” for schools without regard for school district lines. The change in teacher contracts, the commission said, was recom mended because the Supreme Court’s opinion probably made separate dis tricts for white and Negro children unconstitutional. Therefore, school redistricting will be necessary. Since school districts are employers of the teachers, who have continuing con tracts, they would have a contract with old district boards after the new district boards were set up. One-year contracts would remove the possibilities of litigation and, after redistricting had taken place, the old system of continuing con tracts could be restored by a sub sequent General Assembly. When and if the bills giving local boards “complete authority” over the enrollment and assignment of pupils—a step recommended by Gov. Hodges and his advisory group—re ceive approval, they will become a part of the revised school legislation. Like other measures pertaining to schools, these have been referred to the education committees of the House and the Senate and hearings will be conducted on them. GOVERNOR PETITIONED Meanwhile, Gov. Hodges and leg islators have received two petitions urging retention of segregated schools. One was sponsored by Dr. W. C. George, professor of anatomy in the University of North Carolina Medical School (Southern School News, January) and contained 5,900 signatures. It asks continued segregation “to prevent destruction of both races” and contends the question is “purely biological and social.” Dr. George said his petition had not been circulated very widely in Chapel Hill (home of the univer sity). He said, “We were aware that strong propaganda pressures exerted over many years had led a consider able number of people of the cam pus and town to actively or passively support a program of integration.” The second petition contained 1,050 names and it, likewise, origi nated in Chapel Hill, among some university students. Author was Ron Levin, senior from Williamston, N. C. The petition was circulated through classes, dormitories and campus meeting places. The petition is brief and protests “this unconscionable violation of the fundamental Ameri can principles of states’ rights as guaranteed in the . . . Constitution.” It adds: “This intolerable and unworkable decision, we believe, is all the more dangerous since it is the first ex ample in our judicial history of com pletely one-sided sociological and psychological theories being sub stituted for constitutional law hither to consistently upheld by the very same Supreme Court. “Finally, we trust that you will fulfill the wishes of the overwhelm ing majority of the people of this state by using every means at your command to preserve, by legal methods, segregation in the gram mar and high schools as well as in the undergraduate departments of the state institutions of higher learn ing in North Carolina.” From Shelby came support for a wait-and-see attitude. J. H. Grigg, county superintendent of schools, told a civic club it would be “dis astrous” to abolish public schools in an effort to avoid compliance with the Supreme Court ruling. “This problem,” he said, “calls for cool heads in both races.” CHURCH RESOLUTION In Charlotte, delegates to a meet ing of the North Carolina Council of Churches adopted a resolution urging churches to work toward an integrated school system. Action was unanimous. Said the resolu tion: “The North Carolina Council of Churches has through the years wit nessed to the faith that all men are one in Christ Jesus by an inclusive membership that has not recognized any man-made barriers. Last year in our annual meeting we, as a council, urged calmness and patience in anticipation of the impending Supreme Court decision regarding segregation in the public schools. “Now that the Supreme Court has spoken, we urge that the churches as represented in the council accept the decision of the court as the law of the land and endeavor as fully as possible, in the spirit of Christ, to realize an inte grated public school system.” DR. TOBIAS SPEAKS In Winston-Salem, Dr. Channing H. Tobias of New York, chairman of the board of directors of the Na tional Association for the Advance ment of Colored People, called for patience and caution in carrying out the Supreme Court decision. He said it must be worked out slowly, step by step, with Christian princi ples guiding the way. “Is it too much to ask” Dr. Tobias said, “that we stop in our tracks and rethink whatever determinations we have on the interracial problem in the light of the international situa tion?” This is necessary, he said, be cause the way the decision is put into practice will have considerable effect on a world which looks to the United States for leadership. “They are judging us by our ability to implement this simple principle,” Dr. Tobias said. He said the United States “can ill afford any internal strife” at an hour when Russia is “striding across the world, attempting by power alone to domi nate the world.” Dr. Tobias called the court’s deci sion “one of the four great pro nouncements in United States history,” listing the others as the Declaration of Independence, the announcement of passage of the Constitution, and the Emancipation Proclamation. “It was not a coldly legal deci sion,” Dr. Tobias said, “but a so ciological one which took into con sideration its effect on the country.” But the great task remains, he said. “No law has the capacity to capture a mind or to win a soul—that is the God-given function of the spirit.” Dr. Tobias said he is optimistic that “men and women of both races, walking in God’s spirit, can work out the problems as they arise, finally eliminating man-made bar riers separating God’s children, who should judge each other by what they find in the heart, rather than on external appearances.” In Raleigh, at an interracial meet ing of the Young Women’s Christian Association, a Negro girl, Janie Green Wood of Winston-Salem, was elected president of a Y-Teen Con ference attended by teen-age girls from throughout North Carolina. A non-segregated banquet at the Raleigh YWCA was a feature of the meeting. It was arranged by the Raleigh Y-Teen Club, Margaret Paris of Raleigh, outgoing state president, presiding. MINISTERIAL MERGER In Greensboro, white and Negro ministers voted, without a dissent, to merge the organizations this fall into one group, according to the Rev. Frank C. Smathers, pastor of Grace Methodist Church and presi dent of the Greensboro Ministers Association (white). The association will merge with the Greensboro Ministerial Alliance (Negro) as the result of work extending “over sev eral months,” the Rev. Mr. Smathers said. The ministers plan an interracial meeting on March 7 which will be presided over by the Rev. F. A. Hargett (Negro), pastor of St. Stephen Christian Church and presi dent of the Alliance. GOLF COURSE DECISION Again in Charlotte, a double- edged decision was handed down by Superior Court Judge George B. Patton in Mecklenburg Superior Court involving Bonnie Brae, the Charlotte municipal golf course. The land, including the golf course, was deeded to the city in 1929 with the specification it would be used as a park for whites. In 1951, a group of Negroes was denied the right to play on the course. The Charlotte Park & Rec reation Commission filed suit in Superior Court asking a declaratory judgment on the point of the reverter clauses in the donor deeds of the park property—asking, in other words, whether the land would re vert to the donors if Negroes were allowed to use it. Judge Patton held that the golf course land will go back to the donors if the Negroes use it. But he denied the reverter clause to the city government because, he held, such action would violate the 14th Amendment to the U. S. Constitu tion. He said the Park & Recreation Commission had to be excluded from the reverter clause because only one municipal golf facility is maintained and the “equal rights” amendment would be violated if the city government were allowed to deny Negroes the right to use it. Both parties in the confused action are preparing appeals to the State Supreme Court from the decision. Meanwhile, the Norlina, N. C. charge of the Methodist Church at a quarterly conference called for the retention of segregation in all phases of the church program. It adopted a resolution expressing “our disapproval of any move made by the Methodist Church or its bishops to admit Negroes to the colleges, church camps, orphanages, or other church institutions, now maintained exclusively for members of the white race.”
